The Campaign

Every Chinese New Year, millions of dollars are gifted all around the world, in red hong bao envelopes. The newer the notes, the more prosperous the gift – so each Chinese New Year sees large queues forming at banks, as Chinese New Zealanders rush to order their fresh new notes ahead of time. This year, the Bank of New Zealand wanted to help make celebrating Chinese New Year a little easier. So we created the Most Prosperous ATM. We redesigned BNZ’s busiest ATMs to celebrate the Year of the Dog, and rewired them to dispense fresh, new notes, straight from the Treasury – and red hong bao envelopes, too. Taking the stress out of the celebrations, and helping make Chinese New Year just that little bit more prosperous.

The Brief

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Creative Execution

The Most Prosperous ATM was created by rewiring BNZ’s busiest ATMs to dispense only fresh, new notes, straight from the Treasury – as well as pristine, BNZ-branded hong bao envelopes. Completely eliminating the need for our customers to visit to the bank, to get their New Year sorted. Every detail of the Most Prosperous ATMs was created with the Chinese New Zealand community in mind. The ATM celebrated the Year of the Dog, with a beautiful red and gold illustration – gold a symbol for good luck, and red symbolising good luck and happiness. With 8 considered the luckiest number in Chinese culture, the ATMs were situated at 80 Queen St, in Auckland’s CBD – and launched at 8:08am on Monday the 12th of February, 5 days ahead of Chinese New Year. The Most Prosperous ATMs became the go-to destination for getting Chinese New Year sorted, simply and easily.

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

Considering the campaign goals of creating brand love, awareness, and inspiring positive sentiment from the target audience, the campaign was a huge success for BNZ. During the campaign period (12-25th February, 2018) the ATMs saw a 25% lift in transactions. That made it the ATMs’ busiest period of the entire year – even beating out Christmas. The ATMs received a featured review in SkyKiwi, New Zealand’s biggest Chinese website. On social media, the campaign reached 33.43% of Chinese New Zealanders. And, most importantly, the feedback from the Chinese community was 100% positive.

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

This campaign relied completely on a real-world activation, by taking over two ATMs on Auckland’s busiest street – giving passers-by the chance to experience a one-stop-shop, where they could get all their Chinese New Year needs sorted.

To achieve our promise of customer-led banking, and inspire positive sentiment, we had to go beyond a facebook post or billboard – instead demonstrating understanding, by creating something truly useful. Chinese New Year is an important event on the Chinese calendar, celebrated across New Zealand - especially Auckland, where more than 2/3 of Chinese New Zealanders live. The newness of the bills gifted in hong bao is crucial. Fresh notes are a symbol of the fresh start the new year brings - so old, crumpled notes are a big no-no. This means BNZ often sees large queues to order new bills and hong bao in the weeks leading up to celebrations. We identified this issue, the stress and inconvenience of ordering fresh new bills and hong bao ahead of time,and wanted to help. 69.5% of New Zealand’s Chinese population live in Auckland’s CBD, so that’s where we focused our efforts.