How do we as a state communicate our splendour and worth to the world? Queensland artists Lloyd Rees and Percival Trompf likely pondered this every time they were tasked with crafting another tourism ad, while working for the Queensland Government Printing Office. They were working in an era where dry hyperbole and broad artistic licence allowed for simplistic grandeur and casual romanticism at every turn.

As challenging as it may have been for advertisers and artists of the past. Their efforts appear to have aided in building up the sector. According to Tourism Queensland, tourism contributes $12.8 billion directly to the Queensland economy. Though to achieve this high number, ad agencies working have to craft incredible advertising stunts (Best Job in the World) and sell pure experience with as few words and as many visuals as possible.

Nevertheless, how did our past ad men and government artists win over the world’s travellers?

^{Painted design featuring flora and fruits, c 1939 (Queensland State Archives IID 22142)}

Before the days of modern Tourism Queensland team, travel and tourism advertising was about the basics of the location – one that could be as easily sold in words as it could in artwork; as created in-house by Lloyd Reese, Peter S Templeton, Percival Trompf, and other artists.

These artists and their writing partners were given sparse briefs, and just enough creative wriggle-room to achieve print and poster ads that were simple, but effective. These are ads created before the advent of such things as psychographics (psychological profiling of audiences) and detailed-targeting. Men were controlling the finances, women cared for the children, kitchen and laundry – these archetypes and social roles were the only considerations when it came to how the audience might think and react.

Therefore, all they had to know was whether any given ad was aimed at a family, a couple, a high earner or the working class; from here they could match their vision to the needs of the local tourism operators. The wordplay used was equally direct and playful; there was no vagaries or confusion to be encountered, just simple statements and honest calls to action.

Consider an ad for Dunk Island – with little more than a reference to its romantic potential and a painted image of a sunset that oozes impressionistic splendour. It leaves almost everything to the imagination of the viewer, potentially fuelling a desire to seek out more information and actual visuals.

Or how about an ad for Tropical North Queensland, borrowing from early 20th century pro-military/high-nationalism ads of the era, to create an intriguing call to action. It’s otherwise very vague – there is little to suggest what could be gained from the experience other than winter warmth and the hints of tropical scenery that can be seen all year round.

_{Tropic Wonderland tourist brochure, c1947 (Queensland State Archives ID2057074)}

Selling Queensland as a whole, as well as our many regions, is a unique challenge. As far as the creative thinking and sales pitch is concerned, the big initial question is do we make it uniform or individual?
Yes, we are a state that offers consistently offers an abundance of sun and surf, but we are also quietly cosmopolitan and distinctly rural. Each city council and geographic region has its own unique character and draws that could pull people in.

In 2019, this quagmire results in grandiose sales messages paired with luscious imagery, with a litany of location specific benefits possibly bundled in.

Selling the whole state often requires a high-definition web series covering every corner of Queensland; a TV ad with split second scenes of key locations; and the one all-encompassing print or bus shelter ad. But again, in the past, to sell Queensland we only had to remind Australia, and the world, that we existed.

In no way did it feel as overwrought. Our message to the world was entirely hand-crafted and consistent. The colours, textures and verbal tone evoked a unified message that could be used for every any corner of Queensland.

To reinforce a key point here, Queensland can be summed upby the simplest but also vaguest of terms – we have variety, but we are forever warm. Winding our way down from the very tip of our state to the southern border, and way out to the west, there is an inherent link between scenes and experiences.

Whether it was the 1910s or the 1970s, a location name and a broad call to action was the template for much of Queensland (and the country). The handcrafted simplicity was applied to Brisbane, The Great Barrier Reef, Dunk Island and more, with their same’s and their differences balanced within this framework, and for the time it worked.

Why? Because, potentially because this was an era when all we needed to know or could know was what was fed to us by the advertisers. That, and expectations from the public weren’t as high – we just wanted a reasonable escape when we could afford it.

The Expert Opinion

Local art director Ross Benn was kind enough to share his opinion, based on years of crafting ads for Queensland brands.

These beautiful, illustrated Queensland tourism posters come from a time before photoshop and digital retouching were the norm. Photographic reproduction in print wasn’t of today’s quality either, and there were no high definition screens in everyone’s pockets on which to view beautifully crisp images. The illustrated style, and the flat, graphic nature of the colours reproduced very well creating these bright and vibrant posters. In their own way, the artists back then were trying to create the same perfect view of Queensland as we do today. The illustration techniques of the time allowed the perfect scene to be pictured. It allowed them to show not what was real, but rather what was ideal.

There is something wonderfully refreshing about these images from a bygone era. They may even work today, provided of course they were fully animated and linked to an immersive interactive experience online, after which they tracked your behaviour and served endless further enticements in your social media feed. Back then these simple but beautiful posters had to work hard. Getting to Queensland was not as easy and cheap as jumping on a plane is today. Air travel was expensive and the alternative was a very long, cramped family drive in an un-airconditioned car, or an even more tiresome train journey. But, as they are today, the rewards were great and well worth the effort.

The ads of yesterday were strengthened by creative “limitations” and were refined by the simplicity of their expected strategy – to influence the greater masses and ‘hope for the best’. The painterly style and straight forward writing of the past did their job, and if used right could be just as effective today (though not in isolation). There were no metrics to measure success beyond visits and sales, and that appeared to show enough impact from one ad and region to the next.

After all, tourism and travel are all about selling a dream. And when every corner of the state looks like its own dream-scape when captured and conveyed in the right light, there isn’t too much more you need to do.

Yes, there have been changes.

Today, ad agencies and government departments are expected to actively consider the who, what and how of the sell; we have to react to the fact that our society is more diverse and more capable of travelling further afield. So, making any single ad or campaign ‘work’ for the location or the broader tourism industry is somewhat harder. Yet, these classic ads have defined our identity as a state, and as a tourism destination. They set the template for the warm tones of the Queensland dream.

We are the Sunshine State, where the warmth is a near constant and scenery is plentiful.