Motu Ta’e’iloa (Our Special Island)
- Client
- Millipede / Second Muse / Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
The incidence of non-communicable diseases linked with poor diet in the Pacific islands has reached crisis level. Our challenge was to explore innovative ways to leverage technology to promote positive attitudes to healthy foods, and inspire nutritious eating habits in young Tongan children.
The brief
The campaign seeks to address the fact that, whilst Australia has a strong aquatic and coastal offering, we are losing ground to key international competitors such as South Africa, Hawaii and the USA.
The new campaign taps into the fact that around 70% of our international visitors have undertaken an aquatic and/or coastal experience as part of the trip to Australia. This is a huge marketing opportunity.
The result
One of the features of this campaign involves bringing Australia to life using ground-breaking Virtual Reality (VR), 360º footage on a size and scale never before seen in destination marketing. The use of VR and 360º footage provides an exceptionally immersive experience and brings our incredible aquatic and coastal experiences to life to inspire media, travel sellers and consumers overseas.
Seventeen 360º films were shot across Australia, in one of the most complex shots Tourism Australia has conducted. More than 40 cameras, 8 unique 360º camera rigs and 3 drones were used to produce the campaign’s 17 films.
We built apps for Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard, to provide a rich, authentic realisation of this content. The apps are available in both English and Mandarin.
User experience
The Australia in 360º app experience gives users a unique perspective of our great country with a striking depth of engagement, capturing what it feels like to be in Australia and to experience for yourself being in, or near, the water.
Users download the free app and insert their smartphone into a VR device like Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR. Once the headset is on, the user can navigate by simply looking at the controls. Throughout development, we placed a strong emphasis on ensuring the experience is as intuitive and delightful as possible.
Project marketing
The app was launched in New York by global ambassador and actor Chris Hemsworth and then again by Malcolm Turnbull in Shanghai as part of a trade mission. A great deal of publicity has been created as a result.
China is Australia’s most valuable tourism market; more than a million Chinese visited Australia last year.
[The app] is optimised for use on mobile devices. It connects social media, to enable virtual experience of visiting Australia and, of course, it enables individual respective tourists in China to see the wonders of Australia, to see the exciting opportunities of coming to visit us.
This is a very important step change in our marketing of Australia. It makes Australia more accessible, more available, more compelling as a tourism destination.
Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia