Fairfax Media’s digital content and data marketing campaign for South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) has taken travellers from dreaming to doing, delivering a $10 million economic impact to South Australia and a 6.7 times return on investment*.

The campaign drove brand awareness of South Australia and inspired travellers to visit the state to experience its wide range of destinations and attractions.

The creative execution featured a series of more than 200 native content articles, immersive touch-enabled digital magazines, quizzes and engaging videos within a dedicated environment on Traveller.com.au.

To view Fairfax Media’s SATC digital content marketing campaign, click here. To view the case study click here.

An engagement strategy with embedded Virgin Australia Holidays e-commerce modules increased reader interaction with holiday deals by 400 per cent**. Continuous, data-led optimisation of the campaign, along with retargeting to encourage further research into the state, allowed relevant content to inspire and engage prospective travellers along each stage of the purchase funnel, with advanced tracking of the campaign’s impact and holiday bookings.

The year-long campaign delivered a significant +18 per cent point increase in unaided top-of-mind brand awareness of South Australia as a travel destination, a 20 per cent point increase in brand favourability for the state, and a 32 per cent point increase in visit intention^.

Travellers who were exposed to the campaign became two and a half times more likely to visit South Australia (18 per cent up from 7 per cent)^^.

This campaign won the prestigious Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) Award for Marketing Excellence in the Tourism category last month.

“This unique digital content marketing and data-optimised campaign delivered an impressive return on investment for our client, by inspiring travellers to experience all that South Australia has to offer. It’s a reflection of our ongoing strategy to offer advertisers the opportunity to engage with their audiences through our range of market-leading, bespoke content solutions,” Fairfax Media commercial and marketing services director, Tom Armstrong, said.

SATC chief executive, Rodney Harrex, added, “The South Australian Tourism Commission partnered with Fairfax to tell South Australia’s tourism stories in a unique way through their network of online platforms. Fairfax’s audience insights team identified what messages worked, when and for whom they worked best, and amplified the content accordingly.

“Insights that identify the reasons people travel and why they travel to South Australia in particular are essential in developing tourism in our geography. Fairfax’s understanding and analysis of digital behaviours have provided us with a successful, unique approach to engage prospective travellers to South Australia.”

Virgin Australia Holidays general manager, Chad Howard, said, “Our partnership with South Australian Tourism Commission and Fairfax, coupled with compelling Virgin Australia holiday offers, really helped drive the audience from considering a holiday to South Australia, to booking one.

“The seamless integration from engaging storytelling to targeted offers has been a great success in increasing flight bookings to South Australia.”