AUNZ Work of the Week: Destination NSW and Leo Australia

People associate Sydney with icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. But once they’ve seen them, according to research conducted by The Lab, there’s a sense that Sydney doesn’t really offer anything that different from other Australian cities. Which poses quite the challenge for a tourism campaign attracting other Australians to Sydney. And necessitates resisting tropes like grand drone shots of the harbour.

Leo Australia’s latest instalment of the ‘Feel New’ platform for Destination NSW puts a new spin on Australia’s most recognisable city, and swaps kangaroos and shrimp on the barbie for some of Sydney’s lesser known icons – think the Blue Mountains, the vibrant local food scene, and the Sydney Marathon (recently names the seventh World Major).

Shot beautifully, the films are very restrained when making use of talent like Olympian Jess Fox and ultra-marathon runner Nedd Brockmann, treating them as subtle cameos rather than hitting viewers over the head with who they are and why they make an appearance. It’s this kind of light touch that works in a campaign designed to attract domestic, versus international, tourists.

Where the campaign really shines, though, is the out-of-home. The brightly-coloured images feature faces quite literally bursting at the seams with ideas of how to explore Sydney. Eye-catching and full of little details, you find something new every time you look.