When Supercurious devised The Cultural Icons campaign last year, it brought together the collective might of 13 national cultural institutions and highlighted Canberra’s role as a showcase city for cultural tourism.

It was a groundbreaking marketing strategy, built through collaboration among the country’s most iconic institutions including the Australian War Memorial, National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, National Library of Australia, Australian Parliament House and eight other institutions.

The pitch was simple, but the message was nuanced.

The aim was to increase multi-institutional visits in Canberra by interstate visitors, thereby extending their length of stay and increasing economic returns.

But it went further than that—spearheading the narrative that Canberra’s major institutions offer a unique perspective on the Australian story with all Australians able to find themselves reflected across the icons —“there’s a piece of every Australian in Canberra”.

Supercurious partner and director Warren Apps said, “These institutions tell our Australian story, allow us to understand that story, learn from it and use it to build confidence and pride for the present and future.”

The campaign worked.

Despite 2021 being the epicentre of COVID lockdowns and interruptions, The Cultural Icons campaign was able to establish a platform that reached millions of Australians.

Supercurious was delighted to build on that success when it launched phase two of the campaign for an intensive three-month period as the country’s tourism and travel begins to return to levels seen pre-pandemic.

The phase two campaign boasted a mix of tactics aimed at driving action through the funnel – from awareness and consideration to action. It included a series of unique partnerships including:

• Channel 7 Weekend Sunrise broadcast – James Tobin from Weekend Sunrise toured Lake Burley Griffin for a series of interactive live crosses from locations including the Balloon Festival, the National Library, Van Gogh Alive, the NGA and more.
• Qantas partnership – a partnership to deliver content to 1.2m Frequent Flyers.
• Travel Oz – a 30-minute Travel Oz show dedicated to the Cultural Icons – airing nationally on Channel 7 and internationally through a series of broadcast partnerships.
• Beam – a unique partnership forged with Beam to activate their scooter network in the National Triangle, including a special Cultural Icons pass plus swing tags on scooters, digital activations on Beam channels and more.

These partnerships were supplemented with screens throughout the Arrivals Hall at Canberra Airport and a targeted TV buy in NSW.

The digital component of the strategy was particularly sophisticated. It brought together a number of partnerships with data providers to enable deep targeting to people who had a confirmed travel booking (flight, hotel or event) to Canberra in the weeks leading up to their visit.

In addition, we managed an advanced mobile campaign to target visitors who are already in Canberra. This part of the campaign identified mobile phone users in hotels and targeted them specifically with tactical advertising about current events and exhibitions. In 2021, there was an 80 per cent uplift in visitation to one of the Icons following exposure to the Cultural Icons campaign through the mobile channel.

“There’s an energy to this campaign that speaks to the success of the original ideas and the collective might of our premier cultural institutions. But it goes further. Our nation is emerging from Covid restrictions and Canberra is very quickly shaping up as a destination that can go further than others in delivering a unique and memorable escape. Or as we have said in the campaign slogan ’13 perspectives, 1 experience. Yours.’”

You can view The Cultural Icons campaign here.