The best job in the world

In 2009 Tourism Queensland faced a problem. Everybody knows the Great Barrier Reef but the islands of the region are unknown. Queensland wanted to create massive media attention around these islands and create international awareness.

Tourism Queensland sought a person to take care of Hamilton Island. The island is situated in the Great Barrier Reef. They put a job advertisement in all the newspapers around the world and waited for response. The ad stated that they sought a full-time island caretaker, the position had flexible hours and the job earned 150,000 AUSD in six months. The caretaker lived in a luxury home on Hamilton Island over-looking the Great Barrier Reef. There were only four things the caretaker had to do: explore the island, feed the fish, clean the pool and collect the mail. All the TV channels around the world picked up the news even CNN and BBC.

Ben Southall

If you wanted to apply for the job you had to make a 60 sec video and submit it to www.islandreefjob.com. 35.000 people from 201 countries applied for the job. From those 35.000 Tourism Queensland chose the 50 best videos then they went down to 16 finalists. The finalists travelled to the island for an interview for the best job.  The winner was Ben Southall, from the United Kingdom.

The campaign was funded with 1.2 million dollar ,at the end the islands of the Great Barrier Reef received worldwide media attention for over 150 million dollars.

The facts are clear enough, this is an excellent advertisement campaign. The campaign won the three top awards at Cannes Lions (Cyber, PR and Direct). It is a very original idea and the timing was right, we lived in a period of economic crisis and they offered the job everybody dreams about.