FarOut!

Outback Queensland has been seeing a steady decline in population over the past several years, with people moving to bigger regional hubs or cities. This has resulted in the need to fill jobs for important services such as trades, health, essential jobs, etc. to support the existing community. The region has faced many negative perceptions of what life may be like, however the lives of those people who live there told a much different story. We needed to find a way to uncover and portray what CWQ had to offer, and sell that to the outside community.

The client came to us seeking 3 separate RAPAD-branded websites (working, living, investing). We approached the challenge by instead creating a new branded campaign and single digital platform, as we found all three pillars had similar goals and target audiences. By traveling to the region and meeting the people, we were able to distill what made CWQ special, and what it could offer people who may have never considered it as a place to live. We recently launched a subsequent digital campaign, driving traffic to the website and creating awareness for the brand.

This project continues to be an ambitious campaign for Central West Queensland. Since its launch, the organisation has received many enquiries from people wanting to live, work, as well as invest in CWQ. The FarOut! brand pushes the boundaries of typical council/government campaigns, encouraging others to try new approaches like this, and to break away from typical messaging, imagery, and design regarding the outback. The campaign recently gained traction with the ABC, resulting in over 200,000 people viewing the content in a 48hr period. This has since got the attention of other large organisations who want to be involved.

While we faced a creative challenge in developing the FarOut! brand, our client (RAPAD) faced a real, life-impacting problem where their communities were slowly disappearing, and they needed to change the old-way approaches of trying to bring people in that hadn't worked in the past. We felt the only way to gain the understanding required to create and impact was to travel to, and around, the vast region, and speak to the people who's stories would ultimately help build the brand. The "FarOut!" brand came about simply as a double-meaning; CWQ is geographically far away, but also people would often be shocked when they found out about the opportunities and lifestyle that were on offer, hence: "far out!" This presented a bit of a unique challenge for us, as it was something very different to what our client and other organisations similar to them would do, especially for a government-funded project. But as we worked through it with them, they realised it was necessary to challenge the status-quo, and to try something different. Ultimately this has worked very well in their favour, with their target audience responding strongly to the campaign, but also championed by the people in CWQ.