Around the world, Christmas has always been a Northern Hemisphere-dominated event, synonymous with frosty snowmen and frightful weather. Problem is, for the Southern Hemisphere, those things don’t represent Christmas at all. Down here, Christmas is in the middle of summer, not winter. But our warm and sunny festive identity is never represented. So we set out to give New Zealand a special gift – a chance to ditch the traditionally Northern traditions and embrace their very own Christmas identity - and put Air New Zealand at the heart of the holiday season in the process.

Partnering with multi-Platinum selling artist Ronan Keating and young kiwi upstart Julian Dennison (Hunt For The Wilderpeople), we reworked the iconic Christmas carol Winter Wonderland, and turned it into Summer Wonderland - a carol that the warmer half of the world could finally rally behind. But Summer Wonderland wasn’t just a song. It was a musically-led, digital tourism campaign, designed to get people dreaming of summer Down Under.

Leveraging our highly engaged social audience, we launched our hero film on Facebook on December 1st – the first day of summer in New Zealand.

A week later we released a music video designed to teach people the words and get them singing along.

A digital hub let musicians download sheet music, while Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music and Google Play let people download and stream the track. Our hashtag #SummerWonderland was embraced by thousands of people sharing their own Summer Wonderland moments.

- Within the first month, the campaign had received more than 15 million views (84% organic).

- The campaign achieved a total PR reach of over 500 million, and a 96.6% positive sentiment score.

- We gained traction with over 120 PR stories across international online publications, including MTV, Daily Mail, The Sun, and Twitter Moments.

- We were trending on Facebook and YouTube within the first 48 hours, and went on to become New Zealand's Most Watched Ad on YouTube in 2016.

- Summer Wonderland, an openly brand-made song, charted on both the New Zealand and Australian official ARIA charts.

- Best of all, the official Summer Wonderland track beat artists like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheerhan and Zayn to reach #1 on iTunes.

Rather than selling a destination, Summer Wonderland sought primarily to gain brand fame using Air New Zealand's unique blend of New Zealand humour and social shareability. As such, Summer Wonderland was viewed less as an ad, and more as a piece of pop culture, as evidenced by the track reaching #1 on iTunes, charting in Australia's official ARIA Charts, and being covered and reimagined by dozens of New Zealand musicians and influencers.

Over Christmas, you give gifts to those you care about. We wanted to do just that for our fellow New Zealanders. But it had to be a special gift. One they’d cling to and make their own. We started by acknowledging that, while Christmas may be a crowded time of year, it’s crowded with the same exact thing: mistletoe and roaring fires; snow and woolen jumpers; emotional stories wrapped up in traditional Northern Hemisphere themes.

For all those in the Southern Hemisphere, those clichés don’t represent Christmas at all.

So our gift to New Zealand was something they’d always been missing – a chance to celebrate Christmas in a new, meaningful way.

Without the budgets of bigger multinational carriers, Air New Zealand has gained a global reputation by over-indexing on highly creative, shareable work, which earns its own media in social channels.

It’s an objective with everything from their retail banners to their safety videos. And this Christmas was no different. After all, Christmas and travel go hand in hand.

Air New Zealand wanted to build brand fame and foster pride among kiwis, both at home and abroad.

Problem is, Christmas advertising has become a global game, dominated by bigger brands with bigger budgets, all shouting for attention in digital spaces.

We needed to cut through the noise with something special.