A quirky Northern Territory tourism commercial with a surprise twist has been named one of the most watched YouTube ads in the country.

Tourism NT’s ‘It’s About Time…Do the NT’ tourism commercial took out 6th spot on YouTube’s Australian leader board for the Top 10 most watched ads for the third quarter of the year.

The YouTube leader board rankings are calculated using an algorithm that factors in paid views as well as organic views and view rate, meaning how much of a video people chose to watch.

“This is an incredible achievement for our It’s About Time campaign,” said Tourism NT Director of Domestic Marketing, Tony Quarmby.

“The rankings for the Australian leader board take into account organic video views as well as those views which came from a paid ad so to make the Top 10 with such a small budget for our commercial is phenomenal. It shows our story really impacted with viewers and compelled them to watch the commercial from start to finish.”

Coca-Cola topped the list with its commercial ‘Remove Labels this Ramadan’, which saw Coke remove its branding from cans of soft drink in the Middle East to encourage people not to judge one another. A global ad for the Lexus Hoverboard claimed second spot while the popular Air New Zealand 'Men in Black Safety Defenders' clip featuring the All Blacks rugby players rounded out the top three.

The Northern Territory’s ‘It’s About Time’ commercial features ordinary people in their everyday lives reflecting about older relatives and loved ones who have “Gone to a better place” before the better place is revealed to be the Northern Territory.

Mr Quarmby said it’s this healthy dose of Northern Territory sense of humour that helped the ‘It’s About Time’ commercial stand out from the crowd.

“The commercial breaks the mould of normal tourism ads and makes people sit up and take notice. The closing tagline: Go now, regret never creates a sense of urgency and encourages viewers to book a holiday to the Northern Territory before they run out of time,” he said.

The ‘It’s About Time’ commercial was produced by Tourism NT in partnership with creative agency Common Ventures and local Darwin production company, Simon Says TV.

The commercial was an extension of Tourism NT’s ‘Do the NT’ marketing campaign, which was named the year’s most effective advertising campaign in the category of Travel, Leisure and media at the Australian Effie Awards.

The ‘Do the NT’ marketing campaign is credited with helping a 5.8 per cent increase in domestic visitors to the NT last financial year to 456,000. 

Watch the ‘It’s About Time…Do the NT’ commercial here: https://youtu.be/Km2DxCyWNyU

ENDS

Media Contact: Lisa Andrews, Corporate Media and Communications Manager +61 401 115 634