When the NFL made landfall at the MCG, it catapulted Melbourne into global focus. Thousands of Americans came to the city unaware of the Yarra River or its laneway culture, instead equating Australia with images pushed in advertising: the outback, kangaroos and Uluru. Most knew the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, but little of Australia's second-largest city, whose cultural assets and imagery are, as research has repeatedly attested, consistently absent from the country's most internationally recognised emblems.
Tourism Australia's latest major ad campaign, fronted by Robert Irwin and an animated toy kangaroo, featured sweeping shots of the Eyre Peninsula, the Great Barrier Reef, a Margaret River winery, and Sydney Harbour. Victoria was granted a few seconds, with a view of the Great Ocean Road.
So, when Americans drawn to Melbourne for the NFL stumbled off their long-haul flights, they were pleasantly surprised, says sports magnate Eddie McGuire.
"Australia's tourism has been 30 years out of date when they continue to say, 'Go to the outback', and, 'See a shark', or 'See a kangaroo'," McGuire told The Age. "The Americans came here [for the NFL] and said, 'Wow, Melbourne's a gun city … The MCG, how long's this been going on? What is this game?' One of the blokes was saying he discovered John Farnham."
Committee for Melbourne acting chief executive Agostino Giramondo said this was exactly the kind of experience national advertising campaigns should be capitalising on.