New Zealand receives roughly 8% of its GDP from tourism and Australia is its core market, providing 450,000 holiday visitors annually, making up 45% of all total visitors.

Our remit as their Australian agency was to constantly try to find ways to get Australians to holiday there.

When the New Zealand Government announced they were going to legalise gay marriage on April 16th 2013, we saw an opportunity to create a whole new travel market.

We gave away a prize that was still illegal in Australia – a gay wedding, by convincing the New Zealand government to give the first legally signed marriage certificate to two gay Australians. We threw the winners of our competition a fairly tale wedding in New Zealand’s capital city and invited media, the Australian gay community and supporters, to witness them make history. Our competition made news about the same-sex laws relevant to both Australian same-sex couples and gay community supporters, capturing the hearts of Australia whilst showcasing all of the amazing New Zealand holiday destinations to get married in.

There were 1,150 earned media articles about the campaign creating 210,000,000 media impressions across Australia. This included 15 TV features, widespread gay community news, bridal magazine front covers and live wedding footage on national TV. As a result, web searches for ‘marriages’ increased by 400% on NewZealand.com.au and Australian visitors increased by 4.7% during the period. Australian marriages now make up 30% of all same sex marriages in New Zealand and Paul and Trent, our winning couple, were invited to walk in the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival parade.

Research showed that same-sex couples account for near to 2.2 Million Australians with an estimated annual disposable income of $20 Billion and a greater inclination to spend on travel. Particularly when same sex marriage was still illegal in Australia. It was a growth opportunity for Tourism New Zealand. The competition and wedding were promoted on Tourism New Zealand’s social media channels and website whilst the originality and news agenda relevance of the idea itself led to widespread national editorial news and interviews about the campaign.