New Zealand’s 100% Pure brand gets flamed by BBC
For over ten years now, Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Pure New Zealand campaign has been a staple brand for marketing New Zealand to the world. But whether we ought to be laying such a pure claim at all has come under fire on many occasions, most recently on BBC programme Hardtalk where John Key was left sweating after host Stephen Sackur put some tough questions to the Prime Minister about the clean and green image on which New Zealand prides itself.
As part of the 12-minute interview, Sackur fired into Key, quoting Dr Mike Joy, an environmental scientist at Massey University, who says New Zealand is delusional about how clean and green it is. Sackur cited a number of environmental faults, including a quote from Joy that says 90 percent of lowland rivers are classed as polluted, to which Key replied:
“If anybody goes down to New Zealand and looks at our environmental credentials…then for the most part, I think on comparison with the rest of the world we are 100 percent pure.”
Key reckons he could find a number of opinions that would counter Joy’s view, but Sackur wasn’t buying it.
“100 percent is 100 percent, and clearly you’re not 100 percent,” replied Sackur. “Whether you agree with Mike Joy’s figures or not, you’ve clearly got problems of river pollution, you’ve clearly got problems with species which are declining, threatened with extinction.”
The 100% Pure New Zealand brand is intimately tied into New Zealand’s tourism strategy, and as shows like Hardtalk continue to expose New Zealand’s dirtier side, common sense says we can’t really continue to market ourselves on being 100 % pure.
In another incident, this time courtesy of the Guardian newspaper, author, environment journalist and Guardian columnist Fred Pearce, fed New Zealand to the dogs saying we are falsely trading on our positive environmental image.
“My prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as ‘clean and green’,” he wrote.
And at a recent Sustainable Business Network event in Auckland, founder of 42 Below vodka and the current executive chairman of Ecoya Ltd, Geoff Ross, said that while there is massive opportunity for New Zealand in terms of eco wealth, we have to be careful with how we’re selling ourselves to the world.
New Zealand, he said, shouldn’t be boldly going out to the world and as a pure and green country while we forget what’s happening back home. Ross drew on the heavily polluted Manawatu River as an example, which according to research by the respected Cawthron Institute, tops the list of over 300 rivers and streams across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand as the most polluted.
So what does Tourism New Zealand think about this? We’re yet to get a hold of chief executive Kevin Bowler, but in an interview featured on StopPress a short time before he assumed his post as chief executive in January 2010, Bowler offered some insight.
In that interview, he had reservations about the 100% Pure New Zealand line being associated with New Zealand’s environmental performance, preferring to align it instead with the experience and feelings associated with a visit to New Zealand.
Fair enough, but surely that experience, or at least part of it, is intricately tied in with a pristine environment. And, among the campaigns’ push of other elements synonymous with New Zealand, like adventure for example, you can’t deny that parts of the campaign give New Zealand an air of being an environmental paradise of sorts.
Check out the full Hardtalk interview with Key below.
Jam
May 11, 2011
Just watched that Hardtalk interview. Funny to see Key squirm, but more than anything it shames the journo's we get here. That's how you interview and press a member of government. Yet whenever I seek Key interview here its like buddies having a chat with some major arse kissing going on.
Tim Newman
May 12, 2011
Shonky John Key has a stuffed Kiwi in his office, speaks volumes.
xuk
May 12, 2011
couldn't agree more with you Jam
ODL
May 13, 2011
agree with Jam. It's shameful that the press in NZ is so gutless.
AN
May 13, 2011
Great to see "Smile & Wave" John come across as a lightweight. Sadly, if you believe the polls, most Kiwis have been sucked into buying his nice-guy image. Wish we had more journos here like Sackur who would ask JK exactly what the plan and vision is for NZ.
Petard
May 13, 2011
That campaign now has the power to do more harm than good. Like being caught lying. Or believing that rugby is the most important thing in the world.
Bill
May 13, 2011
Anyone with more than 5 minutes experience marketing any aspect of the NZ brand knows 100% Pure isn't talking much about the environment at all.
100% Pure is actually talk to a pure experience – naked, un-manufactured, with real people, genuine moments etc etc…
The relationship to the environment is implicit, and of course leveraged (and frankly NZ does have much to be proud of in terms of the environment and how it relates to our tourism product) for a wider brand benefit.
Key should have been well briefed on this and should have quickly moved to sell this side of the story in, turning the interview into an opportunity, not an ambush.
Jason Brown
May 13, 2011
. . .
Jam is right … sort of ?
It's not the journalists that are the problem, but the public and private sector media owners who can't handle the jandle.
More than lucky for John Key that HardTalk did not delve into our self-perception as the least corrupt country in the world, as self-ranked through Transparency International.
Interesting, is it not Jam, that major media companies can apparently find the bucks to sponsor an inoffensive ad trade like this site, but nothing similar for journalism?
. . .
Jam
May 13, 2011
Kinda agree Jason, but I think its more fundamental – Journo's here simply don't investigate, don't dig, they only report. Perhaps its the routine of copying and pasting so many stories from the international wires, that when a real story comes up, nobody knows how to ask, simply 'ask'. It's just nod and scribble. We're living with a pseudo journalist environmental that functions as much like real hard-knocks journalism, as Ally McBeal is like real legal proceedings.
NZ is struggling economically, as well as in so many other areas right now (as are many states), and Key walks around as if blessed. Brown, Bush, Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel have all taken serious public beatings in the last few years and rightly so. Why nothing for our ineffective government?
Mel
May 18, 2011
If journalists in NZ got paid a similar wage to those in the UK, you might get some higher quality content. As it is, the average NZ journo is in their early twenties and getting bad under $25k. Enough said!
Mel
May 18, 2011
*paid
Paul
May 20, 2011
http://thestandard.org.nz/jon-stephenson-replies-to-critics/
James
May 26, 2011
Bill is right, it's a slogan about pure experience. It's the brain of the customer that puts the association of "green" on it. Nowhere on the planet is totally 100% "pure" if by that you mean unaffected by human activity, even Antarctica. The fact is the moment the first Maori got off the first Waka (and the first female and male Kiore got off too) the percentage of purity dropped below 100%, especially as the Moa hunting and bush burn-offs started. Europeans made it worse as they arrived in bigger numbers. John Key should have pointed this out, and turned the question around to redefine purity as genuine-ness of experience. Agreed he came off second best in the interview, but anyone can have a bad day, perhaps jetlagged?