The best online PR campaign in the world

I must confess myself in awe of the PR campaign that saw the UK’s Ben Southall installed as winner of Tourism Queensland’s ‘Best job in the World’ competition. The agency Hill Balfour Synergy had a very small budget yet  managed to create enormous worldwide coverage.

The real cleverness of it, beyond the initial concept seems to lie in the second stage where candidates were asked to submit a promotional video to a voting site and carry out their own publicity. The leading competitors in each country were given some PR advice over the phone it seems and encouraged to ring up radio and tv stations to campaign for votes.

Queensland could then pretty much sit back and watch the thing  grow – and how. A deserving winner of the PR Grand Prix Lion at Cannes and proof that with online PR, success is more about the idea than the budget.