The Brief

New Zealand is a small country on the far side of the world. With a tiny population, and a budget to match, we’ve got a big task on our hands letting everyone know exactly where we are, and what you can do here, and in doing so, making us a must-visit destination. And in 2012 Tourism New Zealand got a once in a lifetime opportunity to catapult New Zealand into the spotlight thanks to the making of Sir Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Our campaign was created in partnership with Sir Peter’s Wingnut Films and Warner Brothers.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

‘100% Middle-earth = 100% Pure New Zealand’ was born. All our campaign activity needed to live and propagate online, and drive global traffic to our gateway portal newzealand.com, and/or to our travel partners. Our campaign began with an epic online film, then encompassed rich media, paid display, earned media, PR and editorial activity such as the nation’s weather forecast broadcast entirely in Elvish, exclusive online content, a ‘Journey to Middle-earth’ book, a even a Dept of Internal affairs sanctioned ‘Welcome to Middle earth’ passport stamp. The campaign was seeded in 47 countries worldwide.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Sir Peter shared our film with over 650 000 fans. We had nearly a million views online. Visits to newzealand.com using campaign related key-words is up 265%; A 16% increase (year on year) of global traffic to newzealand.com. In the first 48 hours of the ‘virtual book’ going live it received 130,000 page views, with an average of 14 book page views per visit. Rich-media interactive film performed above industry standards for ‘interaction’ and engagement. The nation’s weather forecast broadcast in ‘Elvish’ was reported by the BBC and Daily Mail. Thousands got their passports stamped, and shared with millions

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

If you’re a fan of Tolkien, then one place is synonymous with Middle-earth, and that is New Zealand. New Zealand is Middle-earth on Earth. Where Gandalf strides, Hobbit’s walk, and Gollum creeps. So this year, we aimed to earn as much media as we could by using our association with all things Middle-earth. (* Tourism NZ focuses on an identified global market traveler segment called ‘active considerers’ and pays particular attention to the global ‘active considerer’ quarterly monitor. 67% of active considerers say The Hobbit movies are more likely to motivate them to come to NZ.)