Prized Tourism WA account heads to Melbourne-based Cummins & Partners

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ExperienceExtraordinary099.jpgAfter a protracted tender process, which began in January this year, Tourism WA has awarded its account to Melbourne-based Cummins & Partners. The agency has been appointed to all aspects of the account tendered – digital, experiential and brand.

Tourism WA values the business at more than $17m over 5 years, although that figure is believed to include media, which comes under the WA Government master media contract. The media account is currently handled by OMD.

Cummins & Partners CEO Sean Cummins is no stranger to tourism marketing. His former agency, Cummins Nitro (now Sapient Nitro), created ‘The Best Job In The World’ campaign for Tourism Queensland out of its Brisbane office in 2009. The campaign won a slew of awards around the world, including 3 Grands Prix at Cannes.

StephanieBuckland_sml.jpgTourism WA Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Buckland (pictured) said Cummins & Partners was selected from a competitive field because of its outstanding submission which demonstrated the agency’s strong strategic approach, creative thinking and execution.

“The tender panel found cummins&partners showed a high level of strategic and creative thinking along with an in-depth understanding of the tourism sector, Tourism WA’s brand and our core target markets.”

“We need to ensure our marketing activities are reaching our target markets and working with a leading agency, such as cummins&partners, will help us better communicate the many benefits of travelling to WA to those markets.”

 Besides its Melbourne base, Cummins & Partners also has offices in Adelaide and New York.

The appointment is a blow to local agencies, which went into the tender with high hopes of bringing the account back to WA. However, Campaign Brief understands no local agencies made it through to the final round and nor did Host, the incumbent of five years, which created the current ‘Experience Extraordinary’ positioning.