Background
Tourism Queensland® is a tourism development and marketing organization owned by the Queensland state in north-eastern Australia. Since its establishment in August 1979, it has been promoting Queensland’s tourism destinations nationally and internationally in partnership with industry, government and the community.
registered its best-known slogan
as Australian trademarks No.
595988-595996
(ipaustralia.gov.au)
Trademarks
Tourism Queensland (TQ) pioneered the destination marketing approach in Australia, highlighting the many unique visitor experiences on offer in Queensland and working alongside a network of regional tourist organizations to support destination marketing and development. The organization is run like any top marketing entity, measuring success in terms of consumer recognition of the products it markets. It is this product based approach which makes TQ’s portfolio of registered trademarks so critical to its operations.
“Before 1992, we really did not understand the value of intellectual property (IP) protection. We had been running our ‘Beautiful One day, Perfect the Next’ campaign for some time and developing other branding, before we came in touch with a trademark specialist with a patent attorney firm here in Brisbane”, says the organization’s CEO.
The trademark attorney moved quickly to ensure that only one party – Tourism Queensland – could call these valuable assets their own. Essentially, his aim was to provide a legal monopoly over the logos and phrases which Australians and overseas tourists were increasingly associating with Queensland.
“Beautiful One Day – Perfect the Next”, “Where else but Queensland”, “Central Queensland – Take a real holiday”, “Queensland's Outback – Adventure out there”, “MACKAY - More than meets the eye!”, “Sunshine Coast since 1966 – Find your space”, “Tropical North Queensland – Change Your Latitude”, "Where Australia Shines" and Tourism Queensland’s own logo featuring the stylized “Q” are all registered across a variety of classes with IP Australia. The marks are also registered in several other countries.
“Now our trademark attorney is brought into the early stages of all new brand and campaign development. We make sure we have watertight protection and ownership, then we go out to the public with it. I think we are pretty innovative in this way, but it's quite natural once you realize just how valuable your intellectual property is”, TQ’s CEO notes.
strategy taking Queensland marketing into the future
(© Tourism Queensland)
Business Results
Tourism Queensland is a global leader in destination management employing well over 100 expert staff in their network of tourism offices across the country and overseas.
The organization has won countless awards from international film and video competitions, the Australian advertising industry and the tourism industry. The recent much-publicized “Best Job in the World” campaign won the prestigious Direct and PR Lions Grand Prix at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes and contributed to further raising Queensland’s name recognition globally. It is estimated that until June 2010, the campaign had generated an estimated AU$ 410 million worth of media exposure for Queensland domestically and internationally
IP as Frontline Marketing Tool
Associating catchy trademarks with the different destinations promoted by Tourism Queensland has proved the ideal marketing tool for this complex and successful organization, making its destinations and brands widely known: just tell any cabbie, anywhere in Australia, that you have just arrived from Queensland. Chances are your cabbie will lock eyes with you through the rear-view mirror and state, “Beautiful one day, perfect the next”.
