It's A Great Place to Get Wrecked
"Great Keppel Island. It’s a great place to get wrecked" was the catchphrase of one of the most successful tourism campaigns of the 1980s.
It was a quasi call-to-action that played directly into the imagination of the target age group — 18 to 25 year olds.
This was not the first advertising campaign which TAA undertook to promote Great Keppel Island to younger Australian travellers.
Risqué Advertising
The first campaign was undertaken in 1974 and the interesting thing about the campaign and brochure was that the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau (QGTB) refused to display it in their retail outlets nationally.
It was viewed as far too risqué for its time.
Working with TAA Travel Services Manager Wally Franklin, the iconic tagline was created and renowned advertising photographer Bob Bourne took the photographs.
There was also an additional line, "Just another victim of Great Keppel Island".
This promoted the literal sense of getting wrecked, as shown in one poster where a tanned young man is writing "HELP" into the golden sand.
Ian Williams was Queensland Sales Manager for TAA at the time and worked closely with the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau.
The campaign quickly became a media issue.
Can your body take it?
The success of the campaign was a collaborative effort between TAA Resorts, the advertising agency, its creative team, and photographer John Gollings.
During the early 1980s TAA switched to advertising agency D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B).
The team included Account Director Beverly Easton, Art Director Michael Cartwright, Creative Director and writer Dale Stevens, and photographer John Gollings.
The campaign was relaunched using the existing tagline: "Great Keppel Island. It’s a great place to get wrecked."
Promotional brochures asked: "Can your body take it?"
"This is the place everyone talks about. Australia’s famous resort with the reputation offers the ultimate holiday challenge to anyone who thinks they can survive a week of getting wrecked."
The double entendre conjured daydreams of being cast ashore on a tropical beach, while also promising a hedonistic paradise where getting wrecked meant partying day and night.
Coupled with photographs of glamorous twenty-somethings enjoying the beach and sea, the southern Great Barrier Reef resort was presented as the ultimate holiday destination.
During the shoots, TAA Resorts executives were on location and actively involved in the creative process, allowing immediate approval of photography.
Ian Williams, then TAA Resorts Marketing and Public Relations Manager, had previously worked with John Gollings on other resort campaigns and appreciated his ability to work effectively with talent and understand the client brief.
Cheeky Marketing
The local press provided TAA with extensive free advertising by running articles about the posters and brochures.
The Queensland Tourist and Travel deputy chairman was far less impressed and publicly stated: "Great Keppel and TAA should be ashamed of themselves".
A key reason for the campaign's popularity was the inclusion of more risqué photographs in sealed sections within the November 1984 editions of Cleo magazine and Penthouse.
Williams arranged for writers from each magazine to create their own editorial-style copy about "getting wrecked" on Great Keppel Island.
This maintained continuity with the tone and writing style of each publication, making readers feel they were seeing editorial content rather than traditional advertising.
It was an innovative use of sealed magazine sections, which until then had largely focused on intimate relationship content.
Some objected to the campaign approach, but Australia's youth clearly embraced it, with both magazines reportedly selling out.
Many of the images now displayed originated from outtakes within John Gollings’s archive, later featured in Rockhampton Art Gallery’s exhibition: "Get Wrecked: John Gollings and the Great Keppel Island Campaign".
The photographs perfectly captured the intended spirit of the advertising campaign while also standing as important photographic works in their own right.
It is from this outtake collection that many of the photographs used on this web page were sourced.
Interestingly, even today, the original photographs used in the original "Get Wrecked" campaign have never been located.
