Tourism Australia talks influencers
In AIMCO’s very first webinar of the year, on the topic of ‘How Brands Select Influencers’, Nicole Foster, Tourism Australia's Global Advocacy Manager, shared some great insights on their approach. Responsible for the development and management of international publicity, media and influencer programs, Nicole indicated that influencers, including the celebrity ambassadors they work with, now play a pivotal role within the marketing of Tourism Australia.
‘Our work with influencers includes a list of celebrities, like Chris Hemsworth, along with other influencer talent and storytellers. It sits between marketing, social and PR, as a core part of our activities. The program started 10 years ago, but in the last three years, it's really risen to the forefront of our marketing. Importantly, our work with influencers has moved beyond just promoting a product or in our case, promoting a destination. They have emerged to be co-creators of content for the brand. We view the influencers we work with as extensions of our brand and for that reason we're very careful of who we choose to work with.’
In terms of influencer selection Nicole explained Tourism Australia’s vetting process is extremely rigorous. She noted that it’s critical to do your due diligence given at the end of the day if something goes awry, it will ‘all come back to you’ as the brand manager. It’s especially critical given it’s a government agency and there is a high level of scrutiny around who they collaborate with from an influencer perspective.
Tourism Australia’s rigorous process of assessing talent is a six-step process that they call The Six R's where they assess the influencer according to the following:
1. Reach - their first party data, audience reach and impressions along with all the other ‘funnel’ metrics.
2. Resonance / Engagement - to assess if people care about and engage with what these people have to say.
3. Relevance - their relevance to Tourism Australia and how they fit within the brand pillars being promoted.
4. Rise - as in their rise in popularity.
‘When we signed Chris Hemsworth, he had just moved back to Australia from LA, but he was about to start, three or four Marvel movies, but back then he didn't even have Instagram. So, we watched his Instagram grow and now it’s up to 50 million.’
5. Relationship - this is about identifying what the long-term opportunities are going to be with that influencer and their ongoing relationship with the brand.
6. Risk Assessment - this is considered the most important and probably takes up the most time. It’s an in-depth risk assessment that covers anything that is not politically correct, that may not reflect well on the brand and does not align with the brand values.
‘It is a really serious part of what we have to do as it impacts everything we do, our percentage estimates and media scrutiny’.
Tourism Australia applies the same assessment framework to everyone they work with on a campaign, whether it is a celebrity like Chris Hemsworth down to a micro influencer. This standardises the approach and enables them to scale the ratings according to whatever capacity they are working with a particular influencer. An additional flow on benefit from this standardised set of criteria for assessing all talent means that it’s helped to educate internal stakeholders on the value of influencers.
In terms of results, influencer campaigns form part of the broader marketing mix. At the big picture level, the Tourism Australia team get measured on how many people are coming to Australia and how much money they're spending here. This means that results can’t always be aligned with specific influencer activity, but Nicole noted some standout examples where the influencer programme has delivered big time.
‘One of the biggest indicators of success with our influencer activity is how we've helped the small tourism operators in our industry. We sent Chris Hemsworth to a place called Orpheus Island, which is a beautiful island in Queensland off the Great Barrier Reef. That was about three years ago, I think. He did a post and three hours later web traffic to Orpheus Island’s website was up 4,000%, they were booked out for four months and that Instagram went up by 7000 people. So, it's these sorts of direct results for the travel industry that we can really deliver and that they can't do by themselves.’
Another great story was for an event called Live from Oz in May, last year. It was 32 live streams where the Tourism Australia team of influencers known as ‘Friends of Australia’ delivered back-to-back content every hour on the hour, over one weekend.
‘That event delivered over 40,000 leads to those in our industry that were involved. And that's pretty amazing because it's something that they can't do on their own. We even had one of the operators, Bay of Fires Walking Tours in Tazzy, who got a call from a couple in London who were watching the live stream and said, ‘Look, we were just booking a holiday to New Zealand and we've just changed - we're going to come see you and Tazzy.’ You know, that's really the stuff of gold. It's really a golden impact for the industry, for us.’