kwp! strikes back!

While everyone else was pissing and moaning and having a dummy spit over the SA Tourism account heading east, kwp! were apparently getting on with business, finding a new tourism account to replace it. And replace it they have with the Tourism NT account they pitched for in September.

Adelaide agency kwp! has an office in Darwin, and not just one they opened to win this account – they actually opened it up back in January 2017. Back then, MD John Baker explained that it was most obvious place to open given its similarities to Adelaide.

Speaking of similarities, is it at least a little bit hilarious that back in 2016, Tourism NT had a ‘Guess Where?’ campaign which sounds not altogether unlike part of the campaign we saw recently from SA Tourism via their new agency TBWA? Anyway, back to the news.

In addition to doing whatever else it is they do up there, they’ll now be the lead agency on the Tourism NT account for two years, a win kwp! CEO David O’Loughlin was obviously pretty stoked about. “We are excited to be working with such an iconic Australian brand and destination and look forward to implementing our full skillset and experience to deliver fully integrated communications for the Territory.”

ECD Corey Swaffer, who will no doubt be looking forward to visiting Uluru instead of the Flinders Ranges, also seemed pretty happy with himself when he said “The Territory is a unique product that offers an experience no other Australian destination can compare with”. (We’re pretty sure he’s talking about South Australia when he says that.) “So expect creative that is impossible to ignore, designed to get more visitors to the Territory.”

And while we’re happy for kwp!, we’re also happy for South Australia, because even though they genuinely have an NT office, our guess is a big chunk of the work will get done out of SA so fist bumps and high fives all round.

Whether or not the agencies in NT are having a sook over this, is anyone’s guess. (As far as we can tell, back in 2015 no less than 16 agencies were appointed to the account. Apparently Publicis’s Mojo were in there handling creative with Balance Marketing from Melbourne, with Darwin-based design studio Boab Design in the mix, along with Sydney-based Common Ventures, who may still be hanging in there on “Specific creative projects” whatever that means.)