Tourism Australia Asks, ``So Where The Bloody Hell Are You?''; Cheeky
New Ad Campaign Set to Hit U.S. March 7

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 23, 2006--Americans have only a few
weeks to wait for their first glimpse of Australia's new international
tourism campaign, launched in Sydney Thursday by Small Business and
Tourism Minister the Hon. Fran Bailey.


Tagged with the unquestionably cheeky 'invitation' -- "So Where The
Bloody Hell Are You?" -- the campaign is already being hailed as a
worthy successor to the legendary 'Shrimp On The Barbie' ads of the
early 1980s.

The Australian launch sparked a light-hearted national debate with
newspapers asking if the use of a friendly Australian colloquialism is
appropriate for a government ad (according to Sydney Morning Herald's
online poll 54% found it cheeky).

The version for the U.S. market will be launched by Tourism Australia
in San Francisco on March 7, 2006 during a week of promotional
activities in support of the campaign and Australia's new direct
service to Sydney from San Francisco.

It will then appear on U.S. newsstands and on TV starting mid-March.

Tourism Australia Chairman, Tim Fischer, said the new campaign, which
builds upon the successes of the past, aims to increase the economic
benefits of tourism to Australia.

"This campaign is about increasing the dollars that we earn from
international tourism and encouraging the spread of tourists right
across Australia, especially for rural and regional areas. This is the
job that the Australian Government has tasked Tourism Australia to do
and this is the campaign that will deliver on that job."

Mr. Fischer said, "This is unashamedly a campaign about getting
international tourists to come to Australia. What matters most is what
potential visitors think and how we can get them to respond."

Tourism Australia Managing Director, Scott Morrison, said, "In an
increasingly competitive and tough commercial environment we must be
bold, aggressive and distinctive to win the business. But we also must
be credible -- we must be true to what we are as a destination and
focus on why the world loves us -- and our marketing must be
authentically and distinctively Australian."

Mr. Morrison said, "Tourism Australia has made an unprecedented
investment in making sure that we have done our homework on this
campaign.

"In total, 86 focus groups were conducted in our top seven tourism
markets, which make up 67 per cent of our inbound tourism business, to
develop and test this campaign.

"More broadly we have invested $6.2 million in the past eighteen
months through our brand tracking, segmentation studies, international
visitor studies, focus groups, and in-depth interviews, and through
these mechanisms have spoken directly to more than 47,000 tourism
consumers around the world to put this campaign together," Mr.
Morrison said.

"The research was firstly all about making sure we knew what we had to
achieve -- to get them to visit now, not just think we're great. We
then had to identify our target market, what we call the Experience
Seekers who possess the characteristics best suited to meeting
Australia's objective to increase yield and dispersal as they spend
twice as much and disperse three times as much as average travellers,"
Mr. Morrison said.

Mr. Morrison continued, "It was then about developing a campaign which
would have the desired impact in getting them to commit to holidaying
in Australia and then having the confidence that what had been
developed would work.

"Tourism Australia, and its predecessor the Australian Tourist
Commission, have been vigorously marketing Australia internationally
as a tourist destination for almost 40 years. Now that record levels
of awareness have been achieved the next step is to convert this
awareness into an actual intention to travel to Australia now.

"The proposition for the campaign, `Australia invites you to get
involved,' delivered through a uniquely Australian invitation of 'so
where the bloody hell are you?' captures the essence of Australia's
famous warmth and hospitality and provides a personal invitation to
share in the uniquely open Australian experience, defined by the
personality, lifestyle and environment of Australia.

"The tagline for the new campaign, 'so where the bloody hell are you?'
has been thoroughly tested in all of our major markets, in particular
Japan, UK, USA, Germany, China, New Zealand and South Korea and given
the green light by our customers -- they get it, it cuts through and
it delivers the invitation.

"While there are standard features of all executions in the campaign,
there are subtle variations for each market, through the use of
colloquial language translations and the inclusion of different sets
of experiences based on this research," Mr. Morrison.

In total there are eleven scenes that have been filmed and a further
thirteen still images, some of which are still in production, that
will be used across a broad spectrum of media including television
(cable and broadcast), cinema, print (magazine and newspaper) and
on-line. The imagery mix captures the diverse range of experiences on
offer in Australia and, through the common direction to australia.com
links the customer to a wealth of details on locations across
Australia.

Specific executions and combinations of executions have been tailored
for each market, within the framework of the campaign creative
concept, using the campaign's modular format. This tailoring has been
designed from the outset, to enable Tourism Australia to create a
campaign that is both globally consistent and locally relevant.

"This exciting new campaign provides a compelling and uniquely
Australian invitation to the world that celebrates our personality,
our lifestyle and our place. It has been carefully designed to cut
through the clutter and motivate international tourists to stop
putting it off and visit Australia now," Scott Morrison said.