Podcasting reveals Tassie’s cultural side – using social media to change out-dated perceptions

Tasmania is famous for devils, salmon, apples, and unspoiled wilderness. But a cultural mecca? Probably not. But that perception is changing thanks to an innovative marketing campaign with podcasting at its heart, created for Tourism Tasmania.

Keen to leverage the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s recent performances in Sydney, Barking Owl (the PR agency for Tourism Tasmania) was looking for an unusual, cost-effective, way to promote Tassie’s cultural heritage.

The solution we created for them was a travel-show podcast, which reflects the orchestra, its place in the Tasmanian community, and the reasons visitors should travel to Tasmania to hear it play.

We felt it was important to be flexible about the content and wanted the orchestra and its friends to speak for themselves. Working from a script would sound stilted. So we located ourselves in Hobart, having developed an outline of the sort of things we wanted to be covered. Then, working from an initial target list of people, we started interviewing. Thinking on our feet, our interview list continued to grow as we sought a variety of opinions and personalities.

Back in the editing suite we had a lot of raw material from which we could tell our story and create a concise entertaining program.

The results? An engaging podcast that sounds relaxed and human while highlighting Tasmania’s cultural offering; a happy client; and an on-going series of podcasts.

You can find the Tasmanian podcast series here.

This project was undertaken by the ZEST Digital team, previously trading as Breakaway Content.