Going North’s Nina Fitzgerald and Tourism NT’s Emma Fraser have highlighted the importance of Australian marketers producing campaigns in real locations, portraying real people, and producing real emotion, in what they describe is an industry “craving real content”.
In the panel discussion at Cairns Crocodiles, presented by Pinterest, titled ‘Protecting Culture in the Age of AI’, the pair highlighted that although AI may be good at imitating aesthetics, it fails to capture real lived experiences or emotional depth, particularly when it comes to First Nations story telling.
Their message comes as Australians continue to encounter AI in creative work and campaigns, including instances where it’s been used to exploit cultural identity, religion, and First Nations heritage in highly controversial ways.
The recent ‘Bush Legend’ (or ‘Jarren’) social media series named ‘Bush Legend: Wildlife Stories and Facts’, is an example of this. The ‘educational’ videos portrayed an AI-generated Australian aboriginal avatar, created by Keagan John Mason, a white South African man.
The videos amassed nearly 200,000 followers across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, before drawing sharp backlash of cultural misappropriation and accusations of “digital blackface”.
Other examples include the use of AI-generated images to portray “Indigenous Australians”, but not accurately representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Some of these images also feature body markings that are “culturally meaningless”.
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“In a world that’s flooded with polished, AI-assisted, highly scripted content, what we’ve found in our marketing is that people are really looking for things that they feel are real, things that they feel are human and really authentic,” Tourism NT’s consumer marketing manager Emma Fraser told the audience.
“At Tourism and Events NT, we’re incorporating Aboriginal cultures into our traditional tourism marketing campaigns, and we will continue to do so in a really appropriate way.”
She said that while Tourism and Events NT had conducted several photoshoots across the Territory to promote cultural experiences, it felt something was missing.
“In a world that is really craving that real content, we wanted to engage even more with the people that held the stories and had ownership of these stories,” Fraser said. “We just thought to ourselves, ‘How can we do this?’ and we came to Going North about 18 months ago with this question.
“We asked them ‘Can you help us build on this trend of transformational travel that people want to, when they’re in region, they want to have a deeper experience, and they really want to engage with the cultures and the people that are living here.”
She said Going North “really delivered” on the problem – producing a video-led content series called ‘Real People, Real Territory’, which puts Aboriginal people and stories at the forefront.
“It’s unscripted, it’s unpolished and it’s really engaging.”
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One example, Fraser highlighted, was an episode featuring Dennis from Kakadu National Park.
Dennis, who guides the iconic early-morning and sunset river cruises on Yellow Water Billabong, is known for his infectious larrikin charm and deep local knowledge to every tour.
He shares deep cultural heritage, and teaches visitors about the region’s diverse birds, plants, and apex predators.
Going North’s director Nina Fitzgerald highlighted the importance of Dennis being “an actual tourism operator,” when featured in the campaign.
“He’s in Kakadu National Park, he talks, he’s himself, we’re not scripting him, he’s mumbling in half of that, he’s hard to understand, and it was like it’s hilarious going to work with these operators, it’s humbling,” she said.
“It’s really beautiful to be able to authentically share their stories, and you know, when you’re out there talking to these people and filming with them and working with them, I mean, beyond them being so proud to share their stories, like that’s an experience that AI can’t generate, you know.
“You can’t, can’t be out there, it can’t be feeling that, it can’t be out in Kakadu National Park, and then can’t convey the depth of the story.
“It’s really contemporary. Dennis isn’t necessarily speaking to these deep sort of cultural stories per se, but he’s an Aboriginal person, he’s representing culture, he’s talking to it when he’s on his tours, and we just can’t get that from AI,” Fitzgerald stressed.
The pair highlighted other successful campaigns where AI wasn’t used, including Tourism NT’s ‘Real People’, ‘Real Territory’ and ‘Love Letters to Alice’.
They also praised the ‘Bonds Red Centre’ campaign, where Bonds partnered with Tourism NT for a 2024 ‘Queens on Tour’ Pride campaign in the Red Centre, actively centring and collaborating with First Nations LGBTQIA+ creatives.
Both women highlighted the campaigns were success stories of work that was unscripted, people‑led, and grounded in genuine lives and communities, rather than “artificial polish”.
Fitzgerald added having visible diversity portrayed across the work was “so important”.
“That‘s another thing that AI can’t really do. It can’t replicate that or have the kind of depth of knowledge of all of those stories,” she said.
“I think the other importance about diversity in First Nations Australian stories is that it can feature and live in content – all kinds of content. There doesn’t have to be these specific First Nations zones and areas for it, because there is such a diversity of cultures, lived experiences, stories, and to be honest, they’re only just increasing and getting more exciting and more vibrant as cultures evolve and change.
“If AI homogenizes all that, that’s just taking away from this beauty and diversity that we have.
Fraser admitted “AI is an interesting tool” but highlighted the way it’s created is built on speed and efficiency.
“Whereas Aboriginal culture is built over many, many years, and over time. It’s about slowing down and learning, and really connecting emotionally,” she said.
“So, those values, I don’t think that’s something AI can capture correctly.”
