Quote:
Originally Posted by Wongo
Didn’t your car blow up recently? You should go along, you might get lucky. :wink:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wongo
Didn’t your car blow up recently? You should go along, you might get lucky. :wink:
Its been fixed and it is going strong. So no thanks. :U
I'm with Lignum on this one.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that anybody could do what she does. What skill does she have, you ask. Well, how about a massive audience every day? Ask Shane Warne how hard it is to achieve that. I heard his 2nd show's ratings were 1/2 of his first show. I don't buy the proposition that she's merely a product of marketing. I think self-made people who build their own fortunes must have something special - otherwise we'd all be doing it.
I also think its acceptable for our tourism people to be spending money on this kind of thing. Any marketer will tell you that 50% of marketing is successful, but they can't tell you which 50% will work. We've tried the shrimp on the barbie, and the "where the bloody hell are you" approach. Perhaps getting a customer like Oprah to say it's a great place will carry more weight with the target markets. Australia might be a long way for the US to travel, but this could put it at the top of the aspirational destinations for many Americans.
There are dozens of places she could have taken her audience. I think we should be happy that they're coming here.
There are so many industries that depend on inbound tourism. With our dollar so high, many locals are jetting off overseas. We need all the help we can get to highlight Australia as a perfect holiday destination.
ajw
No sorry, on principal I'm against spending millions of dollars on uncertain and intangible returns, when the NSW government is crying poor over hospitals amongst other things. As far as I know, the money is not coming out of any tourism promotion budget, I'll bet there was no due diligence done on the expenditure versus expected return. It's just something that we're expected to wear so that those who are fans of her vacuous show can queue up to say they've seen her. Any benefit to the economy of this country from the exercise is highly speculative and impossible to quantify. It is just an excuse offered as a counter-argument to the objections raised, and a poor one at that.Quote:
I also think its acceptable for our tourism people to be spending money on this kind of thing
:whatonearth: She is irrelevant to my daily life!
Wow. If you are worried about waste, I think you are picking on the wrong horse here, seems a little paranoid, a little petty really.
So many words about wasted funds. NSW How about 350 million on inner city failed transit plans.
How about 30 billion on the NBN (I'll allow 10 billion as perhaps the right amount to be spent)
How about 45 million Federal on soccer
We've 30+ at the moment i Mexica, 5 star junket for global warming
So we spend a bit on marketing with Oprah, he most famous women in the world,
I think Qantas is flying them for free, I'm sure most of the trip is paid for in some way or other.
This will be huge for us globally, she didn't go to Fiji, or China, or France, all of whom would pay millions more for her presence, even if they are broke (well, perhaps not China)
She is syndicated to around 100 countries.
Go and have a beer and rant to the television about something worthwhile.....
....... the cricket......
Gfeg
In the trade, we refer to her as 'she who sells books'!Quote:
Originally Posted by Lignum
Rumour is, she is either going to Philip Island to see the Penguins, or up to Sovereign hill. Hope it’s the latter as its only 3 blocks from my place and I know of a few good holes in the fence where I can get in. Would be great to say G`day and see if she wanted to come back and check my shed out. :D
Remember they speak a different language over there. Checking someone's shed out could mean an invitation to indulge in unspeakable acts.:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Lignum
Cheers,
Jim
I have no problem with spending millions on uncertain returns - as long as they're not my dollars. If there is going to be so much benefit for the tourism industry, let them spend their dollars. It's not the role of governments to spend our money on such chancy enterprises.Quote:
Originally Posted by silentC
Indeed, although some of the money did come from the budget of Tourism Australia.
I wonder what other industries have government sponsored advertising?
I would have rather seen the dudes from OCC when they were here......yeah I know, I'm a redneck. Getting off now:D
Not sure if you'd call it advertising, but Austrade is a government department set up to help exporters of all kinds, and to help people wanting to buy our goods and services. Their 2009/10 report shows they received around $200 million in direct funding, and another $200 million in grants that were issued to exporters. austrade.gov.auQuote:
Originally Posted by silentC
The Oprah bandwagon is with us now, and it's looking like a well-orchestrated plan to me. Groups of happy visitors fanning out across the country, with positive images of Australia that will be seen in over 100 countries, and by 40 million U.S. residents.
I'm not a fan of her TV show, but I still think this is an excellent promotion for Australia.
ajw
If she does agree to take a squiz at your shed Lignum, whatever you do don't offer her a XXXX ,years ago that was the brand rain coats the Yanks use to sell:D.
You will all get your chance to get square come the March elections,not that she has any great opposition(the premier I am referring to)
GREAT STATE :
TRANSPORT SYSTEM STUFFED
HEALTH SYSTEM STUFFED
HOSPITAL SYSTEM STUFFED
ROAD SYSTEM STUFFED,
anything I have missed?.
Dont worry about it we'll spend a million bucks put grass on the Harbour Bridge and all have a lovely picnic.What a wank!!!
At least in WA they are spending their money wisely new infrastructure, new railway stations,new roads etc etc
Not to worry mate at least it has been an interesting topic and we wont hold it against you.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lignum
Oh well, I will just have to stay content with the life size poster of her on my shed wall behind my workbench.:wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by munruben
Slim Oprah, or the other one?:UQuote:
Originally Posted by Lignum
One day I was selling in The Rocks Market and an american woman put an empty suitcase on my table and proceeded to fill it up with my woodwork !!! Large purchases are not unusual with wealthy americans (and lets face it if they are staying in a hotel in The Rocks they are wealthy). If they want it they can put it on the bottomless Visa and have it right now.
THATS why we are paying $3m. to get $100m. worth of free publicity in the states. If every shop/hotel/entertainment in Sydney/Bris/Perth/etc gets a few of those sort of customers...we get back (ballpark estimate) something like $200 for every $1 spent. And as much as their culture is hysterical and insane the individuals are really nice people.
That's gotta be a violation of "The Code" :D.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lignum
For a start, it's not free, is it? Second, how do you even come up with a number like that? Plucked out of the air I suspect. Finally, how does the "$100m worth of free publicity" translate into actual revenue in Australia? You can't tell me, nobody knows. They're still trying to work out if we broke even on World Youth Day.Quote:
THATS why we are paying $3m. to get $100m. worth of free publicity in the states.
$3m is small potatoes, hardly even worth raising an eyebrow over. But it's just one example of a government busily fiddling while Rome burns. Assuming we do reap all these benefits eventually, how much of the money that comes into the country through tourism will go towards the infrastructure that the government should be spending on? I'm sure the Melbourne family who lost their little boy last year as a direct result of under-funding in our local hospital will be thrilled to hear that local businesses and tourism operators will have a bumper year next year.
The trouble with infrastructure spending, (with all the goodwill in the world and the socialist deliberations behind well meaning thinkers), is that cash has to be generated within a society to pay for it.
Hospitals just don't get built or run without capital, neither do schools or the NBN on any Government paid or operated section of the community.
The money to pay from all these comes from taxes and Government investments.
And taxes are generated through business operations that generate profits, as well as taxes on employment itself and the GST. A bumper year would be great for taxes and infrastructure spending.
One industry that generates huge taxes through the GST, employee contributions and taxes on company profits is the service industry and the travel industry is a huge section of this.
Anything that can increase sales will generate GST and profits that will ultimately enable us to build the hospitals we need.
If we all sit and wait for things to happen in this world, we will all regress back to a subsistance lifestyle and there will be no services of any kind except those provided by soothsayers and medicine men.
Regards
Greg
See Monty Python "What have the Romans ever done for us ? -apart from roads, sewerage, bathing, writing...er money. Yair what have the Romans ever done for us ?"Quote:
Originally Posted by silentC
If I could get a dollars worth of petrol for three cents I'd be happy to call it free petrol.
Its true that the numbers are not precise they are generalised for public discussion. However we do have a lot of Austrade people counting visitors and dollars spent and free air time in the USA etc. Thats how we know that the "shrimp on the barby" campaign worked and the "where the bloody hell are ya" campaign didn"t. The second one was so obviously going to fail. Ordinary Americans hardly swear at all and are quite shocked by public swearing (No they don't watch gangsta rap).
Well yes but tourism's contribution to GDP has nearly doubled in the last 10 years but I don't see any improvements to infrastructure - quite the opposite. Ten years ago we had a fully operational surgical hospital. Today it is nothing more than an emergency department and nursing home.Quote:
One industry that ...
It all sounds good in theory, but I remain sceptical until one person comes forward and is able to say "the $200m we spent last year on tourism promotion has increased the net worth of the Australian economy by x". All the nice statements about GST and employee tax contributions mean diddly squat if we don't see some tangible benefit to the country as a whole.
Maybe part of the problem is that more tourism translates to more migration, which just puts more strain on the infrastructure. Do we really want Oprah Winfrey's audience (2% of the US population, mostly women over 55) retiring here? :)
Call it want you like, I'll bet the owner of the servo will still want his $1.80 for a tank full though.Quote:
If I could get a dollars worth of petrol for three cents I'd be happy to call it free petrol.
You've lost me with the Life of Brian reference? Are you saying tourism has brought us all those things? I suppose indirectly it was the original tourists who brought them. The locals rue the day they let them in :)
Regarding the advertising campaigns, unless you stand there with a clipboard and interview every person who walks through the turnstile and ask them why they came, you'd have no way of knowing how well an ad worked. The advertising industry has struggled for years to prove that it's methods actually work. In some industries it's probably relatively easy, but I suspect tourism is not one of them. You can't just look for a correlation in arrivals - there may be other factors. Currently half the world is in the grip of economic depression - arrivals must be down, does that reflect poorly on our promotion campaign?
I know this much: I've been overseas a number of times and I have never chosen a destination based on an ad. I suppose it might put the suggestion in your head if your casting about for ideas. I think most people who come here will have "always wanted to go down under".
It's all about brand awareness, it can be quantified and shown to have intrinsic value to growth.
But part of my beef with this whole thing, "Ohh, you are rich so you are important, let us shut down parts of a major city so you can walk the streets", as they :bowdown: and kiss :bartmoon:
:minigun: to that mentalaity to which 'we' now pander to. :~
Yes I understand that, but I'm sceptical about how that applies to a country in terms of tourism. I know the marketeers want us to think of the country as a "brand" and tourism as a "product". It makes the whole business sound so much more credible, doesn't it? Maybe they'll do an episode of The Gruen Transfer on it :DQuote:
It's all about brand awareness, it can be quantified and shown to have intrinsic value to growth.
I'm just as sceptical myself. I give my clients outcomes based on experience, never pull something out of your :bartmoon: as people aren't dumb.
The real winner is Oprah - her brand and her show, not Australia.
They probably will, the CEO from GPY&R will agree to it, the bloke from Ogilvy won't. I agree on the later probable. Spending client money is good so long as you can quantify and justify.
This discussion about the Oprah tour has me fascinated. I was aware that she is coming "down under" with a plane load of her viewers, as to when she is coming and where she is going I have no idea, I don't care. Apparently the government (Australian/NSW?) is tipping in some money ($3 mill?) and this has angered some Forumites as they cannot see any return for the money spent. Does the money the Government spend on the arts generate a profit - probably not, should the Government stop funding the arts - no. Just because you can't see a tangible benefit doesn't mean there isn't one. Consider the Australian National Gallery's 1973 AU$1.2 million purchase of Blue Poles, remember the stink that caused, worth close to $200 mill. now.
The money spent on Blue Poles or other such acquisitions by galleries has a much greater measure on return for expenditure. :2tsup:
I'll ask if Silent won't, prove it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Waldo
That's a bit of a stretch Grumpy John, comparing Oprah Winfrey to The Yarts!
You did yourself: "Australian National Gallery's 1973 AU$1.2 million purchase of Blue Poles, remember the stink that caused, worth close to $200 mill. now."Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumpy John
They could sell it tomorrow and build a new hospital! We can't sell Oprah Winfrey to the highest bidder, more's the pity. Maybe China would like her.
Grumpy, you can easily measure ROI in a gallery to the exhibitions they hold and compare footfall on previous exhibitions.
Pompei, The Titanic, Entombed Warriors etc. Did you go to any? If so, why and why not at another time when they had the usual stuff on display, for example coming up in April 2011 is 'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs', a returning exhibition I saw in Brisbane in '88, of which I will be going to.
I wasn't comparing people/art, I was comparing dollars spent and the public's reaction to the spending. Someone will always object to how the Government spends our money and if the Government listened and acted on all those objections nothing would ever get done. If it were Nelson Mandella coming for a lecture tour (health permitting) would you be objecting so loudly?
If someone says, I'm going to...!" and puts their hand out saying, "You pick up the tab", of course I object.
Be it the Queen or whoever, to me they are just a person like you or me, and I don't think they deserve anything more than you or I get.
Excellent point Waldo, yes I went to the Pompei exhibition because I SAW IT ADVERTISED, I was also extremely disappointed. Not going to the 'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs', going here instead, to see the real thing :D, also because I saw it advertised.Quote:
Originally Posted by Waldo
Tongue in cheek, Grumpy ;)Quote:
I wasn't comparing people/art
However, if Nelson Mandela did come here, he would deserve to be treated as a head of state, since he actually was one.
My objection though, and it is a minor one, is based purely on the principal of this type of spending, not on the amount or the personality.
I was too, that paying public were treated like cattle and were raced through the exhibition. An exhibition I saw many years ago in Brisbane about Dali - I spent 2 hours looking at one painting. :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumpy John
I was going to say that, yes without advertising you would not have known the exhibition was on, and that hopefully we don't rely on advertising to make people aware Australia exists... but then I remembered we are talking about Oprah Winfrey's audience, so yes I take your point :DQuote:
Excellent point Waldo, yes I went to the Pompei exhibition because I SAW IT ADVERTISED