Odd Jobs

Client: Tourism Tasmania

Sitting alone at the bottom of the world, nestled just below the Australian mainland’s south-east coast, is the tiny island state of Tasmania. Boasting the freshest air on the planet, with a world-class culinary, art, and cultural scene and wildlife famous the world over, Tasmania’s economy is reliant on year-round visitors. Yet in the quiet dusk of winter Tasmania struggles to compete with warmer destinations.

In 2024, with its drawcard winter festival on hiatus, Tasmania was left searching for a famous idea that would convince sun-loving Aussies to venture somewhere colder between May and August. Tourism Tasmania tasked Havas Red to develop an integrated PR campaign that would increase consideration and position Tasmania as Australia’s anti-ordinary winter destination with a breadth of unique offerings and experiences. The idea needed to wake up Aussies in winter and embed Tasmania in culture. And it needed to place local tourism operators at the centre. Parsing through hundreds of offerings, we narrowed down a list of 10 iconic and unique experiences that we knew would garner mass attention. With that, the idea of “Odd Jobs” was born – turning Tasmania’s quirkiest winter offerings into jobs that anyone could apply for. With that, it was time to invite Australians to “swap their day job for an Odd Job”. The Odd Jobs campaign became an instant media and social viral sensation that whipped a frenzy around the world, placing the tiny island of Tasmania on the global tourism and cultural map.