Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion: Do Kokoda

Campaign

Do Kokoda

Client

Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority

Target Audience

Australia + Past trekkers

The Brief

To combat and balance negative media coverage and consumer perceptions of Papua New Guinea by leveraging the history and appeal of the Kokoda track and by reaching new audiences, using a content-led strategy and integrated campaign.

Idea:

GTI’s strategy for the Do Kokoda campaign was to create content, buzz and to build a dedicated website and community for Kokoda advocates.

With limited budget, GTI Tourism developed an idea that would incorporate content creation with a greater marketing, PR and trade campaign. The type of content that was developed had to be used across many platforms with different audiences.

The website was designed to be a platform to showcase Kokoda and our trade partners, providing consumers with a clear path to complete their purchase cycle. This strategy included campaigns to create user generated content, curated content with ambassadors and a competition element.

To promote Kokoda and also broaden the target market, celebrity ambassadors were engaged, selected to for their personal audiences that aligned with our own target markets, to trek Kokoda and allow us to develop content to be used across sales and marketing activities, to generate media coverage and to promote dokokoda.com.

Sam Newman and Garry Lyon from the AFL Footy Show and former beauty queens Laura Dundovic and Erin Holland were sent to trek Kokoda. Both pairs were specifically chosen to align with and target different segments of the trekking market.

The campaign also targeted past trekkers, working with trekking operators to encourage their clients to share their stories, images and experiences on dokokoda.com.