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7/29/2019 Tourism NZ

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Birth of an icon

Back in 1999, 100% Pure was a revolution in tourism marketing when new Zealanddeveloped one of the first global tourism campaigns in the world.Locally, the new campaign arrived against the backdrop of an industry leadership crisis:the national tourism office had been remodeled, the chief executiveand members of the board replaced and a new minister of tourism had been appointed.Before 100% Pure new Zealand, international marketing efforts were a hodgepodge ofvested interests, sending uncoordinated and discordant messages. each market had itsown campaign designed to fit market conditions, recalls Stuart Neels, ATS Pacificmanaging director and former Inbound Tour Operators Councilpresident, but that was also providing mixed messages about new Zealand in general.In addition, the funding of tourism was split between markets creating slivers of budgetsthat disappeared into the general mass of the worlds media. New Zealands tourismbudget was already small; splitting it made it insignificant.The result was predictable: not enough international tourists cared enough to travel here

just 0.25 per cent of globetrotters were making their way to new Zealand,a destination 24 hours by air from Europe, 10,000km from the united states and notdifferent enough from Tasmania to cause Australians to cross the ditch.

Newbroom

It was widely believed that the government had no place subsidising private companies intheir short-term projects. Whats more, running separate campaigns in each country wasexpensive and did nothing to give New Zealand a distinctive voice.It was fitting that in late 1999 hundreds of people assembled in Queenstown, not to takein the sights, but to hear how the newly-minted 100% Pure new Zealand marketing

campaign was going to breathe new life into a tourist industry that was asking itself thequestion, who in the world cares about new Zealand?Annette Shaw, then of Wharekauhau resort in the Wirarapa, attended the national tourismConference in Queenstown, venue of the campaign launch. At first glance, she liked whatshe saw, she told a TVNZ reporter covering the event. but the campaign has to be goodthat follows it, she cautioned. As TVNZs reporter put it in the report that night recallingthe birth of a Kiwi icon pure genius of the launch, tourism New Zealand needed 100%success from the campaign for its credibilitys sake. she wasnt the only person who hadcome to that conclusion. new Zealands marketing challenges have always been wellunderstood. the country is small, beautiful and far-flung; its only close neighbours areAustralia and a scattering of islands in the Pacific.

Before the 1960s it drew a few adventurous, wellto-do tourists from Britain and theUnited States, and Australians who travelled with little to spend.It was not until the advent of jumbo jets in the 1980s that new Zealands tourist industry

really took off. while tourism played a vital role in the domestic economy, new Zealandsprofile was easily eclipsed internationally. it was difficult for a country with a populationof three million to compete with 103 national tourist offices around the world. at thattime, 70 per cent of tourists worldwide focused their travel on the 10 most popularcountries, like Spain and France. It was no wonder that the-then chief executive of the


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New Zealand tourism board (NZTB), tourism new Zealands predecessor, posed thequestion of who in the world cared about this dot in the Pacific.By 1998 leading tourist operators were fed up with fragmented marketing efforts.It was decided a global campaign was needed, but a period of uncertainty followed, withchanges to the board and management

of NZTB.

The Big Idea

Why would anyone want to come to New Zealand on holiday? In 1998, this question wasstill begging for an answer.Before the Tourism Board would spend its tight budget on developing a new campaign itwanted to find out just hat was at the heart of why tourist came to this country.Up for pitch

Research showed that overseas travelers were looking first for landscape, and then foradventure, people and culture. That person was type who liked to interact with people and

their environment. they were knowledgeable, financially well-off and curious, andprepared to go off the beaten track.Pastoral scenes sheep grazing green hills, the sort of New Zealand marketing imagesthat were common pre-1999 bored them; but when they visited new Zealand theyfound the place exhilarating and exciting. The challenge for the new campaign was toportray a new New Zealand, that didnt ignore its spectacular scenery and portray anexperience that was less passive and more invigorating.Advertising Agency M&C Saatchi and its competitors had 5 weeks to turn these findingsinto something groundbreaking.M&C Saatchi art director Alan Morden recalls the moment: I think I wrote it on a pieceof paper I just got that feeling, this is the line. initially his line was Pure new

Zealand, but Morden wasnt entirely satisfied. what gave it the magic was the additionof 100%, even though 100% pure was almost a contradiction. 100% just reinforcesit, really brings it to life.The same word could be printed in a German newspaper and the message was obvious.

It was a line that could be understood around the world and it reflected what NewZealand is about.Just add music

With the addition of a distinctive new Zealand soundtrack, the campaign was all the morecompelling. Neil Finn provided this with his internationally-successful songDontdream Its over.The campaign kicked off television and cinemas advertising in

Australia from august 1999 and other key marketsin September and October. Travel editor of Britains Guardian newspaper,Charlie Burgess, reports that in 2000, a year into the campaign, new Zealand was thefavourite longhaul destination in travel awards voted on by 17,000 Guardian andObserver readers. New Zealand came top, beating Vietnam, Nepal, Zimbabwe and,youll be very glad to hear, Australia, which was down in seventh place.A young Londoner described how it had made New Zealand a hip destination. weused to think new Zealand was at the end of the world somewhere to emigrate to, not


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to take a holiday. with 100% Pure, and help from the film and win industries, NewZealand exploded onto the world scene. You couldnt buy a bottle of Cloudy Bay inLondon it had all sold out.

Home turf

Back home, though, the campaign faced flak. Some tourist operators saw nothing new inthe chocolate box advertising images. Airline partners hoped to revamp the designand make it look more like retail advertising than a branding message. Many newZealanders struggled to get their heads around the notion of branding a country. The veryterm pure sparked debate, especially as it implied environmental purity for NewZealand.Pressure came from tourism companies and regional tourism organisations on the style ofimages to be included in the campaign. They expected the length and breadth of thecountry to be promoted from dolphins in the bay of islands to art-deco streetscapes inNapier.

Leveraging the brand: 1+1=3

But with only a tiny marketing budget to get its brand onto the worlds billboards, theteam at Tourism new Zealand had to be clever.They looked at ways to leverage off the attention generated by other peoples marketingof major world events: the Americas Cup, the rally of New Zealand, theMontana world of WearableArt, the Lord of the Rings, endurance races and theEllerslie Flower Show. For each event TNZ works to attract international mediacoverage, as well as getting them to promote New Zealand as a destination.Take the Americas Cup: a perfect excuse to highlight mages and stories of sky and seaand intense experiences of the outdoors.

Gardening leaveAfter the Americas Cup ceased to be theirs in 2003, TNZ took its event strategyoffshore. Rather than profiling events in new Zealand, it predominantly turned itsattention to profiling new Zealand at big international events getting more bang for itsbuck. It repeated its success in 2006 with a silver gilt medal and media coverage thistime reached over 90 million people.Sporting events are good ways of attracting attention, and the rugby world Cup (RWC) isone of the biggest. TNZ mounted a high-profile public relations campaign in front of theEiffel Tower during the RWC2007 in france which was seen by millions through themedia coverage of the event. The key feature was a giant inflatable rugby ball brandedwith the words 100% Pure new Zealand.

100% Pure new Zealand was also used as the hook in new events put together by TNZ.

An epic trilogy

And then there was the big one. From 2001 to 2004, the success of The Lord of the Ringstrilogy, with its breath-taking landscapes, did more than anything to bring New Zealandto the worlds attention. TNZ had first harnessed the potential of film on a much smallerscale, when a 1999 100% Pure new Zealand advertisement with a piano on a beachalluded to Jane Campions award-winning movie the Piano.


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Aware of the potential, TNZ positioned itself to make the most of the lord of the ringssuccess. an agreement with the distributors of the films, new line Cinema meantconnections between the film and their location in New Zealand could be made cost-effectively.The actors were also hosted to convert them into enthusiastic ambassadors.

Full-page advertisements were commissioned in the us press as the lord of the ringsswept the Oscars, with taglines such as best supporting Country in a motion Picture.

Spreading the News

Tourism New Zealand has developed the 'global newsroom' initiative, encouraging all

staff and industry to actively seek out news opportunities and generate media coverage.

Becoming content creators allows Tourism New Zealand to make news resources freely

available to international media. Tourism New Zealand is becoming more active in the

publisher space, creating or sourcing relevant content to share with traditional and social

media, and generate coverage for New Zealand.Tourism New Zealand has a 'global newsroom' initiative. Becoming content creators

allows Tourism New Zealand to make news resources freely available to international

media.

Events

Every year the nternational media programme hosts journalists for events such as the

Montana World of Wearable Art Awards Show (WOW), the Michael Hill Golf Open,

Toast Martinborough, Matariki (the Mori New Year) and international yachting events

such as the Volvo Ocean Race. Coverage of these events reaches millions of readers and

viewers in our offshore markets and raises awareness of what's on in New Zealand andthe kinds of experiences people can have here.

Tourism New Zealand also organises or contributes to some high-profile international

events that bring New Zealand to life and capture the imaginations of our target market.

The Rugby World Cup 2011 and Tourism New Zealand's Giant Rugby Ball are examples

of this, but we have also won Gold at the Chelsea Garden Show in London, hosted

thousands of people for a two-day New Zealand festival in Japan and taken Mori art

treasures to China, the US and Japan.

Training the trade

International travel sellers - travel agents, wholesalers and online travel sellers - play a

vital role in 'selling' a destination and providing trusted expertise and personalised service

to customers. They can be very influential in helping consumers make holiday choices,

not only about where to go, but also what to do and where to stay when they get there.
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Tourism New Zealand works with regional tourism organisations and the New Zealand

tourism industry to educate a core group of travel sellers in each of our markets to ensure

they have the knowledge, understanding and passion for New Zealand they need in order

to sell the destination effectively.

Each year, they bring around 200 agents to New Zealand to show them what NewZealand has to offer. They also train agents in market, both face-to-face and online

through our 'Webinar' training programme.

Every year they travel with New Zealand-based tourism operators to participate in

Tourism New Zealand-run trade events and industry travel expos in a number of markets.

These events are vital for connecting the New Zealand industry with the offshore trade

and for ensuring the travel trade have a good understanding of tourism products and

services available in New Zealand.

Cultural Tourism: New Zealand and the 100% Middle-earth campaign

In August 2012 Tourism New Zealand unveiled its 100% Middle-earth, 100% Pure New

Zealandcampaign in the lead up to the world premiere of Peter Jacksons new

movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in a series of three films to be

released based on JRRR Tolkiens novel. The campaign visualises New Zealand not just

as the shooting location of the film, but as the real Middle-earth; a promise of a holiday

adventure of epic proportions targeting fans and potential tourists across the globe.

According to Tourism New Zealand, in 2004, the year after the release of the last film in

theLord of the Rings trilogy, six percent of visitors to New Zealand said that theLord of

the Rings films was one of the main reasons for their trip and since then an average of

47,000 international visitors each year have visited one of these film locations (Tourism

New Zealand 2013).

Furthermore, tourism plays an important role in New Zealands economy. In the financial

year ending in March 2012, tourism generated a direct contribution of $6.2 billion to the

nations GDP, equating to 3.3%, with an indirect value added through other industries

generating an addition $9.7 billion for tourism (Statistics New Zealand 2012). With no

other country able to market itself as the worlds most famous cinematic fantasy land,Tourism New Zealand leveraged the building hype overThe Hobbitto give their new

campaign a unique and exotic angle.

Central to the campaign is a series of images used on New Zealands destination website

and other promotional material, which show landscapes identifiable with the film (and

the previousLord of the Rings trilogy, also set in Tolkiens Middle-earth and also filmed

in New Zealand). The photographs denote possible activities visitors can undertake, such


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as hiking, horse riding, wine tasting, swimming and cycling, while viewing breath-taking

scenery. These images are intercut with sketches of scenes from the film, cleverly created

to be able to be overlayed across the photographs, giving the viewer the sense that they

are of the same landscape. The juxtaposition of photographs and sketches reminds the

viewer or educates those not familiar with the films about scenes from The Hobbitandconnote a sense of adventure and perhaps even danger. They have a dual role of

advertising places to see and things to do in New Zealand, while acting as signifiers of

journeying to another land.

The images also form the basis of a television commercial, in which a gentle, mature,

male voice narrates: Your journey starts beneath southern skies The spoken words

do not make direct mention ofThe Hobbitor Middle-earth, although the final scene

shows Hobbiton, one of the film locations which is now open to the public. Despite the

lack of reference to the film, the commercial supports the key message of the real

Middle-earth experience through the repetition of imagery used in other parts of the

campaign, as well as phrases which recall scenes from the film. Giant eagles and

creatures dwelling in caves both feature in The Hobbit, while the lines wizards turn

water into wine, treasure is found under foot and play on mountains protected by

gods are reflective of moments in the film narrative. The commercial concludes with

traveller, your dreams are waiting. All these vignettes connote adventure, escape and a

fantasy experience to entice anyone, fan of the films or not. The images are indexes of the

essence of New Zealand and belong to the paradigm of things in nature: mountains,

lakes, caves, ocean, plains and the sky.

The campaign makes use of strategic promotional partnerships between Tourism NewZealand and other entities, such as Air New Zealand, New Zealand Post, Channel One

News and of course Weta Workshop

Through the 100% Middle-earth campaign, New Zealand has become an exhibition of

movie memorabilia. The country has been opened up for all to view; seemingly

unexplored forests, to treacherous glaciers, wild rivers and the darkest caves are now an

adventure playground for domestic and overseas visitors who themselves wish to follow

the path ofThe Hobbits Bilbo Baggins. The campaign promises that this terrain isnt just

for the seasoned explorer, but can be enjoyed by everyone.

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