Sunrise interview
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: All right, Tourism Australia's Crocodile Dundee faux trailer is the most ambitious and expensive ad made for a single market, yet, and it seems to be paying off. The $10 million ad appeared to be a trailer for a new Crocodile Dundee film, before it switched into a showcase of Australia. Now 100 million Americans have watched it air at the Super Bowl, earlier this month. It's had five times the response of any previous Tourism Australia campaign, reaching 890 Million people and generating 12,000 media articles. Currently, US tourists add $3.7 billion to our economy. The new campaign aims to double that by 2020. And Tourism Minister Steven Ciobo joins us now from Canberra. Minister, good morning, welcome.
STEVEN CIOBO: Good morning, Sam.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: What do you think it is about this ad that worked so well?
STEVEN CIOBO: Well, what is there not to love about this ad, Sam? I mean, we had all the A-list headliners, we had Chris Hemsworth, Margot Robbie, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, I mean it was a star, stellar cast. And I think it just really resonated because you also had Danny McBride who was fronting it in the US market. He's a big hit with Americans.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: Yeah, the reach has certainly been impressive. You can't argue with that. But are you concerned that all of this talk of a Crocodile Dundee sequel has overshadowed the actual point of the ad, which was to get American tourists to come to Australia?
STEVEN CIOBO: No, look, I'm really not. What's happening is, it's built momentum, and so now we've got momentum in the market. I mean, don't forget, Sam, this advertisement was part of a two-year campaign, so this is going to be running in different forms over the next two years. And it's all about making sure that we can attract as many Americans to come down under as possible. It's a really valuable segment of the tourism market. And the reason this matters, Sam, is because there's 600,000 or so Australians that work in Australia's tourism industry directly. And they rely on these international tourists for their jobs.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: And when do you expect starting to be able to give us some numbers on how many Americans this has affected, how many extra Americans we're seeing visit you know, Uluru each year?
STEVEN CIOBO: Well, that will take a number of months for it to come through. But what we have got is some early anecdotal evidence from booking operators, and they're telling us that this is generating five times more leads than they have on traditional campaigns. They're telling us that website traffic, for example, website traffic to Australia.com, which is our main tourism portal, that had hits from over 10,000 US cities and towns. So that's extraordinary reach for this campaign.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: That's good. All right.
STEVEN CIOBO: Yeah, it's really good.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: Those Americans better get their passports and get down here.
STEVEN CIOBO: Exactly
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: Would you, the Government, the Turnbull Government, put money in if Paul Hogan decided to make another Crocodile Dundee movie? Would you help him out?
STEVEN CIOBO: You know, Sam, I, this is, I've been asked this question lots of times. I think the responsibility that we've got to Australians is to make sure we exercise the use of taxpayers' money prudently. And so what I mean by that is, it would need to stack up for a film studio, first. So if a film studio said, "Look, we're going to make this film, we think that it stacks up, we think it's a good product to take to the market, but maybe the Federal Government could help top it up a little bit with something," well, provided it's being driven by a studio as a commercial outcome, then we can certainly look at it.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: All right, well that sounds good. No doubt we'll talk to you soon.
STEVEN CIOBO: Good to speak with you.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE: Thanks Steven Ciobo.