Filming two episodes of her series at the Sydney Oprah House, this will be the ultimate product placement deal in what is Oprah’s ultimate season.
The deal took more than a year to put together and is being hailed as the biggest achievement for Tourism Australia and the best marketing campaign since actor Paul Hogan ‘put a shrimp on the barbie’ during their ‘Come and say G’day’ campaign during the 80’s.
Tourism Australia and the NSW government have spent a whopping $3million bringing Winfrey Down Under and everyone’s after a piece of the action.
As one of the most influential people in America and most important celebrity in the world (according to Forbes magazine), you can recognise why! “The Oprah Winfrey Show” reaches 44 million viewers in the US alone, and screens in another 145 countries. Whatever she endorses almost invariably flies.
With this in mind you can understand how Oprah fever has spread across the nation. More than 3000 tourism products and services around the country have applied for a chance to be on the show and cash in on the Oprah effect. The Sydney Oprah House will even be renamed the “Sydney Oprah House” for the special taping of the shows in front of thousands of fans who will be in the audience.
It seems to be her generous nature and the extraordinary way she connects to her audience has been key to Oprah’s success and why she will undoubtedly be a superb ambassador for the country. For her Aussie Adventure she’s flying 300 viewers to Australia who would not ordinarily be able to do this one of a kind trip themselves.
On paper, this endorsement is set to provide hundreds of millions for the Australian Tourism industry. As a global phenomenon Oprah definitely has the potential to lift Australia’s profile and position it as a premier tourist destination. Millions of viewers obsessively watch her show and will buy, do, go anywhere she tells them – so in my opinion this is money well spent by the government.
Can Oprah save Australian Tourism? With her track record and as one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet, I’ll be amazed if she can’t!
