Tourism New Zealand has been shifting more and more of its ad spend to the digital channel over the last five years. And the organisation’s marketing director Andrew Fraser says the approach is working.
In an era where the online realm has allowed marketers and media owners to measure, track and chart everything in real-time, it seems slightly anachronistic to record radio listenership by getting people to fill in a paper diary. And the radio industry seems to agree, because it’s currently reviewing its research methodology and, as a result, it won’t be conducting its regular T1 survey.
The lucky few travellers who were at Auckland airport this morning became the first people in the world to see Peter Jackson’s take on the dragon Smaug, which has been emblazoned across a Boeing 777-300. The 54-metre rendering of the creature, which was designed by Weta Digital, gives Kiwis a taste of what they can look forward to when The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug is released in cinemas on 13 December. But this wasn’t the only Hobbit-themed campaign to appear yesterday. Tourism New Zealand also unveiled the ‘Book of New Zealand,’ a giant pop-up book that showcases four of the film’s filming locations.
Most of Tourism New Zealand’s sizable marketing and comms budget now gets directed towards digital channels in an effort to get ‘active considerers’ on the plane. And its latest work via Contagion is trying to tempt the Gen Ys back for some backpacking with Storiesbeatstuff.com, something the agency believes is “possibly the largest social media campaign a New Zealand agency has produced”.
Tourism New Zealand put out a call for entries for a new agency in early September and, while TNZ’s Justin Watson made a commitment not to disclose the pitch list as “some of them might have conflicts”, it’s thought to have been whittled down to four: Clemenger Group, Droga5, Publicis Mojo and TBWA\.
Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Pure campaign has come under renewed fire recently after our Dear Leader’s interview with Hard Talk. But as TNZ’s general manager marketing communications Justin Watson said in a recent interview with NZ Marketing, the campaign was never intended to be an environmental promise. It was about the whole experience. Recently, with the help of its agencies Razorfish and Assignment Group, it launched 100% Pure You to try and attract more ‘active considerers’ to the country and it’s just gone live with some new online trickery that’s being featured on popular German and Australian news and travel websites. See the birds, dolphins and underwater marvels here.