Military dictatorship? What military dictatorship? Tourism Fiji has sent its new global brand campaign into the wild and, in an effort to differentiate it from its Pacific competition, the island nation is focusing on the fact that its happiness is likely to rub off on visitors.
Yesterday, the Fijian government banned inbound tourists as flash flooding wreaked havoc. But, after a global pitch thought to have received more than 60 submissions, it’s thought Colenso BBDO will now be responsible for trying to get more of them to visit after beating out agencies from New Zealand, Australia and the US to become the new global agency for Tourism Fiji.
Barnes, Catmur & Friends won the Tourism Fiji account in mid-2009 and set out on its mission to grow New Zealand visitor arrivals from 100,000 per year to 120,000 by 2011. Since it took over, and despite the ongoing political uncertainty, arrivals have gone up 18 percent on the back of some good creative comms, including an enticing TVC, a billboard that showed how hot it was in Fiji during the New Zealand winter and a well-received Adshel promotion that ‘Fiji’ed’ a few hundred locals. But, despite these local results, Tourism Fiji has decided the best approach to “ensure the best possible return on the Fiji Government’s significant annual investment in marketing Fiji to the world and to effectively position Fiji competitively into the future” is to find a lead global advertising agency to develop and implement a new global masterbrand strategy.
Out-of-home advertising aims to be where the most eyeballs are. But that’s often not quite enough these days and, increasingly, outdoor media owners and agencies are getting creative in an effort to get cut-through and consumer engagement, as evidenced by Barnes, Catmur & Friends’ recent ‘Fiji Me, Please’ Adshel campaign.