Yes, Australia Tourism bought a national ad spot in the Super Bowl this week.
That’s a major investment for the tourism board and there is plenty of potential for it to fall flat, even with the Crocodile Dundee tie-in. But Australia planned ahead. This is not just a TV advertisement. It includes tie-ins with American Airlines and Qantas to help push the promotion to travelers.
For American Airlines the new campaign includes the potential for 20,000 AAdvantage bonus points on a vacation package booking. Other than the requirement for booking by 7 March 2018 on a vacations package there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of fine print on the offer.
To earn mileage, purchase a vacation package by March 7, 2018 and travel by January 31, 2019. Package must include round-trip flights. Offer is valid for new reservations made during promotional booking period. Also, receive the standard 1,000 bonus booking miles offer when booking any American Airlines Vacations package. Promotion cannot be honored retroactively or applied to existing reservations.
That’s a relatively broad booking window with potential for a nice bucket of points to come along, assuming a trip to Australia was under consideration.
The Qantas promotion focuses on fares more than bonus points. The carrier is advertising “sale” fares starting at $999 from Los Angeles to Australia. Bookings must be completed by 15 February 2018 on these fares. This is not a bargain fare point but it is below the typical rates that Qantas pushes in those markets.
Arguably more importantly for the marketing effort is that Qantas is pushing the new fares through multiple digital channels, driving awareness more than typical sales.
This is hardly the only partnered promotion that has launched in recent years. It isn’t even the only cross promotion between an airline and a destination marketing organization. But it is certainly the highest profile effort on that front. The big spend for the Super Bowl ad makes sure of that.
Header image from AA/QF marketing emails
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I was very intrigued to find an American Airlines email sitting in my inbox last night post-game advertising fares to… you guessed it: Australia.
Yup…it was slightly surprising at first but also a nice win IMO for the tourism board. Going in with (the right) partners rather than trying to go alone nearly always yields better results.