Messages from New Zealand

Background

For the first time ever, five separate government agencies came together to promote New Zealand’s brand on the world stage. Tourism New Zealand, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Ministry for Primary Industries, Education New Zealand and New Zealand Story worked together on a campaign to build preference and desire for New Zealand as a destination while borders were closed.

Idea

Not just supporting New Zealand as a great place to visit one-day when the time is right, but as a great place to live and a great source of export produce, “Messages from New Zealand” was a series of videos that aimed to capture the nation’s unique identity and perspective about what’s important. Kiwis, well-known and not so well-known, were asked questions such as, if you could encourage the world to do one thing, what would it be? Their answers captured the unique values of the country.

These films went live in a staggered launch across key markets, starting in Australia.

Our Thoughts

This is a deceptively simple idea; just let the people of New Zealand speak for themselves in the hope you’ll see them as people you can trust and that you’d want to meet. And I’ll tell you what, it works! The prognosis is that New Zealand could suffer an 80% decline in international tourism in 2020. There has been a successful push to get more people at home to explore their own country but getting international travellers back is vital. The collaboration of the five separate government groups in the campaign looks to me like a much larger co-ordination of effort to restore confidence and encourage investors as well as visitors.

Personally, there’s nowhere I’d rather go next year than to the land of the long white cloud.