Government criticised for calling SA 'most boring state' in marketing stunt

A tourism marketing stunt from the South Australian government has come under fire after it referred to the state as boring.

SA Tourism threw a fully-funded concert in January where UK singer Sam Smith performed for 300 people at the d'Arenberg winery as a marketing stunt.

However, the campaign itself has come under fire from some who say it used self-deprecating language about South Australia in order to promote the concert.

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The campaign referred to South Australia as the "most boring state ever."

"Taxpayers are now being asked, with these smart arse excuses from Labor, to feel good about paying for a campaign that runs down our state," Opposition spokesman John Gardener said.  

"It was great value for Sam Smith and promotion of his concert and album but terrible value for South Australians, I don't think we got much out of it at all."

There were 300 guests at the concert, with 12 of them being online influencers who were paid to "run amock" around the state.

"The effort of it was to try and reach out to a new and younger audience," MP Stephen Mulligan said.

"It was designed to undermine that perception of South Australia, to show that is not what South Australia is all about, but in fact we've got far more to offer."

The state government and the tourism commission will not disclose how much the campaign cost taxpayers, but did say it was estimated to generate over $7m in free publicity for South Australia.

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A review of the event found that the concert produced over $32m in free advertising for the state, as video and photo content of the event reached an audience of over 2.4 million people on social media.

For comparison, SA tourism platforms reach a total of 1.3 million people.

"This one was certainly above our expectations in terms of some of the KPIs (key performance indicators) we set," CEO of South Australia Tourism said.

The show did not go without a few hiccups, with reports of a woman urinating in front of the stage during the performance.

SA Tourism said they would throw another luxury event but they would choose who came more carefully.

"We've had a number of discussions with the team on what that would look like, we certainly heard that loud and clear from the South Australian public," Terry said.

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