Arguably the most famous natural wonder of the world, the Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest reef and the only object that can be identified from space. The Great Barrier Reef is located next to Queensland, Australia, which is known for its sandy beaches and tranquil rainforests. One would think that the close proximity of the two hotspots would be a winning combination for tourism. However, Queensland is located far away from major cities such as Melbourne and Arguably the most famous natural wonder of the world, the Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest reef and the only object that can be identified from space. The Great Barrier Reef is located next to Queensland, Australia, which is known for its sandy beaches and tranquil rainforests. One would think that the close proximity of the two hotspots would be a winning combination for tourism. However, Queensland is located far away from major cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, which most travelers prioritized in a trip to Australia. In addition, the 2008 financial crisis caused international tourism to drop significantly. Tourism Queensland, the Queensland government's department of tourism and events, aimed to challenge other popular tourist destinations such as the Caribbean and the Greek Islands as the top island attraction. The greatest challenge that Tourism Queensland identified was building international awareness. To acomplish this , Tourism Queensland tasked marketing agency SapientNitro in 2009 with creating a successful global advertising campaign on a limited budget of $1.2 million. SapientNitro came up with its now-legendary "The Best Job in the World" campaign. The campaign consisted of Tourism Queensland advertising an opening for the position of "Island Caretaker." Applicants needed no previous work experience, and their only duty was to draft single blog post about the islands once a week. The lucky applicant selected would receive free living accommodations on the island and a six-figure salary for six months. The position was billed as "The Best Job in the World," and interested candidates had to upload a 60-second application video on Tourism Queensland's website. To create international publicity, Tourism Queensland invited influential travel journalists and bloggers from across the globe to the islands and held a media conference that featured a luxury villa and a sunny tropical paradise. The change in scenery was a stark contrast to many of the conference attendees in the Northern Hemisphere, who were experiencing a cold, dark winter. Public interest in the advertisement campaign exploded shortly afterward. Within one day of launch, the website received over 200,000 website views. Within the six-week application period, Tourism Queensland received over 34,000 applicants from nearly 200 countries. The website had drawn over 6.8 million unique monthly visitors, who generated approximately 54 million page views and spent an extremely high average of 8.25 minutes viewing the website. More than 46,000 mainstream media articles were written about the promotion. In total, it was estimated that the campaign had reached nearly 3 billion people worldwide. The $1.2 million campaign had exceeded Tourism Queensland's wildest expectations. Three main reasons 281 help explain to why the low-budget promotion resulted in explosive numbers of views. For one thing, the promotion was hosted almost exclusively on their website. Whereas $1.2 million could have purchased only a small amount of TV advertisement time, the money invested resulted in a website that reached across the globe with ease. Second, the over-whelming majority of the content in the advertising campaign was provided by the numerous applicants, who submitted over 550 hours of videos to the website; none of them were created by the SapientNitro or Tourism Queensland teams. The most notable applicants received millions of views on YouTube and widespread social media attention. The popu-larity of these videos persisted even after the application period ended. Third, Tourism Queensland earned media cov-erage, instead of having to buy it. Media companies assumed the responsibility of following top candidates and telling their story. BBC Television created a one-hour documentary featuring the final 16 candidates in the competition, which received the highest viewer ratings during the week of its release in the Uk. The winner of the competition was a British man named Ben Southall. After receiving the job, Southall conducted the largest number of interviews in a 24-hour period at the time124 in TV broadcasts all over the world. During his six-month position, Southall was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and was featured in a six-part National Geographic series. Southall became an ambassador for Queensland tourism after his position ended. In total, the clever advertising cam-paign generated over $250 million in media value and brought worldwide attention to Queensland tourism. "The Best Job in the World" received 8 Cannes Lions awards for distinguished creativity in advertising and marketing and was inducted into PR News's Platinum Hall of Fame in 2014.

1. What were the key reasons for the phenomenal popularity of SapientNitro's "The Best Job in the World" campaign?
2. Was the campaign successful in generating tourist traffic to Queensland? How should one measure the success of this publicity campaign?
3. What marketing strategies should Queensland adopt in the future to promote tourism?