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Client: Tourism New Zealand
Product: Tourism New Zealand
Title: Please Don't Travel Under The Social Influence
Media: Facebook / YouTube / Instagram
Country: New Zealand
Date Of Campaign: 26 Jan 2021

Background: With New Zealand’s borders shut due to Covid-19 (back in Jan 2021), domestic travel has been vital in closing the $12.9 billion gap left from international visitors. But unlike our adventurous visitors from overseas, many New Zealanders were visiting the same well-known tourism destinations in pursuit of taking the same influencer-style photos.Something which left our regions struggling and our social feeds all looking, well… the same. One mountain summit in particular is now tagged with over 70,000 almost identical photos.

Idea: To encourage New Zealanders to explore more of our country and entice others to do the same through their social photos, we launched a national PSA campaign asking the nation to stop travelling under the “social influence”.Embracing New Zealand’s dry Kiwi humour, our campaign was fronted by a fictitious social media ranger who set out to rescue wayward travellers from the clichés of New Zealand tourism and encourage them to ‘share something new’.

Results: Within 24 hours, the campaign made global headlines (BBC, The Guardian, New York Times etc.), attracting over 1.47 billion organic global reach, convincing New Zealaners to get more creative with their domestic holidays. 1.47 billion organic global reach within first 7 days95% positive social sentiment worldwide (during a pandemic within international border closures)1000% increase in social engagement using #DoSomethingNewNZ22x higher engagement than industry benchmark*.7.8 million paid reach within New Zealand35+ nations global media coverage *Compared with industry benchmarks across all industries. Source: Social insider data, Jan2019-Oct2020