Chameleon Partners has released the first of several new TVCs, along with a new website, spreading the word about Chorus’ Gigatown contest that gives a Kiwi town the chance to win speedy internet.
The campaign is designed to stir a buzz of conversation by each town, whose populations get points for their ‘hood by sharing why they should be the benefactors of gigabit per second connection speeds. It’s a year-long competition where the winning town also gets a $200,000 development fund from Chorus and Alcatel-Lucent’s ng Connect innovation programme to commercialise new services over the network infrastructure.
The length of the competition means a ‘thirsty’ campaign with a tank of content that needs constant filling, says Chameleon Partners’ creative director Simon Shattky.
“A whole heap of stuff will be coming out as we generate content. It’s to start conversations out there in towns who will benefit from the deployment of UFB and that’s happening already.”
At the time of writing, there were eight Facebook pages for different ‘Gigatowns’. Total supporter points had reached more than 77,000 at that time, with Oamaru the leading town.
“With the content we’re developing rather than a standard prize it’s more ways to get the town to contribute points by engaging with and sharing the content.”
The TVC voiceover features actor Temuera Morrison, talent Chameleon has used in Chorus advertising a number of times.
“He just brings this wonderful sense of gravitas to the whole thing,” says Shattky.
The TVCs are the first of four or five to be rolled out, and more interactivity will be added to the website as more participants join the competition, he says. Chameleon designed the site, which was built by Waxeye. New York based Synthesio manages the points collection, which is weighted according to the population size of the towns.
To win points for their town, New Zealanders champion their town’s campaign using pre-defined #Gigatown hashtags, says Chorus.
Each piece of hash-tagged content will earn Gigapoints, as will each subsequent share, like, re-tweet or comment, it says. Around 50 towns are pre-registered, with some areas of Auckland and Wellington split into towns within cities.
“It’s great to see how much enthusiasm there is for the potential of UFB to transform our communities and boost economic growth,” says Chorus’ general manager of marketing and sales, Victoria Crone.
In September 2014, the top five towns will become Gigatown finalists and scores will be reset to zero before the final round of the competition.
When it announced Gigatown, Crone said Chorus hoped for an economic boost from the initiative.
It wants at least of third of Kiwi to adopt fibre by 2020 and to “create global broadband envy”.
It says New Zealand is let down by the fact its ranked seventh globally for internet usage rates but too much of this is for fun and too little for economic impact.
Crone cited a study that showed there are potential productivity benefits from UFB worth $33 billion for New Zealand, with business, education, healthcare and education able to benefit most. There was also an opportunity for $5.5 billion of economic growth through fibre.
Chorus began making ultrafast broadband connections in January last year and ended the year with 272 connections.
UFB is being rolled out to 75 percent of the country.
Credits:
Victoria Crone – Chorus GM Sales & Marketing
Raewyn Pudsey – Chorus Head of Brand and Communications
Ian Bonnar – Chorus Corporate Affairs Manager
Karren Harker Chorus Communications and Brand Strategy Manager
Elissa Downey – Chorus Media Relations Manager
Nic Craig – Chameleon Partners Managing Partner / Executive Producer
Simon Shattky – Chameleon Partners Creative Partner / Director
Ben Tiller – Chameleon Partners Head of Design
Tim Costar – Producer
Renaud Maire – Cinematographer
Jeremy Rouse – Cinematographer
Frayne Dyke-Walker – Editor
Charlie Shattky – Composer
Murray Grindlay – Music Producer
Clive Broughton – Sound Mix – Factory Studios
Stefan Corey – VFX Blockhead
Pete Ritchie – colourist Blockhead
Andrew Brown – colourist Toybox
Tony Leslie – Waxeye – Digital Partner
Kevin Blight – Media Map – Media Strategist