Case study: Best job in the world, Tourism Queensland

The 'Best Job in the World' campaign, a global search for a 'Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef' six month contract was launched in January 2009 and became an overnight success.

“It was a project for a Government client that brought its own certain complications. And it was also a project with a very small budget of $1 million,” McColl explained. "We developed a campaign that was built around small space ads. There was then a job application process to follow. It took us three-months to convince the Queensland Government to run a job application."

"The financial crisis worked in our favour because everybody wanted another job," said McColl.

Among those vying to be paid to swim with turtles and stroll along pearly white beaches are an Olympic equestrian gold medallist from Switzerland, an Italian doctor, an ex-British Army commander and a teenager from England who is sick of the cold.

The video clips, downloaded to a dedicated website, www.islandreefjob.com, demonstrate the lengths to which candidates are prepared to go. One shows an Australian woman entering a tattoo parlour and emerging with a four-inch tattoo on her arm, stating: "I (heart) islands of the Great Barrier Reef."

More than 34,000 applications from almost 200 countries were received with the UK's Ben Southall announced as the Island Caretaker in early May. Over US$350 million in media coverage was generated.