The chief marketing officer for Tourism Australia says she is “heartbroken” over suspending the “Matesong” marketing campaign in the UK as Australia faced the summer bushfire disaster – but emphasises the importance of not going “dark” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking on RESET Now, an initiative between the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA), Nine and Mi3 for marketers to share their experience and evolving strategies as they manage the COVID-19 crisis, plan for the recovery, and see how deep consumer mindsets and behaviour might shift, Susan Coghill reflects on how Australia’s national tourism body has faced the many challenges of 2020.

“I’m so heartbroken about that campaign,” she said about the difficult decision to suspend Tourism Australia’s “Matesong” campaign in the UK which stars Kylie Minogue.

“We absolutely loved that campaign. Our team in the UK, the audience in the UK absolutely loved that campaign. Somebody described it to me as going through a breakup and not being able to talk about that person anymore. That’s sort of what it feels like, to be honest.”

“Matesong” launched in the UK on Christmas Day in the ad-break before the Queen’s Speech as part of a new $15 million Tourism Australia campaign to entice more Brits Down Under. The campaign was suspended in early January as images of Australia on fire flooded news services around the world.

“It was off to a really great start – we had fantastic viewership,” says Coghill. “We had over 33 million views just in that first week. We had incredibly positive engagement on social media, about 3000 articles written in the UK, and 34 million dollars in equivalent advertising value (EAV).

“We had coverage about it scoring a 10 out of 10 in terms of a year-end tourism and Christmas campaign in Travel Weekly, which is the most widely read travel publication in the UK. So we were really onto a winner, as Mark Ritson said, until tragedy struck.”

For Tourism Australia, 2020 continued to deliver challenges with the global COVID-19 pandemic coming on the heels of the horrific bushfire season, domestic and international borders closing, and Australians ordered to stay at home.

Coghill says it was incredibly important for Tourism Australia to not go “dark”, meaning not to switch off all its marketing communications

“Tourism is an incredibly competitive category. It has grown even more competitive over the last 10 or 15 years as more markets have started to increase their spend and increase their focus on tourism.

“Certainly, as we look at the year ahead and the potential for Australia’s borders to be  closed a bit longer than some other markets, we need to make sure that we are continuing to build our brand, to build awareness, and make sure we have engagement with our high-value travellers around the world. That means making sure we’ve got the right degree of communications continuing in each market.”

For Tourism Australia, the focus during the pandemic has been to offer would-be travellers inspiration, with marketing focusing on the dreaming and planning phases.

“We pivoted once the bushfires happened, away from a lot of our international marketing and focusing on the domestic market. As we were about to start ramping up our international marketing again the coronavirus started to happen. We paused to take stock domestically and internationally and when we felt that the time was right we returned with communications that felt appropriate for the moment,” Coghill says.

“Internationally that meant a lot of focus on the dreaming and planning type of communications, giving people a bit of respite from their lives in lockdown, something to dream about their next holiday in Australia.”

For the domestic market, Coghill says that as restrictions ease, with the exception of Victoria, Tourism Australia is looking at communications around inspiring home and excitement.

“It’s a bit of that rising optimism about being able to get out and see and explore your own backyard again. We’re going through the process now of planning the rest of our domestic marketing for the year ahead, where we’ll continue to encourage Australians to get out and see the rest of the country they haven’t seen in years.”

Internationally, Tourism Australia has kept up its marketing despite the challenges facing the travel industry, with content partnerships in England with The Telegraph and The Daily Mail, while social media remains an important channel when it comes to the planning and dreaming phases of travel planning.

“We had our big social media activation in the UK, Live From Aus, 32 live events across Australia over two days that we live-streamed globally. We took that content and chopped it up and we’ve been promoting it in the weeks following that event,” says Coghill.

“It’s still very much in that dreaming phase, helping people to be inspired about Australia, giving them a bit of inspiration for where they might go when they’re ready to start to plan their travel. And when the moment’s right we will start to bring our partners in.”

Tourism Australia is keeping a close eye on its key markets around the world, waiting for borders to open and policies around how different countries will operate following COVID-19.

“We have started what we’re calling a green-light program where we look at key leading indicators, whether it be borders opening, the state of the coronavirus situation in any of those markets, what’s the consumer confidence like, how likely are they to travel? We’re pulling that from our own research and a myriad of other sources around the world,” says Coghill.

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that we’re planning out our marketing activities so that we have that presence. We are visible. We are priming the market. We’re staying relevant, driving awareness, and as soon as the borders are open we’ll be able to shift and turn on the sort of marketing that will drive conversion and bring travellers back as quickly as possible.”