Air New Zealand - "A Very Merry Mistake"

Host Havas

Host Havas Sydney, Australia

6725

Brand: Air New Zealand
Country: New Zealand

Advertiser: Air New Zealand ANZ

Title	A Very Merry Mistake
Agency	Host Havas
Campaign	Mirry Christmas
Advertiser	Air New Zealand ANZ
Brand	Air New Zealand
Posted	May 2018
Business Sector	Transport, Travel and Tourism
Story	With January’s peak travel period approaching, Air New Zealand – a small national airline with very big ambitions - wanted to raise consideration and awareness of their global flight network. That’s a little tricky at Christmas time, when much bigger brands with much bigger budgets are trying to do the same. With minimal budget, Air New Zealand tasked us with creating an idea that would cut through the noise of the Christmas period and ensure that their small voice was heard loud and clear. Strategy Creating global noise with minimal budget over the busiest time of year is no small feat. But fortunately, Air New Zealand had a secret weapon – a highly engaged social fanbase of New Zealanders both at home and abroad. We needed a socially-driven campaign that would powerfully resonate with our Kiwi audience, so they would share it far and wide, while still appealing to the global audience it would amplify out to. Our strategy, therefore, was to show our uniquely Kiwi take on Christmas. Because, just like our airline, New Zealanders do things a little different, and that makes all the difference. Relevancy A Very Merry Mistake was created to entertain our highly engage social audience. Christmas is when every brand is trying to get their brand message across. With a much smaller budget than our competitors, we needed a campaign that would become part of popular culture and inspire our audience to share our message far and wide. Outcome ‘A Very Merry Mistake’ proved a very big success. Our online film received a 10/10 Facebook relevancy score, and, in the first 10 hours, with $0 spent on media, our social audience spread our film far and wide generating • 670,000 organic views • 2.5 million organic reach • 92,000 engagements, 20k shares, 25k Facebook reactions By the end of the first week we had achieved 10.3 million views (Target of 6m) #1 trending on YouTube 22 million reach 553,000 engagements 384 million PR reach Execution We created ‘A Very Merry Mistake’ – an integrated campaign that celebrated a particularly distinctive, and notoriously confusing quality of New Zealanders – their accents. More specifically, an accent that proved particularly troublesome for the one person who can’t afford any misunderstandings over Christmas – Santa. We launched with an online film, which showed Santa and his elves struggling with New Zealand’s not-quite English. Fortunately, Air New Zealand, those experts in all things Kiwi, were on hand to save Christmas, translating the requests from down South. But the campaign didn’t end there. Through a social promo that showcased our global network, we got Santa’s hilariously mis-made toys, from Puggy Banks to Biscuit Balls and Ear Planes, into the hands of children young and old, all over the world. And to continue our helping hand, lighthearted extension videos offered pronunciation tutorials to help the world understand the unique Kiwi accent. Campaign Description With little budget, we needed to get our loyal Kiwi fan base talking, both at home and abroad. Fortunately, national pride runs high down south, and there’s nothing Kiwis love more than talking about, well… themselves. After all, from our rebel Prime Minister David Lange to our indomitable All Blacks, New Zealand has a long history of being the underdog, of going against the grain and punching above our weight. So what better way of raising Kiwi pride over Christmas than by showing how our tiny country could impact the biggest, most complex organisation in the world – Santa’s Workshop.
Media Type	Television & Cinema
Length	168 seconds
Content Delivery Manager	Siobhain Hayes
Brand Communications Manager	Samantha Saunders
Social Media Team	Maria Hahn
Social Media Team	Joan Zhang
Social Media Team	Jessica Yip
chief creative officer	Darren Spiller
Executive Creative Director	Jon Austin
Copywriter	Hadleigh Sinclair
Art Director	Jack Delmonte
Account Director	Oli Cassidy
Account Director	Jo Thomasson
Planning Director	Jess Page
Broadcast Producer	Karen Muxworthy
Director	Alex Roberts
Producer	Corey Esse
Producer	Amy Dymond
Production Designer	Bruce Everard
Editor	James Ashbolt
Photographer	Matt Baker
Director of Photography (DOP)	Tim Tregoning
Entrant Company	Joachim Høst
Idea Creation	Joachim Høst
Idea Creation	Samantha Havas
Media Placement	Carat Intraprasit
Content Delivery Manager	Siobhain Hayes
Brand Communications Manager	Samantha Saunders
Social Media	Maria Hahn
Social Media	Joan Zhang
Digital Media Manager	Karina Wenker
Senior Manager, Digital & Social Media	Jessica Yip
Content Marketing	Jodi Williams
CCO	Darren Spiller
Executive Creative Director	Jon Austin
Copywriter	Hadleigh Sinclair
Art Director	Jack Delmonte
Account Director	Oli Cassidy
Account Director	Jo Thomasson
Planning Director	Jess Page
Broadcast Producer	Karen Muxworthy
Director	Alex Roberts
Producer	Corey Esse
Producer	Amy Dymond
Production Designer	Bruce Everard
Editor	James Ashbolt
Photographer	Matt Baker
Director of Photography	Tim Tregoning
Entrant Company	HOST/HAVAS
Idea Creation	HOST/HAVAS
Production	HOST/HAVAS
Production	FINCH
Production	ARC EDIT
Production	SONG ZU
Production	LOUIS & CO
Media Placement	CARAT