About the campaign
On 23 May 2019 Tourism and Events Queensland together with Uber launched ‘scUber’ - the world’s first rideshare submarine on the world’s greatest natural wonder – the Great Barrier Reef. For a limited time only, scUber was available for visitors to explore and experience Australia’s Great Barrier Reef like never before. The once-in-a-lifetime experience was bookable through the Uber app, strictly subject to availability.
The scUber promotion aimed to reset the story on the reef and grow positive awareness by showcasing the diversity and dimension of this underwater world and was supported by an integrated marketing campaign across digital, out of home, social media, EDMs, influencers and PR.
The campaign was delivered in key western markets including Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada and France. Partnering with Uber gave TEQ unprecedented access to millions of loyal Uber customers to help tell the story of the Great Barrier Reef to global audiences. Great Barrier Reef holiday packages were also marketed through key distribution partners in these markets to support the campaign and drive visitation to Queensland. The campaign also included a consumer competition allowing one winner from each key western source market plus a friend to win a trip of a lifetime to the Great Barrier Reef and ride in the scUber.
SUMMARY
XCOM are proud to have designed and delivered this global campaign for Tourism and Events Queensland, and Uber. With a challenging timeline and evolving requirements from stakeholders, this campaign has been a fantastic success! Going out to an estimated global audience of 3.3 billion people and generating over 3,900 positive news stories about the reef's resilience and world-leading management.
- XCOM's design fused elements from the Tourism and Events Queensland, and Uber brand style guides to produce a beautiful and highly performant website; showcasing fantastic video and imagery of the reef and scUber vehicle.
- Ensured fast page load speeds through our architecture solution, using Amazon CloudFront to provide global edge hosting for the static content.
- Microsite and Competition architecture based around Nuxt.js static generated web pages using a Python API for dynamic behavior (high-volume competition entries and sending triggered confirmation emails).
- Dynamic Content handled via AWS Lambda functions (serverless compute services) - providing an incredibly scalable back-end, to handle millions of entries.
THE THINKING
XCOM Media designed and developed the scUber campaign microsite to introduce this world's first on the Great Barrier Reef. Uber and Queensland, Australia, gave riders the opportunity to explore the Great Barrier Reef in the world's first rideshare submarine, scUber.
From May 27 to June 17, 2019, this once-in-a-lifetime experience provided riders with an unfiltered view of an extraordinary underwater world, rich and diverse in marine life.
This hugely successful global campaign featured a competition component, along with promoting travel offers from global partners; 'how-to' sections for requesting a scUber ride when in Tropical North Queensland, and how best to explore the reef and get the most from your trip.
OBJECTIVES
Promote the Great Barrier Reef through a performant microsite - able to handle high-volume site traffic. Grow Tourism and Events Queensland's subscriber databases, across both domestic and key international markets with an appealing game of skill competition mechanic.
SOLUTION
The microsite featured pages about scUber, the competition component, how best to explore the reef, and travel offers from global partners. XCOM's robust and scalable competition technology could handle over 500 entries every SECOND, and sustain this for over 1.8 million entries per hour.
RESULTS
The initiative has generated almost 4,700 articles globally since its launch, with a potential reach of 4.7 billion and a global publicity value of more than $130 million. From the campaign website there has been more than 6,200 product clicks, including leads to retail partners offering Queensland holiday deals.
It's anticipated the campaign will help support an added 1.4 million visitors spending $1.8 billion over the next three years to the Great Barrier Reef.
- 3.3 billion estimated global audience
- 3,900 news stories generated
- 87% of total opt-ins were new subscribers
- 32% of total entrants were from the USA
- 500 entries per second and 1.8 million entries per hour