A R32 million three-year advertising campaign to promote Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg is in the pipeline, if the three city tourism bodies approve their contribution of R8 million each to the campaign, reports the Daily News.

Designed by controversial Cape Town Tourism’s Australian Strategetic Consultant Ian Macfarlane, the campaign is said to be flighted on Discovery (a client of Macfarlane, as we reported previously, but not mentioned by the newspaper) and on National Geographic channels, with ‘billions of TV viewers’.   The viewership figure is widely exaggerated, Wikipedia reporting that Discovery Channel has 431 million and National Geographic Channel 160 million viewers internationally.

The Daily News refers to Macfarlane’s ‘success with tourism ventures in New Zealand, Australia and Abu Dhabi’. We have previously written about the failure of Macfarlane’s Tourism Australia campaign.  The campaign is said to start in April 2012, meaning that it will not benefit the tourism industry for summer at all.  While it would be noble for the timing of the campaign to address seasonality that Cape Town suffers from specifically, it could be a failure if flighted only in our winter months.

Discovery Channel is said to make an hour-long movie about South Africans’ lifestyles, and National Geographic will produce a 30-minute programme.  For Durban, the joint campaign would counter the loss of 1,9 million tourists in the last five years, translating up to R2 billion, the article reports. SA Tourism will also be requested to contribute R8 million to the marketing campaign.

Information about the presentation by Macfarlane to Durban Tourism about the new joint marketing campaign appeared in The Mercury too last week, but no reporting about the approval of the funds has been seen in Cape Town and Johannesburg-based media, nor national media.  The Mercury listed Macfarlane’s experience with the ‘Pure New Zealand‘, the failed Tourism Australia campaign, his association with Gold Coast Tourism, and marketing for Sydney and Abu Dhabi.  It also mentions campaigns for Auckland and India, which did not appear on Macfarlane’s Strategetic Consultants’ website (and surprisingly contains no information about the consultancy anymore), nor can they be found on a Google search. In The Mercury, Macfarlane is quoted as saying that Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban are not well known globally. He is also said to have expressed the view that SA Tourism’s marketing of the country is focused around the ‘Big Five’ and natural beauty, when 78% of the world’s tourists are ‘urban travellers’. His criticism of the marketing by SA Tourism is interesting, given that SA Tourism is expected to be one of the four funders of the joint city marketing programme. Macfarlane said:“Our campaign through this three cities joint tourism marketing initiative aims to put South Africa’s three top urban hubs in the global spotlight. We have negotiated agreements with major channels such as National Geographic and Discovery, which will see a dedicated programme created for Durban, Cape Town, and Joburg (sic)“, interesting in that the agreement has been negotiated  without clarity of funding from all four the parties. “It’s an unbelievable package that we have negotiated and an opportunity that should not be missed. I am optimistic the cities will secure the funds and hope SA Tourism will come on board”, he concluded.  Macfarlane added that the cities would get more than R32 million in value from the proposed programme.

Today Cape Town Tourism reveals to its members its advertising campaign, designed by its advertising agency Ogilvy Cape Town.

POSTSCRIPT I7/10: I spoke to Phillip Sithole, CEO of Durban Tourism, who was featured in the articles, after trying to reach him six times during the day.  Each time he made me call back.  He was evasive in providing further detail, saying that the campaign is still confidential.  He did not know which of the cities have had their contribution to the campaign approved, and said that they were meeting SA Tourism next month, to discuss it with them.  He said that each city was to get an hour-long programme, which would be flighted regularly over the three year period.  He emphasised the Lifestyle content of the programme, focusing on the urban lifestyle each city offers, including restaurants, entertainment, events, accommodation, education, music festivals and more.  Coverage would not only be on the TV channels but also in the affiliated magazines of the channels.  He became very agitated and defensive when I asked him if he knew about the failure of the Tourism Australia campaign, saying that failure was good, and meant that Macfarlane would have learnt from it!  He said that he believes in the proposed campaign, and supports it.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage