“The support from the community has been across the board, businesses have cardboard cut outs of Chris, they have been photoshopping Chris into their shops, there is a hamburger here now called the ‘Big Chris’ and on the weekend at the race the last race was called the Chris Hemsworth Welcome to Cowra,” Cowra Tourism Manager, Glenn Daley said.
Launched with a three minute video #GetChrisToCowra, which has now been watched by over 25,500 people, it is chock full of laconic funny ‘isms’ but it cleverly sneaks in all the things to do, stay, see and eat in the NSW Central West town of Cowra.
The video is a homespun delight of the Cowra Tourism team, trying to work out how to get Chris Hemsworth to head to Cowra. They try out calls to action like “come for the pies and stay for the skies” and the roadside poster campaign in full Thor regalia with #GetChristoCowra hashtag and “Honk if you are THOR-ny”.
“The whole community universally got behind this campaign and it has been a really positive lift for us all, especially after a tough few years we have all suffered regionally through drought, mouse plagues, covid and now floods,” a very humble Mr Daley added.
Very cleverly interwoven into the video are fabulous location shots from around Cowra. Who wouldn’t be tempted with immaculate drone images of Wyangala Dam, taunting the internationally renowned Australian actor Chris Hemsworth with a bit of surfing “buggar Byron Bay we make our own waves”.
The biggest win was when Hemsworth, who is actually Australia’s national celebrity tourism ambassador, shared the video on his instagram account and agreed to come to Cowra in an instagram post.
“Big love to all the folks in Cowra for this amazing campaign, warmed my heart and made me smile! I’m off shooting a film overseas soon but upon return next year I’m coming in hot!!”
“We wrote the script for the video inhouse and figured it would either go well, and people would get it,or it would be a complete flop,” Mr Daley said.
For more details about the town, head to the Visit Cowra website and to keep up with the #GetChrisToCowra efforts, check out the campaign website.