Australian actress Rose Byrne has jumped into character to voice an animated souvenir kangaroo as part of an international tourism campaign.
As the first world-wide tourism campaign in six years, Tourism Australia has gone all out with the $125 million advert – which features an animated kangaroo called Ruby (voiced by Byrne) and a little unicorn called Louie, voiced by Canadian-American actor Will Arnett
The premise of the advert is about the stuffed roo named Ruby going on an Australia-wide search to find Uluru. The coast to country adventure hopes to inspire international visitors to plan their own Outback escape.
With majority of the filming taking place in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, the televised ad shows off some of the most recognisable locations around the country.
“This global tourism campaign is a critical step to rebuilding our visitor economy and supporting our tourism industry, which has been through the most challenging period in recent years,” Minister for Trade and Tourism, Senator Don Farrell, said.
“Come and Say G’day is an iconic Australian welcome, and the use of some of the most recognisable and stunning scenery will remind the world why Australia is the best place to take a holiday.”
Tourism Australia’s managing director, Phillipa Harrison, said it’s been such a challenging time for the industry and the new $125 million campaign brings an “uplifting take” to the world stage.
“After a challenging time around the world, our uplifting and joyful campaign will stand out in what is a highly competitive international tourism market,” she added of the campaign. which will be officially launched in New York on Thursday.
The teaser for the campaign, which was released last week, initially received some criticism.
“We just need to continue to innovate and be more and more creative to cut through with consumers,” chief marketing officer of Tourism Australia, Susan Coghill, told Mumbrella of the new animated brand ambassadors.
“We know that our consumers in market are engaging with this. We know that things like animals and believe it or not, animated characters actually do pull through as very strong devices.
“We know the interaction between the two characters is working really well, and they come back saying the potential for turning them into longer-term brand characters is really high.
“As much as I know that in Australia we have 25 million stakeholders with an opinion, the best thing I could do really is also to focus on our international high-yielding travellers who we need to get to come to Australia and ultimately spend, because that is what helps our tourism industry, which helps the economies around them and our national economy.”
The film will be playing on YouTube and international media channels from this week.