The Campaign

Tap For Your Town took Mastercard’s payment technology that was already in every town but that wasn’t being used, and turned it into a mechanic to bring communities together and stimulate local economies. It gave all New Zealanders the chance to bring rugby legend Richie McCaw out of retirement to play a game against their town’s local team. The town with the most taps would win. During the 10 week campaign we measured weekly the 66 towns’ tapping data to create a leaderboard, using this data to fuel the frenzy with more than 400 town specific creative in geo-fenced social media. When Queenstown emerged victorious, the game was broadcast to the entire nation on Facebook Live.

Creative Execution

Tap For Your Town went live on the 17th June, as a fully integrated campaign (TVC, YouTube, Facebook, OOH, Radio, In-Store, Digital). For 10 weeks, we monitored the real-time tapping data and social media data of 66 New Zealand towns. We followed inter-town banter as it happened, and responded with real-time communications to fuel local rivalries. We created over 400 pieces of town-targeted social creative, including geo-targeted content, leaderboards and personalised shout-outs from Richie himself (on YouTube and Facebook). When Queenstown emerged victorious with an incredible 11.2 taps per capita, this highly-anticipated game was heavily promoted for 8 weeks on social media, including from Richie’s personal Facebook page, and picked up by the country’s biggest morning shows, news programs and newspapers. Richie’s team took on the Queenstown locals in a game broadcast to 480,000 New Zealanders on Facebook Live—making it the biggest game of touch rugby in New Zealand’s history.

This highly targeted data approach to communications, specifically designed to resonate with our audience on a grassroots level, ensured New Zealand’s highest ever tap transaction rates. During the campaign period, New Zealand towns together made 13.24 million taps, compared to 8.94 million taps in the same period in 2016 (an increase of 48% year on year). Monthly taps increased by 17% from 4.52 million to 5.29 million, monthly frequency increased by 11% from an average of 8.1 to 9.0 taps, and the penetration of tapping behaviour increased by 31,000 active cardholders from 531,000 to 562,000. The campaign reached 97% of New Zealanders while generating 48.3 million impressions (a number 10 times greater than the national population). These results are projected to deliver over 10 million additional transactions across next 12 months, equating to some NZD$212 million of spending in local towns.

Tap For Your Town was a fully integrated campaign incorporating interpreted live data from Mastercard taps, combined with geo-targeted social content, leaderboards and OOH billboards. The game was broadcast live on Facebook for hundreds of thousands to see, through what was seen to be the biggest game of touch rugby in New Zealand's history.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

A team of analysts collected and interpreted live data from Mastercard taps in all retail environments across New Zealand as well as social media activity about Richie McCaw. This was combined to give us a live leaderboard to use in social as well as help us target key markets that were behind in taps with personalised messages to inspire them to tap more for their town. Tap For Your Town used a strategy of combining both rugby and local rivalries to make tapping more than just a way to pay, giving all New Zealanders the opportunity to bring Richie McCaw out of retirement and into their town to play a game of touch rugby against their local team. The aim was to get all card-inserting, PIN-punching New Zealanders to tap more. To New Zealanders there’s nothing more Priceless than bringing a living legend out of retirement and into their town.