By 2021 the ‘Come Down for Air’ brand platform had started to position the brand as a response to a deeply ingrained cultural need: respite from the constraints of modern life.

Thousands of Tasmanian businesses rely on the tourist dollar, and they need it all year round (not just in Summer). The challenge was to tackle what was normally Tourism Tasmania’s biggest brand challenge – enticing people to ‘Come Down for Air’ in winter when the temperatures plummet and the days get shorter.

Brief:

Inspire Erudites and Raw Urbanites (core audience segments) to believe that Tasmania is the best place to refuel your soul this winter.

Objectives:

1.Deliver a recovery in performance over winter (May-August 2022 vs 2019) with:

- Higher visitation

- Increased length of stay

- Greater expenditure per visitor

2.Convince our segments that winter in Tasmania is a ‘must do experience’, as measured by brand image statements

Idea: The ‘OFF Season’

Winter is when Tasmania lets its hair down and its idiosyncrasies truly shine. A bit weird, wild, and woolly, it’s especially different, a bit ‘off’.

The campaign flips expectations with relish - embracing the cold instead of escaping it, and going wild when everyone else is hibernating.

We captured that energy by upending tourism conventions - typical picturesque vistas and warm colours. and produced a bold campaign shot entirely in black and white, aiming not to capture a location or particular attraction, but a feeling.

As a destination now synonymous with art, culture, and nature, we needed to show up in the world like a culture or lifestyle brand - in fly posters, billboards, hand-painted murals. From Wim Hof breathing in icy water, death metal concerts, and pagan bonfires, we shot real Tasmanians embracing the real spirit of winter.

To develop the insight we analysed competitive work, Tourism Tasmania and Tourism Australia visitation data, and Australian cultural trends.

Winter is viewed as a season of hibernation and of waiting-for-it-to-be-over. A three month mental hiatus. Checked out and dreaming of spring.

It’s when Tasmania is at its most different to the mainland and a season. It’s predictably colder but because of that Tasmanians do it properly. Log cabin cosiness, hot alcoholic beverages by fires and frosted snowy wonderlands. It’s also when its creative spirit and anti-ordinariness comes to the fore with a vibrant arts scene and avant garde seasonal festivals.

So we positioned the ‘Air' we’d like you to come down for as stimulation, rather than vegetation. Tassie as the defibrillator from the winter coma, the electric shock therapy for ‘winter brain’. Feeling exalted, confused, content, challenged, but always feeling something. A winter spent wide-eyed not half asleep.

A recovery in performance was well and truly delivered, with:

- 314,484 visitors, up +7% vs May-Aug 2019

- A total of 2.6M nights stayed on the island, up 25% vs May-Aug 2019, more than 1 additional night per person

- $852M in visitor expenditure, up 102% vs May-Aug 2019, an uplift of over AU$1200 per person

And significant progress was made on convince our segments that winter in Tasmania is a ‘must do experience’:

- “Must Do Winter Experience” strengthened, shifting +5-points from 22% to 27%

- “Offers a Winter experience with a difference” grew +4-points showed +16% growth

- ‘Unique creative spirit’ also increased by +2-points vs pre COVID levels

As well as hitting our objectives, we saw spontaneous mentions of Tasmania increase 8% from 22% to 30% and word-of-mouth mentions as a source of media awareness for Tasmania grew a staggering 12%.