When a Really Goode Job is not quite the Best Job in the World

Update: Read my follow-up and exclusive interviews with three of the Murphy-Goode finalists.

Murphy-Goode Winery announced its final 50 candidates this week for its “Really Goode Job,” a six-month, $10K-per-month gig whose only requirements are that you love wine and that you are a “Web 2.0″ sort — a social media expert of sorts with mastery in Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Applicants were required to submit a video “resume,” site visitors would vote on their favorite applicants, and the winery would narrow its search from there. The final hire will spend six months in Sonoma County learning — and blogging — about wine and of course, Murphy-Goode.

On the whole, this has been a highly successful campaign. According to Beyond Madison Avenue and Murphy-Goode, A Really Goode Job attracted about 2,000 applicants, with some applicants’ videos having received tens of thousands of page views. Combined with the exclusive story placements in the LA Times, NY Times and more, along with hundreds of blog posts and Twitter mentions, it’s marketing reach that is virtually impossible to attain through traditional forms of advertising.

But I can’t help compare a Goode Job to the Best Job… in the World, that is. Tourism Queensland in Australia recently ran its “Best Job in the World” competition, offering a cush job that involved living in luxury on an Australian island paradise for six months, working approximately 12 hours per month, blogging about your adventures, and getting paid $100,000 to do it. This generated approximately 15,000 applicants alone, from all over the world. Add to that the hundreds of media placements, including a huge feature in the NY Times, millions of Tweets and Facebook mentions, and you have the makings of what may be one of the most successful tourism marketing campaigns in modern times.

Murphy-Goode’s reach pales in comparison to Tourism Queensland, but granted, Murphy-Goode doesn’t have a luxury condo on a paradise island to give out for a prize.

What’s most fascinating to me about these types of campaigns is that it’s more about the buildup than the finished product. The voting process — by which the applicant must garner the public’s attention — virtually ensures word-of-mouth and viral marketing. The promise of easy riches always makes for a good news story. But when the winner is announced, and all is said and done, what will become of these companies’ best-paid part-time employee? How much time, effort and money will be put into promoting the subsequent blogs and multimedia? And will they be writing about anything interesting? After the six months are up, what happens? A number of other companies who have hired “social media specialists” — aka Twitterati — have had success doing so, but in those cases, they have hired a full-time employee or a rotating set of interns to take on the task of monitoring the company’s brand.

(I’m wary of the job duties Murphy-Goode listed as “tracking the local owl and raptor populations” and “testing potential picnic sites.” Perhaps interesting for them, but not exactly my idea of an enticing read.)

Neither job has started yet, so it’s hard to say for sure how it will go. Ben Southall, winner of The Best Job, begins his work on July 1, and Murphy-Goode’s new hire will begin on August 15. I’ll be watching. Also in the back of my head: how many more copycat campaigns will we see, and will this dilute its effectiveness? Only Twitter will tell.