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Golden seashore, blue ocean made of sparkling breakwater, warm sunbeams stroking your skin – finally, the tropical dream came true. Unfortunately, not for me but for the British charity fundraiser Ben Southall, 34: He was one of the 16 finalists who recently spend three days swimming, snorkeling, diving and lounging under the close scrutiny of Queensland Tourism officials. They psychometrically tested the candidates for the ‘Best Job in the World’, the ‘Islandreef Job’ (read my recent posts number one and number two about the competition to get more information and the latest press release published by Queensland Tourism). Ben Southall staved off competition from almost 35,000 worldwide applicants to secure the post and was awarded the $150,000 (£73,000) contract beginning July 1 to serve as the caretaker of a tropical Australian Island. He now has the chance to swim, explore and relax on Hamilton island, in the Great Barrier Reef, for six months while writing a blog to (source: The Guardian). If you like to read his blog click here.

A successful social media campaign and its imitators

The recruitment for the ‘Best Job in the World’ was part of Tourism Queensland’s Islands of the Great Barrier Reef Campaign. The cooperative marketing campaign aimed to highlight the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and showcase Australia’s own unique Island experience, to the global market (source: press release published by Tourism Queensland). I think, I don’t need to tell you again that influential newspapers like The Guardian, The Mirror or BBC or German newspapers like Der Spiegel or Der Focus picked up the story once more among other media. According to Der Spiegel the marketing campaign exceeded all expectations of Tourism Queensland: Tourism director Anthony Hayes is of the opinion that there will be more bookings within the next 12 month at the end of the campaign. Probably the ranger casting will become an annual event? In anyway, there are already imitators of the campaign: According to Der Spiegel Taiwan thinks about starting a similar competition to promote its tourism.

‘The moral of the story’

What remains to say? As mentioned in earlier posts the ‘Islandreef Job’ competition was a striking campaign idea which was based on some remarkable PR and marketing decisions like the concept of the admirable independent blogger like you and me, the integration of the audience in the voting and the content-rich website (read my recent blog post) and supported by social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (read my recent blog post). Doubtlessly, a short-term campaign success. Will it become a long-term success, too? Only time can tell.

Golden seashore or muddy paths? Blue ocean made of sparkling breakwater or grey waterfalls made of gloomy raindrops? Warm sunbeams stroking your skin or cold wind biting your face? What would you choose?

If you ask me, I would definitely go for the first summer-like options of all these questions! But I’m afraid, that’s too good to be true! To be honest, I’m catched in the rainy present. I recently flow back to Germany for a short stay. Guess my state when I came here: soaked to the skin – as the wind teared my umbrella to pieces when I left the airport! Gone are the thoughts of summer (at the moment even the ones of spring).

£70,000 for blogging?

Nevertheless, the summer-like options that I’ve mentioned at the beginning of my post could become reality for a lucky blogger soon: Have you already heard about ‘The Best Job in the World, the ‘Island Reef Job’? I could imagine you have because it’s a current topic in the media (e.g. BBC, UK or Der Spiegel, Germany). For the ones how may have not I found this brief summary of what’s behind it on BBC. Or watch the YouTube video below. I think that moving pictures are worth a thousand words in this context (please, ignore the advertisement prior to the start of the footage. For the ones how prefer reading please check the following press releases published by Tourism Queensland: press release 1, press release 2).

£70,000 ($150,000) salary for weekly blogging about your experiences on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef/ Australia including a photo diary and video updates over six month? Additionally, living rent-free in a three-bedroom villa, complete with pool on Hamilton Island, one of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef? It’s tempting, isn’t it? All interested candidates were required to create a video application among other things explaining why they are the best person for the job. Currently, the top-50-shortlist from over 34,000 applicants is announced on the website. Tourism Queensland will choose ten candidates for the final application-round. Additionally, a Wild Card candidate will be selected by the visitors of the website. Finally, the winner will be named on May 6^th 2009.

A striking campaign

I think the idea behind this campaign is striking: According to one of the press releases published by Tourism Queensland “The recruitment for the ‘Best Job in the World’ is part of Tourism Queensland’s Islands of the Great Barrier Reef Campaign (…) The cooperative marketing campaign aims to highlight the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and showcase Australia’s own unique Island experience, to the global market.”

For me some remarkable PR and marketing decisions lay the foundation of the  ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign. I just want to name the three that impress me most:

1. The ‘independent blogger’:

To my mind, it’s quite a clever strategy to choose a person like you and me for the job who gets the sympathy of the audience right from the start through the entertaining application-video. Later on, the winner will begin to shape the conversations about the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef by writing the blog. I could imagine this person will then be seen as a independent, trustworthy and authentic blogger with passion instead of an employee of Tourism Queensland by most of the audience.

2. Activating the audience:

I’m sure, the fact that people can vote for the potential candidates for the job even increases the sympathy they have for the candidates and stresses the willingness to follow the blog of the later winner. Moreover, the visitors of the website take a closer look to the content provided about the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef’s tourism.

3. A content-rich website:

The website of the contest seems to be a first successful step to promote the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef’s tourism. Incidentally, the visitors get access to photos, videos and travelling suggestions. There is also a well-considered media-centre with additional information for journalists e.g. fact sheets, images and footage. Especially the story ideas in this section seem to be interesting. I could imagine that many journalists welcome stories like  “Some of the best island holiday ideas for backpackers”.

All in all, the campaign seems to trigger impressing viral-marketing-effects. If you want to learn more about the success of the campaign and it’s reasons it’s worth reading Chris Thomas’ blog post! What do you think about it?

Rain in front of the window but fun in front of the computer

In the end, I will remain blogging despite the rainy weather outside. Perhaps, it’s the same with you? Than we should at least have some fun and watch two of the top-50-application-videos. I’ve picket out one of a German and one of an UK applicant for you – but feel free to watch other application-videos, too! Let’s start enjoying our-selves!

Achim, Germany:

Sarah Louise, UK:

Everybody’s doing it – blogging! Finally, even I set foot into the ‘blogosphere’. It seems to be nothing special at all but I must admit: I was a bit unsure to push the button on my first post. I’ve never written a blog before. It’s inspiring and strange at the same time to know that from now on anyone can read what I put on my blog – everywhere in the world!

But what’s the big deal?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was a bit frightened putting the first post on his blog. Actually, I recently read in David Meerman Scott’s famous book ‘The New Rules of Marketing & PR – How to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing & online media to reach buyers directly’: “Everybody I’ve spoken with about starting a blog has said the same thing (but in slightly different ways). They all were a bit uncomfortable when they started a blog. They felt a little dorky because they didn’t know all the unwritten rules. They were even a little scared to push the button on this first post. We’ve all been there.”

Web 2.0: A great opportunity for PR – and the individual

I’m looking forward to discover all these unwritten rules and Web 2.0 in general. So far I’ve been more or less passive using all its versatile opportunities (I will tell you more about my current experiences within my next posts). Perhaps because I was a bit unsure where to start? The offer is incredible! Nevertheless, I’m highly interested to get an insight into it. On the one – professional – hand, because Web 2.0 opens enormous opportunities for PR. Just think about all the new communication channels such as blogs, wikis or RSS, for example. On the other – personal – hand, it’s exciting to check it’s assets for everyday life. What comes to my mind first, for instance: Networks sharing the same leisure time interests as you do.

Let’s just start

In the end, the term Web 2.0 is present in everybody’s mind and useful books have been written on it. For example, I recently started reading ‘Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide – Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations.’ by Amy Shuen. In her book she demonstrates how a Web 2.0 strategy can make your business more competitive. Out of interest I googled the question “What
is Web 2.0?” today as Amy Shuen did in her book published in 2008. The result: 347 million web pages returned (Suen mentions 65 million returned web pages in her book). Like in Amy Shuen’s results, the first-ranked entry is still the Wikipedia
entry followed by Tim
O’Reilly’s article ‘What is web 2.0?’ and two YouTube videos (The
Maschine is Us/ing Us and What
is Web 2.0?). You see, not only the opportunities within Web 2.0 are incredible but the loads of post about it as well and they increase every day.

To my mind, the best starting point to understand Web 2.0 in general and the ‘blogosphere’ in particular is discovering it myself.

I only stand to gain from it, I can’t lose!