Destination Marketing: Tourism Australia's Controversial Campaign

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"In an increasingly competitive and tough commercial environment we must be bold, aggressive, and distinctive to win the business. But we also must be credible -- we must be true to what we are as a destination and focus on why the world loves us -- and our marketing must be authentically and distinctively Australian... This exciting new campaign provides a compelling and uniquely Australian invitation to the world that celebrates our personality, our lifestyle, and our place. It has been carefully designed to cut through the clutter and motivate international tourists to stop putting it off and visit Australia now."¹

- Scott Morrison, Managing Director, Tourism Australia, on the controversial 'So Where the Bloody Hell are You?' campaign that was launched in 2006.

"They [Asian visitors] didn't get the joke at all, it wasn't funny to them to have this word bloody which can be a serious word to others. It came across as a demand for people to visit Australia, not an invitation and that's not at all culturally appropriate in many of the countries in which we are working to encourage people to come and see us."²

- Desley Boyle, Queensland's Tourism Minister, in 2007.

"In awareness, in some areas it was very good. But it seems from everything that we see and hear from the industry that it was not strong enough to really go on from here."³

- Harold Mitchell, the Executive Chairman of the Mitchell Communication Group, in 2008.

End of an Innovative & Controversial Campaign In February 2008, Tourism Australia4 announced that it was discontinuing its controversial advertisement campaign, 'So Where the Bloody Hell are You?' (Bloody Hell). The announcement put an end to the contentious campaign launched in 2006 by Tourism Australia, a statutory authority of the Government of Australia set up to promote the country as a tourist destination. Through the campaign, which featured well-known Australian model Lara Bingle (Bingle), Tourism Australia sought to promote Australia as a rough and wild but friendly place for tourists.

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1] "Tourism Australia Asks, "So Where The Bloody Hell Are You?"; Cheeky New Ad Campaign...," www.allbusiness.com, February 23, 2006.

2] "'Bloody Hell' Tourism Ads 'Should Be Mothballed'," www.abc.net.au, December 21, 2007.

3] Edmond Roy, "Tourism Australia Looks Beyond 'Controversial Campaign'," www.abc.net.au, February 7, 2008.

4] Tourism Australia was formed in July 2004 by merging the Australian Tourism Commission, See Australia, the Bureau of Tourism Research and the Tourism Forecasting Council for marketing tourism in Australia both domestically and internationally.

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