See You in the Northern Territory (or perhaps not?)

In what would appear to be one of the more epic attempts at trolling the Aussies, or more specifically the good people of the Norhern Territory, someone recently launched a campaign on twitter, facebook and the worldwide web to sell the wonders of the Northern Territory to tourists. The campaign is rather well done, with T-shirts, stickers and .. well, the works.

A clever catchphrase is even invented: C u in the NT... So far, so good...

Here, have a sample:



Spot the problem yet?

Now, this is either epic trolling, or indeed very clever marketing to sell the Northern Territory (and indeed T-shirts) to unsuspecting tourists.

There is, of course, an Instagram Account-

A web site : ntofficial.com

And even a facebook page: Here you go-

As all the related websites, instagram accounts and facebook accounts seems to be fairly recent, and not be related to the Tourist Board of Australia, or indeed the Northern Territory (which have a more - ahem - low key site here), this is probably either someone having a bit of a laugh (and selling T-shirts) or a very clever marketing campaign.

Well, I can only say thank you for the laugh....

I sure needed one..

BT

Do they rent Vulvas? They're the best for touring the bush.

a reply to: intrptr

lol, I don't know, but note the slogan "The top end is different from the bottom end.." right below Uluru (Ayers Rock)..

I guess you'll have to go there to find out ;-)

BT

a reply to: beetee

That rock looks kinda fleshy, too.

If this is indeed some covert half officeial campaign, secretly condoned by the Tourist Board, I guess there is some precedent for "going off the beaten track" in Australia with campaigns of this kind.

Most noteworthy is perhaps the Rail Safety campaign by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria.

It was launched as a video with a very catchy song performed by "Tangerine Kitty" (consiting of Emily Lubitz from Tinpan Orange and Ollie McGill from The Cat Empire) called "Dumb Ways to Die".

The video quickly went viral, as did the song, but in the off chance you have not seen it, here you go:



It's quite good, very funny, and according to Wikipedia:

According to Metro Trains, the campaign contributed to a more than 30% reduction in "near-miss" accidents, from 13.29 near-misses per million kilometres in November 2011 – January 2012, to 9.17 near-misses per million kilometres in November 2012 – January 2013

(See source below)

You can read more about the campaign, and also about some of the controversy it caused, on Wikipedia.

So, I guess we have to hand it to the Aussies, they do know how to make a campaign...

BT

I luv humorous advertising. That is a damn catchy tune too.

a reply to: cprnicus

Yes, it is pretty neat.. I just love the way they did the cartoon in the video. Almost, but not quite, South Park. A brutal and horrible subject, with garish illustrations, and a whimsical, catchy tune :-)

I think it's brilliant!

BT

Well, in a new development reported by some news sources, the Tourist Board is allegedly "furious" over all this free publicity.

You can read the story in the Daily Mail here

So, either epic trolling for T-shirts or plausible deniability would seem to be the order of the day...

A "Guerilla" group seems to be the culprits..

BT