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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The campaign, which has a tagline of ‘You’ll never be more welcome than right now’, features photographs of tourism operators holding up open signs outside of their business, demonstrating that the Kiwi tourism sector is up and running, and that the best thing people around the world can do to support Christchurch is to visit New Zealand.

Many of the shots are from Queenstown, with a mix from other tourism hot spots around the country. And while tourists are being advised to skip Christchurch at the moment, there is a photo of a genuine tourism operator from the region.

Regional Tourism Organisations and operators were asked to submit images for inclusion in press advertising and TNZ’s chief executive Kevin Bowler says the stakeholders have been enthusiastic about the initiative (the full range of images submitted for inclusion in the press advertising can be found on Tourism New Zealand’s Facebook page).

Over the past few weeks TNZ has hosted many international media from a variety of countries, including the UK, Australia, France, Canada and Japan to show them the rest of New Zealand. Work is also underway to develop a social media campaign targeting New Zealanders and past visitors to share their favourite New Zealand experience.

As this official campaign goes live, bloggers around the country also did their bit to help spread the word about New Zealand with the Blog4NZ initiative, a social media campaign that produced over 200 blogs encouraging readers to visit and experience destinations around the country. This was also created in order to confirm to potential travellers that New Zealand is still open for business.

“It’s only a month since the Christchurch earthquake and we know there is much work to do. Positively shifting international perceptions to the view that New Zealand is open and ready to welcome visitors will go some way to ensuring visitor numbers over the next few months remain strong,” Bowler says.

We asked for clarity from Sue Allen, the acting general manager of corporate communications at TNZ, who replied with this vague email, which was attributed to chief executive Kevin Bowler.

“Tourism New Zealand is working with Razorfish on a one-off project as part of TNZ’s review of its marketing strategy. Four agencies pitched for the work and Razorfish was successful. Some other discreet [sic] work projects have developed from this and we will work with Razorfish on a project-by-project basis.”

Forgetting the different and, in this case, perhaps slightly ironic, definitions of discreet (secretive) and discrete (one-off), we asked a few more questions after receiving the initial statement: “What was the project that Razorfish Amnesia originally won? What other agencies pitched for the work? What kind of budget are we talking about? What kind of work will Razorfish Amnesia be doing in the future? What will it be focusing on? What do you mean by ‘discreet work projects’ and are these ‘discreet work projects’ up for pitch by NZ agencies? Will it affect the work being done for TNZ by other agencies?”

In response to all of these questions, Allen, who admitted she wasn’t close to the project, said: “Basically, we don’t have anything else to say.”

She didn’t think there was anything fishy going on, however, and assumed the relationship with Razorfish Amnesia would be an on-going one. StopPress asked for an interview with Bowler to clear the whole thing up, but Allen said it would be “a bit tricky” because of his very full diary.

Razorfish Amnesia, which won the Adnews interactive agency of the year for the third consecutive year recently, has also taken the silent approach. Typically, winning work like this would be trumpeted by an agency. But its managing director and business development contact failed to return calls (social media types always seem to be the hardest to get hold of when using these antiquated technologies). But they must have got our call because, through its PR agency, it said: “I recommend that you call Tourism New Zealand as Amnesia Razorfish is not in a position to comment.”

So there you have it: when the government is spending your money on projects you are not allowed to know about, using a process that’s murky or at least ‘discreet’, with an Australian company that refuses to talk, clearly there’s nothing to report.

Watch this space.

Hung Huang

Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) has teamed up with two Chinese VIPs, film-maker Lu Chuan and media personality/celebrity blogger Hung Huang, to try and boost New Zealand’s profile as a destination with the massive Chinese populous.

TNZ chief executive Kevin Bowler says the campaign is based around the use of online communities and interactive digital technology.

“Previous advertising activity in China has been successful in building awareness of New Zealand. We now need to build on that by telling a more detailed story of what New Zealand can offer Chinese visitors,” he says. “By sharing the experiences of real people, who are well-known and respected by our target market in China, we can fill in the knowledge gaps in the minds of potential visitors.”

The campaign is based around mini-travelogues fronted by the two celebrities as they experience New Zealand for themselves (TNZ recently launched a similar campaign to target young Australians, although it consisted of personalised guides to New Zealand created by Kiwi musicians Scribe, Liam Finn and The Mint Chicks). The travelogues will be shared through a range of online platforms, including blogs, social media sites, TNZ’s Chinese-language version of its visitor website www.newzealand.com/travel/china and two key key channels www.tudou.com and www.kaixin001.com, the Chinese equivalents of YouTube and Facebook.

The campaign, which is based on research showing word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful influences in Chinese travellers’ holiday decisions, launched this week, with advertising on digital interactive television, office building screens, in taxis and online. All advertising and media placements are directing consumers through to TNZ’s Chinese website, where they can download Lu Chuan and Hung Huang’s New Zealand itineraries and link through to travel seller partners to purchase travel.

Much of the campaign activity will take place around this year’s Shanghai World Expo, which runs from 1 May to 31 October 2010, in order to leverage awareness created by the New Zealand Pavilion, which TNZ is supporting along with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and other New Zealand government agencies.

Experience New Zealand, Right Now

Bowler says tapping into these online communities and enlisting the help of some Chinese star power is a great way to spread content virally, engage consumers in conversation and build lasting networks of fans.

“Digital technologies are providing new ways of doing business every day. New Zealand is a niche destination that appeals to a specific type of traveller, so using digital channels, such as social media and search marketing, allows us to speak directly to this group and maximise the value of our marketing spend.”

China has 384 million internet users, which means online channels provide an ideal opportunity to extend the reach of the ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ campaign. As of February, however, Chinese visitors were down nine percent on the previous year but forecasts for Chinese visitor arrivals are set to grow by 62 percent between 2009 and 2015, to 183,000 visitors per year.

New Zealand’s profile will also receive a boost in Japan following visits by Beverly Maeda, an actress, media personality and face of Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido, and retired pro-baseball player Masumi Kuwata, who both visited as part of TNZ’s Opinion Leaders programme. The pair were accompanied by Japanese TV, print and online media.

New Zealand has also scooped a place as one of three countries currently being show-cased as part of a project by the Japan National Museum of Science.

Television commercials will run in Sydney and Brisbane for the next two weeks and new Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler hopes the campaign, which features the same ad as last year, will inspire Aussie skiers and snowboarders to get in early, make their bookings and ensure another lucrative winter season for the tourism industry (here’s hoping Kevin Rudd dishes out another stimulus package this year).
“Last year was the first year Tourism New Zealand and the industry went into market with an early ski campaign and we had a strong ski season, with the industry here reporting an influx of Australians on the slopes,” he says.
Australia is the largest single international market for skiers and snowboarders into New Zealand, with approximately 70,000 Australians venturing to the snow last year. Australian holiday arrivals over the winter season of June, July and August 2009 were up 28 percent on the same three months of 2008. And it was the first time New Zealand went into Australia early, with ads featuring in February.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bowler, who has a background in marketing, fast moving consumer goods and online telecommunications, says he applied for the job because he’s passionate about New Zealand and wanted to do something beyond growing a company for profit.

“Tourism also makes a big contribution to the way we grow businesses’ economic wealth, and that of New Zealand,” he says.

He spent several years with Telecom, where he worked on projects like T3G and $10txt before moving on to head Telecom’s consumer marketing division. He also worked in fast moving consumer goods marketing, starting with Unilever and NZ Dairy Foods. In the UK he worked for Rank Hovis McDougall foods and he also has experience in advertising account management for Air New Zealand and Cadbury.

Most recently, he was head of YahooXtra so, given his lack of tourism experience, he says his first priority is education.

“I’m new to tourism and I have a lot to learn about all aspects of the industry. I want to meet the people at Tourism New Zealand and as many of our stakeholders as quickly as possible. I want to hear what we’re doing well and what we’re not doing so well and build a picture of what needs to happen.”

So what does he think about 100% Pure?

“The brand we are supporting is New Zealand and 100% Pure is a mechanism that supports that brand. That doesn’t mean 100% Pure New Zealand isn’t important. It has given New Zealand a richer meaning through its presence, but it’s a campaign, not a brand.”
He has particular concerns about the line being too closely aligned with New Zealand’s environmental performance, believing that 100% Pure New Zealand remains more about the experience and feeling of a trip to New Zealand. But he has no plans to change it.

“I don’t think I’d be keen to change it at all. It‘s been and can continue to be very strong. We just need to shape what it means and make sure that it doesn’t come to mean ‘100% green’, and we need to be very clear about what it does mean,” he says.

All his marketing experience has taught him to “put the customer at the centre of your decision-making and don’t assume you know what they are thinking”.
“As a young product manager at Unilever in Petone, one of the products I worked on was Persil and as a 23/24-year-old, with no domestic skills, I learnt that I really needed to understand what the customer thought of the product.”

And that lesson has been reiterated with many products and services since.

The online realm is exciting for Bowler and he says the best way to explain the power of the Internet is to see the world through the eyes of a “digital native”, someone in their twenties in Tokyo or London who lives a digital life, where their social lives, dates, banking, shopping and conversations are all done via the web.

In terms of travel, he believes people are looking online for buying and pricing comparisons and reading reviews, but more by other travellers like themselves than by paid journalists.

For New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand, this opens up options for taking a niche brand and destination and putting it into niche travel areas. He gives the example of a 35-year old British traveller who likes golf, but wants to go on holiday with their family.

“Wouldn’t they really want to talk to someone like themselves who went to New Zealand with their family and then find out what they did and what they liked and what worked because there was something for their partner and children to do while they went to play golf. Helping people find ways to be reassured to make a purchase to travel feels like a really rich space to me,” he says.

He says an approach to market development which is disjointed from the industry is a “sure fire way to get sub-optimal results”, so he is particularly keen to look at how the organisation can get in better touch with the industry.

“New Zealand is a niche destination with small promotional budgets; and travellers aren’t interested in our lines of delineation.  When considering traveling here they simply want to ‘find out’, ‘compare’, and ‘buy’.”

Bowler starts on 18 January.

*This story featured in the December edition of Tourism New Zealand’s newsletter.