Overview - "The Best Job in the World"

Viral Marketing Case Study (SPD4290) -

The Best Job in the World

by Tourism Queensland

in January 2009

The whole campaign has generated a huge amount of publicity with the website having an amazing 2,000 hits per second with over 400,000 unique vistors in the first day and half. The campaign to date has generated over 9,000 applications and 2.3 million visitors to site.

The campaign was first launched overseas, with small strategic ads placed in various nationals, supported by online marketing such as online PR, blogs (twitter), Youtube channel, social media sites such as Facebook, pay per click and natural search.  All marketing activities drives traffic to the website which is simple but seductive.  This campaign is a great example of how online viral marketing can work really well.

Sources from:
http://www.tq.com.au/
SPD4290 Viral Marketing by Wild Group
SPD4290 Online Viral Marketing

Advantage and Disadvantage for "The Best Job in the World" campaign

Viral Marketing Case Study (SPD4290) -

The Best Job in the World

by Tourism Queensland

in January 2009 

Advantage

Success in generating valuable PR and non-paid media coverage & reach a large audience in a cost-effective way

Tourism Queensland (TQ) broke the story via traditional media and then sustained the viral through social networks including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. The website for the contest received a million hits the day after it was launched. By the time the campaign was done it had attracted 34,684 applicants from 201 countries and generated over $150 million worth of international publicity (including a BBC documentary), all on a $1.2 million budget.

Disadvantage

Traffic can overload your hosting bandwidth
After campaign announcement, the million hits crashed the site. In 30 hours they had 400,000 new visitors and one million hits on the second day.  TQ brought it back up it was hosted on 10 Web servers, the maximum number of servers possible, to fix the problem.

Source from:
http://www.tq.com.au/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing
SPD4290 Viral Marketing by Wild Group
SPD4290 Online Viral Marketing

The best job in the world or a clever viral campaign?

Viral Marketing Case Study (SPD4290) -

The Best Job in the World

by Tourism Queensland

in January 2009 

Objective

This online PR and viral marketing campaign's goal was to get 400,000 new visitors to “THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD” website over the course of the one-year campaign.

Result
Tourism Queensland's (TQ) “Best Job in The World” viral marketing campaign drew over 34,000 applications, from more than 200 countries, for the post of caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. This online PR and viral marketing campaign attracted worldwide attention, more than 1,100 entries from nearly 37 countries.

This campaign has been generated more than $106 million worth of ad value for worldwide publicity and 627 million media impressions in the U.S. and Canada alone. Also, the online viral marketing has been rated as one of the 50 best publicity stunts by the PR Company Taylor Herring. Estimated media coverage is valued at over AUD$400 million includes CNN stories to BBC documentaries, and Time magazine articles.

A social networking frenzy ensued with 336,000 Facebook-referred website visits, more than 3,170 @Queensland followers on Twitter and over 338 members on the campaign’s Wiki. By March 18, 2009, the website had 6.7 million visitors, with 26 percent of visitors logging in from the U.S. Over 423,000 people (including 210,000 from the U.S.) voted for their favorite top-50 finalist.

Source from:

http://www.tq.com.au/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing

SPD4290 Viral Marketing by Wild Group

SPD4290 Online Viral Marketing
http://jeffbullas.com/2010/02/22/how-to-run-a-successful-social-media-marketing-campaign-case-study

The Best Job in the World

Viral Marketing Case Study (SPD4290) -

The Best Job in the World

by Tourism Queensland
in January 2009

Tourism Queensland's (TQ) was launched a groundbreaking “THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD” campaign which is an online PR and viral marketing phenomenon that has generated worldwide attention.

Conceived by TQ and its Brisbane-based ad agency, CumminsNitro Brisbane, it was executed in the US and Canada by Quinn & Co. The concept was simple:

Interested candidates would need to post a one-minute video application on TQ’s website explaining why he/she should be chosen as caretaker of Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef. The job would be a six month contract paying AUD$150,000 with a base on Hamilton Island in a rent-free luxury home and the opportunity to explore Queensland and blog about these experiences.

The story broke on 12 January 2009 in the UK with coverage in every daily national newspapers, plus interviews with TQ’s UK regional director on GMTV, BBC News, BBC1, CNN, GMTV, Channel 5 News on day one alone, plus radio interviews on national and local stations.

The selection process would include wildcard voting by the public and an interview in Queensland for the final 16. The final applicant would commence on 1 July 2009.

Source from:

http://www.tq.com.au/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing
SPD4290 Viral Marketing by Wild Group
SPD4290 Online Viral Marketing

What is VIRAL MARKETING?

Viral marketing (buzz marketing) definitely has a place in the business world today.  It is cheap, and with clever ideas people can really take advantage of the viral characteristics and potential of social media and the search engines.

 

Definition

Viral Marketing is effectively an online form of word-of-mouth communication to communicate marketing message that harnesses the network effect of the Internet and can be effective in reaching a large number of people rapidly as a marketing message is rapidly transmitted in the same way as a natural or computer virus, facilitated by different media, such as email and websites. When successful, results in exponential growth.

When planning integrated campaigns, it is important to note that a successful viral marketing creates “buzz” as content is uniquely engaging and causes the online #viral affect that can be amplified through offline media mentions or advertising either on TV and radio or in print.

From a practical point of view, online viral marketing involves generating word-of-mouth and links through to a website, like as part of online PR.

Remarks

# Viral effect - people will discuss online or offline and more people will become aware of or interact with the brand campaign.

Sources from:
Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick, Mayer and Johnston. (2009). Internet Marketing – Strategy, Implementation, and Practice
SPD4290 Online Viral Marketing