NEW ZEALAND POLICE

Short List
TitleNEW ZEALAND POLICE
BrandNEW ZEALAND POLICE
Product / ServiceNEW ZEALAND POLICE
CategoryA03. Online: Fiction & Non-Fiction
EntrantOGILVY NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Idea Creation OGILVY NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Production OGILVY NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Credits

Name Company Position
Regan Grafton Ogilvy & Mather NZ Executive Creative Director
Oliver Maisey Ogilvy & Mather NZ Executive Creative Director
Darren Wong Kam Ogilvy & Mather NZ Creative Group Head
Kate Rhodes Ogilvy & Mather NZ Agency Producer
Paul Hankinson Hanko Ltd. Creative director
Paul Pritchard Ogilvy & Mather NZ Chief Digital Officer
Christina Mossaidis Ogilvy & Mather NZ General Manager

The Campaign

The current perception is that being a cop requires physicality and toughness, while it’s true in part, modern policing is more about working with communities and understanding the people within them in order to make a change for the better. That’s why we targeted recruits who strongly identify with qualities like empathy and compassion. To make our point clear we wanted to show our audience exactly the type of person we were looking for. We secretly filmed a series of social experiments that highlighted real-life situations and how the public reacted, showing those who stepped up and helped others in need. These films were released online using social channels. The first film we featured a young actor in a busy city street eating out of a rubbish bin, the second film a man collapsing on the sidewalk and the third film a drunken man trying to ride a scooter.

Creative Execution

Our core audience of 18-29 year olds like to be engaged by real people and prefer realistic messaging over fictional. So to launch we partnered with Mai FM, a radio network with a strong youth following and large social network that targeted Maori & Pasifika. We also worked with an influential young DJ and singer, K’Lee, who created curiosity around our campaign and encouraged her listeners to share our social experiment. Within a couple of hours our first film was on the front page of stuff.co.nz and was quickly adopted by other New Zealand media sites. The Police also posted the film on their Facebook page and issued a PR release. The confrontational first film continued its trajectory across NZ before going global.

The campaign over achieved in all criteria. Our core objective was to increase the number of female recruits and ethnic minorities: Currently NZ Police comprises of 19% female officers, we achieved 41% female applicants – a gender increase of 115%. Currently NZ Police comprises of 20% ethnic officers, we achieved 45% ethnic applicants – a minorities increase of 125%. Additional Results: 3.9+million views on the NZ Police recruitment page since launch 50,000 reactions, 6000 comments and 17,000 shares on the NZ Police page And an estimated global reach of over 60 million across the campaign

Film needs tension and drama, it needs to build suspense and draw people into the story. These are not traditional advertising messages. They depict relevant, contextual and confronting scenarios that hit a visceral and emotional mark. They are designed to get under the skin of our viewer and make them think.

Research confirmed that our target audience of 18-29 year olds are a generation that cares. They are inspired by ideals, want to live in a better world, support worthy causes and actively seek employers with a purpose. What they didn’t know about themselves was that they were already on the tipping point of becoming Police - they just needed help over the line. We needed to show them that a career in the Police Force was their opportunity to create change and make their community a better place. Our creative idea therefore needed to act as the catalyst that would trigger a “moment of realization” amongst our audience giving them the impetus to act. The creative platform was built around the call to action; Do you care enough to be a cop?

Links

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