Tourism Viral Case Study - Best Job In The World

by Matthijs Roumen

The campaign has already been featured on Viral Friday, but it’s such an incredible case that I’d love to give it some more attention. In this campaign, the Tourism Office of Queensland is looking for a person to suit the most incredible job of the world and comes with an incredible effective social media campaign to achieve their goal.

Looking for an employee through social media isn’t a new thing, but in this campaign it’s not all about finding the right person.

In this campaign they’re looking for an employee who would be able to explore, discover and maintain some aspects of the island. During a 6 months stay, the fresh employee has to report his findings on a blog.

This campaign has several aspects I really like. First of all, they created content people really would love to watch. In the video below, they lay out the most perfect job in the world who only a few people would refuse. This content holds and catches the viewers attention for a minute. The information in the video contains different postive aspects of the product: a visit to Hamilton Island.

As you can imagine, this campaign isn’t just about forfilling this position. It’s all about putting the Hamilton Island in the spotlights and really make people want to go there. It makes you think about being there, doing the job, seeing the most beautiful things the world has to offer and even getting paid for doing your job. The fact that the video is highly entertaining and the underlaying thought of actually apply for the job makes it go viral. People simply love to spread things that are remarkable.

But it’s not just the videoclip that is remarkable. There is more to discover then just the video. The secundairy working conditions are amazing and the video’s of the applicants are fun to watch.

Next to this campaign they’re looking for a more longterm relationship with tourists interested in visiting Hamilton Island in the future. They answer questions via their Twitter page and provide more general information and also answer questions on their Facebook page. With these free communication tools they can keep maintaining a relationship with those who are interested.

And the succes? Over 10.000 people applied for the job, including a video interview. This is a great big number, because effort people have to take to even apply for the job. The website itself has been viewed 2.3 million times in two weeks time from which 200.000 prospective applicants visited the website within the first 24 hours, which indicates a big succes as well. If you Google for “best job in the world“, every link on the first page links to the campaign. Over 1300+ blogposts link to islandreefjob.com and various international newssites such as USA Today, Telegraph, The Age and Het Laatste Nieuws picked up the story. People from all over the world applied for the job; would-be Caretakers from 162 different countries applied.

Overall, I rate this campaign as a big success. They not only managed to create great awareness among a large group of interested, but they also created a communication channel to keep people up to date and informed and to give a chance to ask questions. Great strategy for an awesome product!

(Sources: Ananova, TodaysTHV, Australia.to)