- Fiji is a country that’s economy depended highly on tourism, but it was hit hard with coronavirus, its borders closed for 2 years, the economy and peoples livelihood’s had been severely impacted. However after the right preparation Fiji as a country had done all it could to re-open to the world. High vaccination rates, covid travel protocols had been well thought out, tourism was ready and it was time for Fiji to announce to the world that it was opening up. Of course they were not the only ones, so for Fiji to stand out this message needed to stand out and get attention in a highly competitive tourism market, while leveraging ‘Where Happiness Finds You’, the established existing Fiji tourism platform.

The idea was simple. Well kind of. Find a celebrity who was a great example of someone known for their pursuit of happiness. Fly them out of the US to Fiji on a special government sanctioned chartered flight, as the borders weren’t yet open. Have them share the fact that they were in Fiji having a wonderful time to garner attention from a global audience, many of who were still in lock-down. And while there, shoot a film that had them pondering the pursuit of happiness, showing them finding it in Fiji. This would announce Fiji was “Open for Happiness”.. something our global audience were hankering for. We didn’t need to point out how difficult the last two years of COVID had been, it’s quite clear there hadn’t been an excess of happiness around the world. We simply made it clear Fiji was now a place where happiness could be

The strategy was simple. Well kind of. Find a celebrity known for their pursuit of happiness. Fly them out of the US to Fiji on a special government sanctioned chartered flight, as the borders weren’t yet open. Share the fact that they were in Fiji having a wonderful time to garner attention from a global audience, many of who were still in lock-down. And while there, shoot a film that had them pondering the pursuit of happiness, showing them finding it in Fiji. This all would deliver our key message that Fiji was “Open for Happiness”. Our audience was broadly 24 – 50 year adventurers across several global regions. Assets distributed from market to market included traditional Press Releases, Rebel’s own social posts (she uploaded many more than required by her contract), a film asset for running in individual markets as required.

-The campaign was architected with a thorough global PR plan, complimented with a light paid media plan, due to budgets that was tailored to individual market/countries travel requirements.

-It was led by strong a 15’’ creative spot that teased Rebel Wilson and her role in announcing Fiji Is Open for Happiness – this original message was picked up ‘debuting’ Rebels weight loss journey and finding Happiness in Fiji with huge awareness and organic reach. The real splash was then made with a 90’’ spot followed with 30’’ cutdown for paid media and 15’’ tailored message cutdowns to support.

- November 2021 launch globally with Phase 1 been

o North America

o Australia

o UK / Europe

o Singapore

- Phase 2

o New Zealand

o China

- Phase 3

o Japan

Over 70,0000 visitors booked to travel to Fiji (within the first month) equating to approx. $120 million (USD) injected straight back into the economy.

Following from a strong start the campaign completely exceeded expectations. 945 articles were published, achieving 3.5bn reach across 57 countries achieving true global reach. Website users increased to 46k per week, far exceeding the target of 25k per week. Videos views to date stand at 26m with more to come as we see new markets reopening. Over a million ‘warm leads’ were generated that could be shared with our conversion partner Fiji Airways who saw sales come directly from these leads. Fiji was number one destination for Australia so far in 2022.

Rebel Wilson naturally continues to promote her experiences in Fiji to her 10.6m organic followers on IG beyond her contractual obligations. Happiness indeed.