Tourism New Zealand

Capturing NZ with The Great Kiwi Content Drive

Like so many others, we were deeply distressed by what happened to the travel and tourism sector when Covid closed international borders in 2020.  We considered how we could best help this industry in need and proactively approached Tourism New Zealand with an innovative concept to help tourism operators get back on their feet.

Services
Strategy, Influencers, Creative

The brief

Since February 2020 and Covid-19 lockdowns, the tourism industry was in a huge state of flux. We were following TNZ’s journey at Socialites and as passionate kiwis, and the best at what we do, wanted to help in the mission.  
We loved the ‘Do something new New Zealand’s domestic campaign. We also heard the comments from operators and devised a unique solution to help tourism, operators capitalize on the marketing work TNZ was doing and take it to a really personal level. Our mission was to assist hurting tourism operators amidst C-19 devastation, by creating a content library that would enable them to continue advertising on social and digital for 12 months. 

The work

The financial and emotional devastation caused to hundreds of New Zealand tourism businesses and their people was heartbreaking and very close to home for many of the Socialites team who had family members working in the industry. With the increase of social media traffic due to Covid-19, having world-class social media became absolutely imperative for all businesses, especially tourism operators. People’s travel may have been restricted but they were spending plenty of time dreaming and researching. We all know that content is King, so having excellent social media content to use helps convert people from dreamers, into planners and into bookers.

This was a job for our extensive database of over 11,500 (at the time) influencers/content creators, connecting them with local Kiwi tourism operators! Influencers, by nature of their work, are experts at creating thumb-stopping social media content. Our content creators set out to produce personalised, thumb-stopping creative for each Operator to share under the ‘Do something new New Zealand’ umbrella throughout 2020/21.

The content created was so much more than thumb-stopping. It was exemplary, world-class content at its finest.

 

The outcome

This content drive was a mammoth effort and lasted six months, giving 146 local operators access to more than 5,000 video and static assets that they would never have been able to create otherwise.

  • Content, content, content: over 5,000 pieces of content were created throughout The Great Kiwi Content Drive.
  • Above and beyond: most content creators over delivered on their briefs, creating hundreds of images and videos for the operators to choose from.
  • Sharing is caring: despite not being contracted to, many content creators also shared their experience with the operators on their own social channels, tagging the operator, @purenewzealand and using the #DoSomethingNewNZ hashtag
  • Community Growth: some operators noted an increase in their social media audiences following the content creator visit which was awesome to see.

This work then fed into the second part of the programme where, working with industry body Qualmark, we helped our tourism industry get their social media wings through a social media development and education programme, Supercharge Your Social Media.

Operator feedback has made The Great Kiwi Content Drive all the more worthwhile!

“Thank you so much for not only the photos but also the insta stories & posts too. I’ve gained an extra 100+ followers  I really
appreciate it.”

Susannah,
Whitimanuka Retreat

“So happy with the results.
Martin is super talented and a fantastic person to boot, both he and Joella slotted right in at Omaka and we wouldn’t have wanted anyone else.”

Rachael,
Omaka Aviation Museum

“In his 30+ years of offering famils – this was by far the best one he’s ever done. They were super professional and really engaged”

Garth, Tongariro E-Bike Adventure