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Auckland calls, Colenso BBDO answers

Colenso BBDO’s impressive winning streak continues to roll on and, after adding Volkswagen, Samsung, a few extra Fonterra brands and another yet-to-be-announced client to the roster recently, it’s also picked up some work with Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development (ATEED) and Heart of The City (HOTC) and will be using its skills to try and lure more domestic travellers to the region and more Aucklanders into the central city.  

Colenso BBDO already works with HOTC, but there was a pitch earlier this year for ATEED’s ‘Brand Auckland’ and HOTC’s ‘Brand Central city’ (the final roster was thought to be Saatchi & Saatchi and Special Group) and the objective of the brief was to develop an articulation of Auckland through a single creative concept or an idea that can underpin communications for both organisations.

“It’s a great honour to work on a project that sells the city you live in and love and if successful can improve the livelihoods of its residents,” says Colenso BBDO’s managing director Nick Garrett. “We have a fantastic and long lasting relationship with HOTC and it means a lot to us to be able to deepen that relationship for the next evolution of their brand while at the same time partnering with ATEED for the first time. We are looking forward to sharing the work and hope the city will be excited by it also.”

ATEED general manager destination and marketing Rachael Carroll says Auckland’s ten year visitor plan is designed to drive the visitor economy and contribute to making Auckland the world’s most liveable city and one of the strategy’s targets is to grow the value of domestic tourism from $1.3 billion in 2010 to $2 billion annually by 2021.

“This is our opportunity to work together to bring life to the ‘urban oasis’ proposition of Auckland and show that big city sophistication goes hand in hand with a stunning natural playground.”

Heart of the City head of marketing Kate Cleaver says the joint approach and new creative platform enables it to tell one story for Auckland “in an aspirational and exciting way”. 

“It makes sense strategically from an audience viewpoint, and financially, enabling us to really stretch our combined investment in Auckland. There’s also great potential for it to be leveraged by other Auckland tourism stakeholders, like nothing we’ve had before.”

The campaign will initially focus on engaging Aucklanders, and turning them into proud advocates for Auckland as a destination, before it goes out to a national audience.

Last year, ATEED appointed three agencies—Barnes, Catmur & Friends, Big and 4is—to work on different parts of its business (Ogilvy & Mather takes care of the main Auckland Council account). 

The most recent push was a domestic campaign by Barnes, Catmur & Friends that poked fun at some of the Auckland stereotypes to try and reduce the lingering anti-Auckland sentiment around the country. 

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