Young Endeavour

A proud and important national youth program made relevant to a new generation.

BRIEF

To re-position and reinvigorate Australia’s leading youth development scheme, as a more contemporary brand and one that would appeal to a more contemporary, broader audience than its historic ‘White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant’ base.

SOLUTION

A strategy built around the idea that ‘real adventures make real heroes’ underpinned our plan and was used as a challenge to the target audience.

The new positioning was executed through a disciplined media relations strategy, a new, engaging television advertisement and a complete re-working of the scheme’s online presence. We also recruited the high profile solo sailor, Jesse Martin, to be the face of the ballot campaigns.

We remade an old ‘grand sailing’ TV commercial to look more like a video game, and cut it to the pace of a dance track.

The Young Endeavour received unprecedented positive media attention throughout the course of the two ballot campaigns. Applications for the ship’s voyages increased dramatically and the proportion of application made online rose to represent 90% of the total – a reversal of what it had been, and a move which dramatically reduced the cost of running voyage ballots.