We needed to challenge people to explore the limits of their curiosity. So, instead of encouraging them to plan their trip we encouraged them to throw away the guidebook and Play Melbourne like a giant game of chance. The campaign centred around a promotion whereby travellers could win a premium Melbourne weekend, every week, for 52 weeks but in the spontaneous spirit of the campaign, they had to fly at the drop of a hat, with no time to plan, so they could truly Play Melbourne. Entry was via a weekly game of curious clues at the Play Melbourne website.

Within the first 6 weeks of the campaign 86,000 unique people had visited the Play Melbourne promotional website, spending 10,835 hours with the brand. As of April, 2012, a total of 481,475 people have visited the site, 73,697 have entered the promotion, 81% of those have used social media to share their experience with others, and 9.7% of total visitors viewed the Travel Deals and Packages Page. Play Melbourne became one of Australia’s top travel sites and the campaign has been credited with Melbourne attracting over 600,000 more domestic overnight visitors than Sydney, according to the 2011 National Visitor Survey.