Queenstown tells Aussies to chuck a sickie

A new campaign has landed from across the ditch, pointing to the stereotype that Aussies love chucking a sickie.

Destination Queenstown’s roadshow hit Sydney this week, and saw the launch of a new video called “Sick Day Stow Away”, and details how to call in sick and get away to Queenstown.

It features comedian Dan Ilic, who is seen gallivanting around Queenstown, calling his boss and coughing in a ridiculous manner, claiming illness has struck him. Check it out:

“The research we commissioned for this campaign showed that a third of Aussies had pulled a sick day in the past month so we just wanted to have a bit of fun with that in a tongue-in-cheek way,” Destination Queenstown’s chief exec Graham Budd told Travel Weekly.

“We thought that Queenstown would be at the top of a wish list as a sick day stow away destination, which is how this cheeky campaign came to life.”

But some have had an adverse reaction to the campaign, calling it “questionable” and in “bad taste” and “poor form” from an employer’s perspective.

“I understand it’s tongue in cheek and meant to be funny but it didn’t appeal to me,” one Travel Weekly reader told us.

But Budd insists it’s just a bit of fun.

“We know that Australian’s have a great sense of humour and this wasn’t intended to cause any offence,” he told Travel Weekly.

“We briefed Australian agency, One Green Bean, so we could get an independent professional take on the best approach for the campaign. The tone is clearly humorous so we have faith that at least some Australians will turn up at work in the next couple of weeks!”

“We chose to work with comedian Dan Ilic so that people understand not to take the campaign too literally. We’re not actually recommending people take sick days as most people will happily take annual leave to visit Queenstown.”

What do you think of this cheeky campaign?

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Latest comments

sting says:
September 9, 2015 at 1:56 pm
….i think it’s hilarious… it’s more like sending up sickie excusing aussies and not really encouraging them to do it anyway… hey look employers if your workers don’t really feel like working at all why force them… they can do more harm than good at work if they’re not in the mood… so let’s all live..
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