Case Study / Right in the heart of this place

Putting Taupō back on the map post Covid

Huge audience reached over 9 weeks

TV 675,000
Print 275,000
Digital 6.5M impressions
Social 1.4M impressions
Outdoor 352,512

186.35% increase in website visits

194,694 visits driven to the website during the campaign period, versus 67,992 for the same period the year before.

68% new visitors to the website

Of the traffic going to the website, over half were new visitors.

Love Taupō is a tourism brand tasked with promoting the Taupō region.

The Challenge

Covid had massive implications for the tourism industry, with holiday travel being non-existent during lock downs.

We needed to be prepared to be able to communicate that Taupō was, ‘open for business’ as soon as we entered Alert Level 2 and regional travel was permitted.

We wanted to signal to the local community and tourism stakeholders that Love Taupō could act decisively in a crisis to support their businesses and livelihoods. All the while knowing that we would be operating in a highly competitive domestic tourism environment.

The Solution

Position Taupō as a unique, central, convenient, familiar and highly desirable holiday option in the minds of Kiwis.

We established a communications platform that could be cost effectively leveraged over the long term – well beyond the initial requirements of the COVID emergency response.

A central, ‘Right in the heart of this place’ campaign theme was developed to claim both our literal (central North Island location) and spiritual place right in the centre of the hearts and minds of Kiwis all over NZ.

A fully integrated campaign was developed (while still in lock-down) so that it was ready to launch as soon as travel was permitted.