Summary of the work

This is the story of how an unknown not-for-profit, Every Kiwi Vote Counts, mobilised Kiwi around the world to vote in New Zealand’s 2020 election. In July 2020, a non-partisan initiative was established to encourage overseas New Zealanders (‘Kiwi’) to participate in New Zealand’s election. Initially named iVoteNZ, it was founded on the belief that democracy only works if we are all part of it. With close to one million New Zealanders living overseas (nearly another 20% of the country’s 5M population), their vote could have major sway over the election. The problem was, they weren’t voting. Only 1 in 10 voted in the last election. A stark contrast to the 79% voter participation by residents inside New Zealand. Our challenge: How do we galvanise overseas Kiwi’s to vote in New Zealand’s Election? Previous research by ex-pat organisation Kea suggested that while overseas Kiwi were interested in voting, they lacked information about how to. But digging further, we found voting inertia was not simply a practical matter. Our in-depth qualitative interviews and social listening revealed two critical barriers: Insight 1. Overseas Kiwis don’t think their vote matters. ‘My vote is neither here nor there. It’s not going to make a difference.’ Insight 2. Overseas Kiwi don’t feel like they have permission to vote. ‘If I’m not living in NZ, it’s not really my business.’ This told us that overseas Kiwi needed more than to be practically enabled to vote - they needed to be provocatively incited and shown how powerful their voting influence could be. Waking overseas Kiwis up to their collection influence To drive behaviour change we knew we had to break out of the wallpaper of ‘childproof’ electoral communications and seize New Zealander’s attention in a controversial and shareable way. This strategic shift from practically enabling Kiwis to vote to provocatively inciting them led to our big idea. First, we renamed the imitative to Every Kiwi Vote Counts, to alleviate concerns that their vote didn’t matter and show every Kiwi their vote had sway. Then, we launched our provocative campaign where we challenged Kiwi’s to ‘Meddle in the New Zealand Election’. Taping into cultural controversies from elections around the world, we employed our own expert in online election influencing. Viktor, the Russian, led a campaign asking Kiwis to ‘Meddle in the New Zealand Election’ and highlighted that - as 20% of the population - their votes could have “some serious sway.” For 18 days leading to election day, Viktor posted about how he “planned to hack away to convince overseas Kiwis to vote.” He targeted overseas Kiwis on social and through PR, with headlines like “Kiwis are being urged to Meddle in the New Zealand Election” never failing to draw attention. Viktor even appeared on billboards in heavily Kiwi-populated cities like London. The Meddler boldly defied category conventions. It was a world away from sincere Party campaigns calling voters to ‘Change Your Future’. To cut through, enter culture and persuade, Meddler was, by contrast, choicefully provocative, irreverent.