Creating Remarkable Content
There is a huge opportunity to present and talk about this initiative in a truly remarkable way. It requires a significant shift in mindset, but it will play an important role in capturing people’s attention and most importantly, creating a connection that resonates with your target markets.
So, rather than presenting the initiative as being about geology, fossils and minerals, we present the initiative as Australia’s biggest, most dynamic, open-air exhibition. One that contains three interrelated galleries that are connected by the geographical and geological highlights of the region. An exhibition that essentially takes a deep dive into time and integrates the individual stories into a broader region-wide experience that tells our ‘collective’ story and allows us to deliver on a more competitive positioning and a sustainable long-term vision.
And like every exhibition, it will need to be branded. Our recommended branding for the exhibition is the Wonder of Gondwana - A Journey into Ancient Australia. Presenting the initiative in this way reframes it as a new and different category. One that we believe provides a greater sense of anticipation, intrigue, curiosity and excitement.
It represents a shift from a ‘look and learn’ approach based on ‘Present, Preserve and Protect’ to one that harnesses all our senses to build understanding and create meaningful and powerful connections with your audience. See the section on Global Trends in Museums and Attractions or watch the Museum Hack’s TedX Talk video to find out the how and why it’s so important to reposition the experience.
As indicated in the above exhibition branding, we see the positioning opportunity being built around a platform of Ancient Australia. It’s a territory that is appealing to our audience. It’s also a territory that no one appears to be playing in; at least overtly. And that makes it a territory we can own.
The third piece in this particular jigsaw is the language we use. We need to, where possible, avoid the same old tired words and start to communicate in a fresh language. For example, instead of fossils we want to talk about fish to footprints; instead of minerals we want to talk about ancient treasures or riches of the earth. And instead of Aboriginal experiences we want to talk about sites of cultural significance.
These three intersecting themes enrich the story of an ancient landscape. While not every precinct or place will be able to deliver on each theme, together they provide a far more compelling and remarkable way to reimagine the wonder of Gondwana and all that resulted from the dynamic forces that helped to form the Australia we know today.
Creating connections are essential to transformative travel
Rather than explaining the importance of creating connections with your audience, we thought we’d show you. Here is a diverse selection of short videos by many different destinations, institutions or companies who have stepped up to create great content – for many different purposes. These examples resonate with their target audience and help to create a powerful connection, convert interest into bookings, encourage repeat business and strengthen loyalty.
Australian Museum’s – Can you solve the mystery?
Treasury Wine Estates – 19 Crimes: Infamous Tastings
Contiki – Travel with Contiki
Inspired by Iceland – Iceland Academy – Welcome to Iceland
Inspired by Iceland – Iceland Academy – Power of Iceland
JetBlue Airline – Flight Etiquette
JetBlue Airline – Reach Across the Aisle
Mementos and Storytelling
Today’s travellers are the primary storytellers of the destinations they visit. For this reason, destinations and their tourism businesses need to focus on a destination’s DNA and its experiences as the starting point for both owned and earned promotion.
This approach ‘taps’ into the growing visitor trend of ‘travel to show & share’. To take advantage of it, a destination needs to cater to a visitor’s desire for mementos. Mementos that are ideally linked to a destination’s products and experiences.
A memento is essentially an object or item that serves to remind someone of a past event. In our case, this is the destination experience. Mementos, in a contemporary sense can be either physical or digital.
Physical involves the usual suspects found in the VIC gift shop - tea towels, t-shirts and local produce. It is worth noting that most of these could be made more powerful if they better reflected the destination brand story rather than just being a ‘generic’ souvenir that could be found in dozens of other gift shops. The more local, the more appeal it will have with your visitors.
Digital mementos are something the visitor can create themselves and instantly share. Destination photographs are the most obvious example but increasingly destinations are creating their own branded ‘instagramable- moment’ such as the ‘I amsterdam’ sign below.
Destinations that provide experiences and infrastructure that include social sharing at the core create a win-win scenario for both guests and hosts. By participating in a shareable experience, visitors benefit immediately through fun, distraction and the benefit of the social status that comes from participating in unique experiences. As a result, they help increase awareness of a destination or experience among their peers.
Today, these experiences are often shared through digital media and social networks. However, they can also spread through old-fashioned word of mouth, email promotion or a postcard. Both help visitors to ‘market’ your destination by offering remarkable, shareable experiences, creating ways for visitors to share their experience with their network and maximise your peer-to-peer promotion.