Delivering a cultural event to a new online community

Telstra and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
art of the nation artwork on a wall in australia

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards 2020

The Telstra National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (Telstra NATSIAA), presented by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, has celebrated the richness and diversity of contemporary Indigenous art for 37 years, and is Australia’s most pre-eminent Indigenous art awards. Telstra has been the proud principal partner of the NATSIAAs for 29 of those years.

Offer
Content
Office
Sydney
Launched
September 2020

7k

visitorsto the campaign site and virtual gallery in the first weekend

25k

visitorsto the campaign site and virtual gallery to date

13

minutesaverage site and virtual gallery dwell time

97%

of the audiencecoming from outside of the Northern Territory

Idea

The art of the nation

In 2020, the impact of COVID-19 meant that the physical event experience and recognition of the artists would need to be reimagined. Imagination was challenged to develop an integrated campaign and virtual gallery experience that would bring the magic and wonder of the Telstra NATSIAAs to a much broader audience of Australians and create genuine connection and appreciation at a scale never achieved before.

We needed to develop a new, highly accessible way to announce and celebrate the winners, showcase the artists, their works and their stories in 2020.

Bringing real Australian stories to life

We developed an integrated campaign that uncovered the artists' stories via the Art of the Nation, including a campaign approach and creative elements that showcased the inspiration behind each artwork and its connection to place and country. This included pre-launch teaser videos for social media, out of home and digital assets, a dedicated website showing the history of the NATSIAA and this year’s winners, and an online awards ceremony broadcast via the website. A highlight of the website is the interactive virtual art gallery, which displays the art of all the 2020 finalists, as well as their stories, in a true-to-life gallery environment.

To boost further awareness of the NATSIAA and the website, we created an interactive in-store experience using an interactive touchless interface, which encouraged visitors to explore artworks and hear the stories of the art as told by the artists themselves.

Impact

Value for the audience

We exposed over 25,000 Australians to the Telstra NATSIAA experience for the very first time ever - expanding its reach beyond just the Northern Territory. The audience were highly engaged in the virtual gallery experience, with an average time of 13 minutes per session. Visitors gained insights into the artists and their stories in ways they hadn’t had exposure to before, with additional content available on the virtual site.

Value for the brand

Early results show that Telstra’s association with the brand has been exposed to a much greater national audience than in previous years with 97% of visitors to the virtual gallery coming from outside of the Northern Territory.

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