25 Jan “Selfie”: Targets Japan
Long before Instagram and Facebook and even longer before the advent of the local shop providing print processing, Australian tourists would routinely send off their snaps to a major processing lab to have them turned into slides or prints of their travels. At that same time, the Japanese outbound tourism was just starting to blossom. (It is not widely known, but currency controls in Japan were only eased in the late 1970s. So before this time, only business travellers could obtain the necessary foreign currency for their overseas travel. Relaxation of currency controls really helped kick start the Japanese outbound tourist boom of the 1980s.)
However, what was especially interesting was that typically the approach by Australian and Japanese tourists toward picture taking was quite different. Australian tourists took pictures of their travels and landscapes to bring back and share with their friends. These photos tended to concentrate on the scenery or the iconic object in the country they visited and typically did not include themselves in the scene. On the other hand, the comparable photos taken by Japanese tourists at that time all featured the Japanese traveler in the shot. For them it was important to be able to show their friends that they were standing at the very spot of the iconic tourism object or place.
Fast forward to the digital era and Australians have embraced the notion of proving “I was there” through a photo record. In typical Australian larrikin style, Australia has been credited with the word “selfie” to describe a photo you take of yourself often with a famous place in the background or a famous person in the foreground. (Here is an example of a selfie by Australia’s PM with Honda’s ASIMOV robot.)
Combined with US software and using Canon technology Tourism Australia developed a product called the “GIGA Selfie”. Targeting the young Japanese traveller segment for the Australian inbound market, this innovative product and associated campaign enables the tourist to be photographed at iconic Australian locations in a “selfie” which has an incredible zoom capability.
Don’t understand what a GIGA Selfie is? In 1 minute 30 seconds view this and become an expert.