Tourism Australia has dropped its controversial "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign and hired Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann to direct a cinematic TV ad which is launching tonight.
The ad, which could not be more different from its controversial predecessor, replaces a bikini-clad woman asking "Where the bloody hell are you?" with an Aboriginal boy urging a harassed city worker to "go walkabout".
Tourism Australia's TV campaign, which breaks on ITV1 and Channel 4 tonight, is part of a A$40m (£15m) global ad campaign that will run in 22 markets until the middle of next year.
The tourism body is spending a further A$10m globally on promotions around the launch of Luhrmann's forthcoming film, Australia, which stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.
Australlia tells the story of Kidman's character who "has lost her sense of self but who finds adventure, romance and her true self" when she visits the country.
Luhrmann previously directed Kidman in a lavish "mini-movie" TV ad as part of a £18m campaign for Chanel No 5 in 2004.
"We found that the film's story had a remarkable resonance for what we do marketing the country as a travel destination," said the managing director of Tourism Australia, Geoff Buckley.
The ad opens in a dark, rainy New York with a woman taking a call from her partner who says that they need a break. He tells the tearful woman that she works too much and is "not the same person I fell in love with".
In a dreamlike sequence, a young Aboriginal boy, Brandon Walters - who features in the movie - appears and tells the woman to "go walkabout" and find herself. She duly does this, swimming with her partner in a glorious Australian water hole. The ad ends with the strapline "Come walkabout".
"We've made that core storyline [of Australia the film] into two short film-like stories of contemporary people who are stressed and disconnected from their loved ones and their true selves, and who find their centre of release in Australia," said Buckley.
The UK is the first international market in which the ad campaign will run.
The campaign is ad agency DDB Worldwide's first work for Tourism Australia. DDB won the account, previously held by M&C Saatchi, in July.
M&C Saatchi's "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign sparked a minor diplomatic row when Australia's then-minister for tourism Fran Bailey accused the British of lacking a sense of humour after complaints that the campaign was offensive.
The ads were cleared to run in the UK by the Advertising Standards Agency, but only after an initial ban on the TV work was overturned.
In Canada, restrictions were imposed on airing the ad in family programming slots and in the US family groups complained about the use of the words "bloody" and "hell".
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