How Destination Gold Coast Used Native Content to Shift Perceptions
The Gold Coast is synonymous with sunshine, long white sand beaches, School Holidays and Schoolies. Unfortunately this has presented a challenge for the Destination Gold Coast marketing team as it created a perception issue of the destination for a lot of different travellers.
Most Aussies’ perception of the Gold Coast is defined and reinforced through their early interactions with the destination. Trips to the area as kids as well as later trips for schoolies and similar have meant many visitors have lost sight and consideration of the wider breadth of travel opportunities in the area.
With many resorts and experiences full or highly visited during school holiday periods, DGC had to find new ways to drive visitation outside of peak times, particularly with the audiences of SINKS, DINKS and travellers without kids. To do this meant shifting the perception of the Gold Coast as simply a family holiday destination and highlighting the diverse range of experiences on offer to new audiences.
The Solution
Native content is ideal for shifting the perceptions of an audience as it leverages the advocacy of trusted publisher voices in contextually relevant environments. This means presenting a message to an audience from a publisher they trust, in an environment that they would expect to see it and more importantly, at a time that they’re actively seeking information and open to receiving recommendations. Using publisher voices helps create an urgency to travel by leveraging this authoritative position to audiences.
Across 4 campaigns with DGC we engaged 39 different publishers to produce native content that showcased the region’s versatility. We partnered with publishers to align to different passion points and focused on creating new reasons or ‘occasions’ to travel. This meant focusing on the solo traveller, romantic weekends, escaping the grind, getaways with friends, girls weekends and quick road trips which aligned to DGC’s wider marketing message.
By using native content, Destination Gold Coast was able to stand out in a visually cluttered market where they can often be drowned out in the sea of content created by other destinations. The content was placed where audiences were most receptive- during their planning stages, ensuring high engagement.The engaging editorials, immersive experiences, and high visual impact formats are ideal for the travel category, which is highly dominated by stunning visuals and social content.
Creating Brag-worthy Moments
The goal was to create ‘brag-worthy’ moments that would drive social proof and excitement about the Gold Coast. We focused on creating new ‘occasions’ to travel that were explored through a mix of emotive and informative content.
Educational itineraries were created by publishers that detailed and highlighted diverse activities. These itineraries were supported with emotive social content and articles that encouraged spontaneous trips, such as celebrating a birthday midweek or taking a workation. In doing so we were able to bring awareness and education to the 160+ cool but lesser known experiences that the Gold Coast has to offer.
39 publishers produced a whopping 370 pieces of content for the 4 campaigns. Each publisher targeted different audience segments with content skewed to the different travel occasions, ensuring personalised recommendations that resonated with each audience.
Phase 1: Amplifying the Brand Platform: Invitation to the Gold Coast
This phase invited Sydney and Melbourne audiences to create new Gold Coast memories. Each publisher crafted bespoke itineraries aligned with DGC’s PLAY pillars (adventure, friends, cuisine, romance, relaxation), designed to be educational and emotive, optimising attention time to shift perceptions of the Gold Coast.
Phase 2: Enhancing Engagement Through Lived Experiences
Building on insights from the first phase, we maximised engagement with socially-led, video-rich content. Publishers acted as influencers, documenting their Gold Coast experiences through face-to-camera videos and interactive articles, driving measurable engagement and clicks to vendor sites.
Phase 3: Showcasing Wellness, Nature, and Soft Luxury
This phase aimed to highlight the Gold Coast as a destination for wellness, nature, and soft luxury. Trusted publishers were used to tell stories through premium long-form content and video, expanding the narrative and experience of the Gold Coast beyond its known appeal.
Phase 4: Introducing Sneeky Mid-Weeky
Targeting Sydney and Melbourne TWOKS (Travellers Without Kids), this brand platform promoted midweek getaways to the Gold Coast to help with the mid-week visitation slump
Using the “Sneeky Mid-Weeky” brand platform overtly in the headlines to increase awareness and hook the audience in. Through a mix of articles, social media, video, and EDM content highlighted the benefits of midweek trips, such as celebrating birthdays, taking days in lieu, workations, and romantic escapes, all tied to DGC’s PLAY pillars.
The Results
The campaign delivered exceptional results. 370 content pieces produced by 39 publishers that targeted diverse segments and significantly increased awareness. The content dwell time and interaction rates exceeded benchmarks, with high levels of positive sentiment. There was over 18,000 hours of attention spent consuming the content and a significant increase in consideration and bookings for the Gold Coast outside of peak times.
By guaranteeing content engagement with minimum levels of impressions, views, or clicks, we gave Destination Gold Coast confidence in the campaign’s success. Our focus on optimising for long attention and dwell times, using our targeting and amplification engine insights, ensured that the audiences most likely to engage with the content were reached. This approach provided valuable insights back to Destination Gold Coast, further informing our strategy for each subsequent phase of the campaign.
This illustrates the impact of native content in the travel industry, highlighting how personalised, engaging and emotive content can effectively shift perceptions and drive results. Native content, combined with strategic publisher partnerships has proved to be a powerful tool in transforming the Gold Coast’s image and driving meaningful engagement