• Fast Company, Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:40 AM

A small tourism board promoting a little-known island off the Great Barrier Reef with a relatively paltry budget took home an unprecedented Grand Prix award in three categories -- direct, cyber and PR -- in Cannes last month. It also achieved stunning results, writes Rohit Bhargava, svp of Digital Strategy at Ogilvy PR. He formulates six lessons to be learned from the campaign.

"Best Job in the World" was essentially an online job search conducted through social media for a new "caretaker" for Hamilton Island in Queensland, Australia. Most marketers don't have the luxury of such a beautiful destination to peddle, but the success of this campaign had less to do with what was being marketed than with how social media was used to do it.

On top of everything else, Bhargava writes, the best thing about this campaign may be the content that's yet to come. The contest winner has just started blogging and sharing high-quality, engaging videos and photos, giving the promotion a very long shelf life.

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