Bucket loads of tourists

OPINION: Google suggests that good businesses are run by their customers and we should talk to real people first and last, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

So I tried a tourism promotional idea on my mate from Winton.

"Who would you find more convincing in a TV ad promoting Australia's attractions an Aussie blonde in a bikini or a bloke from Waikawa in a woolly shirt?"

"The blonde."

"But she's just a TV model paid to read a script. Why would you believe what she says?"

"Who would believe anything from a guy stupid enough to wear a woolly jumper on a hot Australian beach?"

Clearly, my mate was not thinking like Google, which knows that the age of glossy advertising is over, and people want to hear the opinions of real people like themselves. And that's why Tourism NZ had us setting up a TV unit in a truck outside the museum to film ordinary Aussies raving about their Southland holiday.

"But won't the Aussie sheila freeze her bits off in the bikini in Southland?"

It took me some time to convince my mate from Winton not to travel to the museum the next day because there would be no Aussie model in a bikini.

Sadly, he was right about one thing freezing the bits off, and then it poured. Instead of attracting tourists to the camera, my fully kitted pipe band had to play inside the museum, drawing the crowd away.

The film crew were going blue and wanted to pack up.

They'd had only four people through, one less than their worst ever day at Palmerston North.

"We have to beat Parmy!" I yelled, heading for the museum armed with Seriously Good Chocolates.

I've never been so popular and the chocolates were gone before I found an Aussie.

Desperate, I convinced a family of Queenslanders to brave the weather and come on camera. Signing up under the sagging awning we discussed the drought in Queensland when the awning ripped and 50 litres of water gushed inside.

I recalled a line from the Google bible: "Your worst customer is your best ally."

And it proved to be true despite everything the Aussies went on film to rave about Southland.

Now that's authentic effective advertising even though, as I tried to explain to my mate from Winton, there was no Aussie blonde in a wet bikini.

» Gerry Forde is the Venture Southland regional identity brand manager.

- © Fairfax NZ News