TBWA’s ‘The Mission Continues’ for 2degrees took the annual Colmar Brunton Ad Impact award, and it’s continued its winning streak by claiming victory in the August round for its 100% Middle-earth campaign for Tourism New Zealand.
Harriet Dixon, senior account manager at Colmar Brunton, says when an ad’s just plain beautiful and takes you on a journey through a wonderful story about our homeland it makes for a winning
combination that gets Kiwis leaning forward and paying attention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5rc-5FinU4“It taps into what matters most to us most. Carrying through the 100% signature
is a nice nod to the previous campaign, while the Middle Earth story takes us
to a place somewhere between reality and fantasy where we recognise the country
we’re so proud of, and love to share. This ad
is one of those rare things: lovely and soft, tugging at the heart strings,
but still managing to wipe the floor across all the impact measures. It creates very high impact through its
clever use of creative style and wonderful storytelling, making it highly enjoyable
and entertaining for Kiwis to watch. Great branding and strong talkability are also aiding the
success of this campaign, gaining impassioned appeal among consumers.”
The $10 million campaign shot beautifully by Curious director Darryl Ward was a massive project that almost didn’t make it to market due to time constraints. So, understandably, TBWA’s executive creative director Andy Blood is “seriously chuffed” with the result.
“Bado mîbo Orch! Which is Sindarin for: Go kiss an Orc! Seriously, that’s great news. Le hannon! I thank you!” says Blood.
When we chatted with general manager of marketing and communications Justin Watson a while back he said it would have been really easy to do an ad with Hobbits running around in it.
“But getting the balance right between the film and the destination was really tricky and there were a few moments where we felt we weren’t going to get there.”
And the notion of 100% Pure Middle-earth and “the idea that the fictional world we see in the movies is a real place” was strong enough to get the nod.
While the 100% Pure New Zealand campaign relied heavily on TV in its formative years, almost all of Tourism New Zealand’s budget has been spent on digital marketing in the recent times, so a large-scale production like this is something of a novelty. But, over the past 18 months, Watson says it was able to sign up a range of airlines and travel companies to offer various deals on travel to New Zealand. And this added $25 million to its coffers.
“A lot of money has been brought to the table and that has freed us up to try and hit the heart, not the head,” he says.
So far the TVC has had over 423,000 views on YouTube, with the extended version clocking in at over 120,000.
