The Campaign

New Zealand was competing for Chinese travellers with other top overseas destinations last year, such as Japan, Thailand, South Korea, and the USA.(4) This was amid the knowledge that China was New Zealand’s second largest inbound visitor market, according to New Zealand China Trade Association,(5) as well as another report by China Daily indicating that New Zealand was one of the most important markets for outbound travel from China.(6) Meantime, we discovered that Chinese travellers were not aware that New Zealand had more than just breathtaking views to offer, i.e. wine experiences from the source, fresh ingredients with an option of Asian cooking preparation, and iconic food festivals. These insights inspired Feast New Zealand Challenge, our HTML5 branded game featuring four dishes from destinations visited by XFUN; lucky winners were rewarded with a pair of return New Zealand flight tickets for completing the game in 30 seconds.

Creative Execution

Our collaboration with XFUN entailed the hosts, en-route from Shanghai to Auckland, to introduce viewers to Air New Zealand's in-flight offerings. Next, we featured food from the four places across New Zealand visited by XFUN in our HTML5 branded game, i.e. Auckland lamb chop, Hawke’s Bay salmon, Wellington crab, and Dunedin seafood. Players could select any of those four dishes and must finish it within 30 seconds by tapping their mobile screen, followed by submitting their contact details, for a chance to win a pair of Air New Zealand return flight tickets to New Zealand. Meantime, we edited and stitched snippets from the XFUN episodes to create a 30-second pre-roll advertisement, as well as designing few online banners containing XFUN elements, and placed them on iQIYI, Sohu, Toutiao, and Elle online and mobile TVs plus the Eyepetizer app, to increase traffic to our HTML5 branded game.

The results of Feast New Zealand Challenge were phenomenal(7): over 600,000 page views; 470,000 unique visitors; game played as many as 70,000 times; and 35,000 submissions of players’ contact details. Furthermore, we exceeded key media KPIs for our placement of pre-roll and online banners on iQIYI and select few online and mobile TVs plus app, i.e. the number of impression and number of clicks, with a lower cost per thousand impressions and cost per click.(8) Now, we could say that there are more travellers from Mainland China whom no longer recognise New Zealand only for its landscapes, because they have become more aware of its food scene the moment they embarked on the journey of delicious discoveries to New Zealand, with Air New Zealand.

China XFUN with Tourism NZ filmed seven episodes of food and wine experiences across NZ last November. So, we negotiated for an incorporation of Air NZ branded content, acquiring money-can’t-buy assets for our campaign. Backed by insights that Chinese travellers were not familiar with NZ food, we reached new audience who were loyal XFUN fans; the hosts represented the younger, affluent, and well-travelled Chinese segment. The results: 35,000 participants; 9 million views for XFUN; and we met KPIs for impression and click at a lower cost per thousand impressions and cost per click.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our campaign, which ran from 31st March till 22nd April 2016, was targeted at recruiting new audience across Mainland China, particularly from first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, with more than CNY200,000 annual household income, and a penchant for making outbound trips, fueled by their desire of seeking new experiences and fostering deeper emotional bonds with loved ones on their journey of discovery and learning. Kicking off Feast New Zealand Challenge was our collaboration with XFUN, an iQIYI video platform’s exclusive travel programme with a record of high viewership, to co-create our branded content. Next, we created the HTML5 branded game that utilised the creative assets obtained from the XFUN show, i.e. stills and information. Later, we identified several mobile and online TV platforms, as well as app, to drive visitors from these platforms to the game, which was our campaign's core component, while maximising engagement and impression.