Following the pandemic, the New Zealand tourism industry, once the jewel in the economy's crown (our largest export industry) was at its knees.

Further to this, previous years had seen a proliferation of the backpacker – tourists looking for cheap pot-noodle holidays, who take a lot and give very little in return, both financially and culturally. We didn't want these tourists. Not now.

To kickstart the New Zealand tourism industry, and to some extent the New Zealand economy as a whole, we needed high-value visitors, those looking for meaningful cultural and natural experiences, who have the money to pay for it. And fast.

New Zealand as a nation is about as hard to get to as any, so we needed to go after those willing to give a little more, looking for a little more.

We needed the curious.

IF YOU SEEK.

A tourism campaign that doesn't show its wonders. Not at first anyway.

It doesn't let you hear the sounds, or the stories or meet the creatures. It doesn’t blow you away with the vistas, the music, the cultural stories or rich flavours and sunsets. It doesn't do what tourism ads do.

This tourism campaign conceals. It tempts, frustrates, teases, and never reveals all.

It compels the viewer to seek this place for themselves, with the promise of finding more. Don’t you enjoy the movie more when the trailer hasn’t shown you everything?

Only the truly curious, those willing to give a little more, get to see and experience a little more through six immersive digital experiences. A taste of what awaits them when they come.

“Aotearoa” the indigenous name for New Zealand, means "land beneath a long white cloud.” A land as hard to get to as any on the planet.

A place reserved for the pākiki, the curious ones.

In 2022, while every other nation opened up, putting everything on display, all at once, we did the opposite.

We concealed this place once again, and used our ads, media and PR partners to NOT show this place.

And rather than invite everyone, we just invited the curious. High value, highly-engaged visitors willing to give more, with a campaign designed to compel curiosity.

Quality, over quantity. A tease as opposed to exhibitionism.

Assets we provided to international media and tourism outlets were purposely elusive. Each image and piece of content withheld something – a cultural or natural wonder, only to be enjoyed by engaging further, or of course, coming.

IF YOU SEEK is New Zealand's biggest ever international tourism campaign.

It comprised of 19 unique films, immersive cinema, 6 unique mobile experiences, OOH, press, radio, digital, social and influencer. Every execution withheld a natural or cultural wonder. Each teased, taunted, gave a glimpse but never revealed all.

- We told our stories in a tongue only we understand.

- Performed our people's traditions, with the sound removed.

- Displayed our best events, just after they'd occurred.

- Showed our best views, creatures and taonga (treasures) from the wrong angles, hidden and redacted.

This was a tourism campaign that didn't show, unless you gave a little more.

The further a person engaged with the campaign and the closer they got to booking, the more our digital elements would reveal. Crops became a little wider, more content was given, angles reversed and additional mobile experiences offered up.

But never did we show everything.

The campaign comprises of 1000+ pieces of connected content, designed to keep the truly curious engaged over a two year journey.

Our campaign has been live just over six months but it’s already proving a huge success.

Preference for NZ as a result of our campaign is the highest Meta has ever seen in the travel category.

1.2k pieces of earned international media coverage.

803M impressions.

590% increase in visits to NZ.com one month from launch – 1.6 million unique visits.

Crucially, we’ve seen our decision to target high-quality tourists pay off.

Arrivals are recovering in all key markets, with Australia recovering strongly to 74% in October 2022, but near 100% of spending.

Most importantly, today’s holiday-makers are contributing more to our economy than ever with a 9.2% lift in $-value per visitor vs 2019.

134M video-views, 1.3M website visits and 195k referrals to tourism operators.

Over 4M Chinese visitors and 110K Australians (our two key markets) are currently actively considering a holiday in Aotearoa.

Showing less is more it seems.