Today in Fast Company is a really great analysis showing how the tourism board of the Great Barrier Reef used social media to win the direct, cyber and PR awards at the International Cannes Advertising Festival. (the first time one agency has won all 3 awards in its 50 year history).

Their approach, which heavily leveraged social media assets like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, will result in not only a killer PR campaign to drive visitors to the islands, but voluminous amounts of content being created over the next 6+ months by the winner of the job contest, Ben Southall.

And that's where the true long-term value of this campaign comes from - not just a short-lived advertising campaign, but deep content creation that will give people a feel for what the island is like before they visit, which will, of course, cause them to want to visit.  Just take a look at Ben's blog to date and you'll see how enticing the pictures and content are.

This approach, leveraging social media not just to create awareness, but to create a channel through which the tourism board can continuously communicate to potential clients in ways they want to be communicated with, is the future of marketing.