PlusOne – Marketing Musings

Tourism Queensland – the government agency that offered the worlds best job has another winner on its hands it seems with a promotion that offers holidays for only $1.

The secret for Queensland Tourism and the prize providers is that the holidays must be bid on in an on-line auction that naturally saw the starting price of $1 soon gone and higher bids lodged.

It also shows the foolishness or competitive spirit of some of the bidders.

Take the Stradbroke Island accommodation in a shack as an example. Within 90 minutes and 33 bids, the price had reached $551, despite the retail price of the package only being $442 (and probably available cheaper online).

Or the Port Douglas resort holiday ($1,050 bid price after 21 bids despite a retail price of $987).

I guess the only issue is that the retail prices were reached so soon after the bidding opened.

In terms of promotional exposure it was a flop. Maybe having bid increments of only 50c would have kept the fun alive the three days the bidding is open.

A further inducement would be to have nominated some charities to receive the bid price.

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