Whether it’s radio or podcast, on air or online, words or music, now or later, RNZ has something for all ears and all devices.
Each campaign execution takes the similarities or differences of two RNZ platforms and demonstrates how they complement each other. Different combinations across a range of executions convey the breadth of the RNZ audio offering.
The pared back art direction and the short, catchy, headlines were informed by a media plan heavy on outdoor and digital placements.
What to do when a client needs to make every marketing $ count and has a tv commercial that’s not working as hard as it could?
We did not make the original ad but Public Trust came to us with an unusual brief: we could revisit the script, the voice talent, the music, the call to action and the end frame – but the visual edit could not change.
The result? A TVC that is working its socks off, and that Public Trust are proud of.
Press executions further remind people of the importance of making a will.
A continuation of Sky City’s successful brand campaign, which is centred on the thought that when you go to SkyCity you’ll feel something powerful.
Whether it’s the response to a win (or the anticipation of one), a meal, a stay, a gig…this digital video and large format outdoor campaign reminds people in Auckland that they can “Feel it” at SkyCity.
Housing Foundation is an organisation that enables people to break out of the rental housing trap through its Shared Ownership programme.
The new logo was inspired by themes of sharing, collaboration and partnership. The website and all collateral & signage have been completely overhauled too, much to the excitement of the Housing Foundation team and the approval of external stakeholders.
It was a pleasure to develop the logos for two stunning additions to Auckland’s hospitality scene opening in 2023.
SkyBar is the highest bar in New Zealand, offering 360° views from 182 metres up the Sky Tower.
Metita is a fresh exploration of Pacific cuisine from one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated chefs, Michael Meredith. It opened at the end of 2023 to rave reviews.
It’s difficult to think about what happens after we die. Most of us say we want the things that matter to go to the people that matter, but a lot of us have not made a will or decided who will make decisions on our behalf when we are no longer of sound mind.
Public Trust does important work encouraging New Zealanders to put these arrangements in place, and commissioned a series of videos explaining why it’s important that we do.
One hundred years and still growing.
A century in business is a huge achievement, especially considering Barfoot & Thompson is still owned and managed by the Barfoots and the Thompsons.
The campaign uses trees as a metaphor for the strength and growth of the company, while tapping into the family values that have helped them reach this milestone.
After 150 years of educating New Zealanders about the importance of making a will, Public Trust marks the anniversary in press, posters and flyers – staying firmly on message, of course.
In this TV and digital video-led campaign targeting small business owners, Vero provides answers to the ‘what are we in the business of?’ question.
This lighthearted approach underscores Vero’s deep understanding of the sector and their dedication to tailoring insurance cover that’s ideal for businesses.
A campaign to remind listeners that RNZ National’s Morning Report is New Zealand’s morning news, with comprehensive coverage of local and world events. And who better to convey this than a Tui with a lot to say in the morning.
This 15 second spot runs in the evenings on TVNZ channels. Digital billboards, web banners and Social posts complete the mix.
Sometimes advertising works best when it exaggerates real life; sometimes it’s OK to just show real life. And the truth of moving into a retirement village is that life goes on as normal, but without the worries of homeownership or the social isolation of living on a street where your neighbours are all at work Monday-Friday. And when you live in a retirement village your grandkids can still come and visit, just like they did before you moved.
For the residents at The Grove Orewa the beach is only a few minutes’ walk away, making a visit from a grand-daughter even more special. For the grand-daughter, the only thing that’s changed is that Nana and Poppa have downsized to a biiiig house.
With 2022 being the first year as the title sponsor of the Auckland Marathon, Barfoot & Thompson wanted to strongly link their brand with the event. To achieve this, we featured marathon runners captivated by a Barfoot & Thompson For Sale sign. The campaign appears in outdoor, print, digital and social.
Spearheading the move away from imported feeds on farms, Pioneer advocates replacing them by growing extra maize. With the cooperation of media owners, we add a bit extra to the communications to catch the attention of farmers.
One from the archives, when ‘Entertainment Seekers’ were the core target market for Super Rugby. Each execution captures the excitement of the rugby, with a fun twist.
Nowhere is Barfoot & Thompson’s support of rugby more evident than in the NPC competition where they are sponsors of Northland, North Harbour, Auckland and Counties Manukau. To create a season-long leverage campaign across all four regions was going to be a challenge. Our answer was to focus only on the matches between each of these teams. This allowed for a meaningful yet manageable calendar for media buying, and helped us accentuate the multi-team support that Barfoot & Thompson provides.
To mark Skycity’s partnership with this prestigious global event, the leverage campaign intertwines rugby with elements of the precinct in fun and inviting ways. Appears outdoor, on-premise, in digital and social.
Maize silage made from Pioneer® Brand hybrids is an excellent supplementary feed for dairy farms. And most importantly to farmers, their beloved cows absolutely adore the stuff. To demonstrate this, the TVC features well-known New Zealand chef Al Brown preparing a dish for a sumptuous alfresco banquet. In an elaborate rug-pull, viewers discover that Al’s dish is maize silage, and the diners are cows.
With skyrocketing building costs making it hard to set adequate sum insured figures, full replacement cover has become a particularly attractive feature of Vero’s house insurance – especially when it’s celebrated in claymation. This campaign was conceived and produced entirely under lockdown conditions.
SkySlide takes immersive VR technology on a hydraulically powered platform to the already-giddy heights of the Sky Tower. We were briefed on a campaign to promote this new phenomenon, which had only been featured at The Shard in London. Our idea lent itself to work across multiple images, and some videos for social and on-premise screens too.
Barfoot & Thompson share their love for the areas where they they live and work, with an outdoor and social campaign celebrating favourite local attractions. Behind the scenes, this required 105 individual adshels and 228 social posts, all customised to feature relevant local amenities in the suburbs in which they appeared. Plus a customisable filter on Instagram for salespeople to use when visiting their favourite local spots.
As the Covid restrictions began to ease early in 2022, hospitality businesses had to work hard to convince people that doing the things we used to take for granted was safe.
SkyCity was no different. In this campaign we used familiar Covid expressions, matched with aspirational SkyCity imagery, to reassure people that SkyCity was a safe place to visit.
Following a successful brand campaign in print in 2020/21, Gerard’s Spring 2021 activity focused on the provincial regions and included as many out-of-home placements as possible – it’s the ideal medium for a product that does its thing outdoors. Provincial press, digital and magazines also featured.
A table game promo structured to increase visitation and revenue over a sustained period. The proposition for both the target audience and the agency were the same: the Aston Martin Vantage must be won.
In keeping with this fine British marque, our headlines were compelling yet understated; the look & feel pared back and elegant.
When massive floods hit Northland on a July evening in 2020, Vero’s claims team were on the ground by 8am Saturday, two days before other insurers reacted. Assessors and project managers had started work by Sunday morning, and all claims were seen within 36 hours of being lodged.
But it’s not just big the big weather events that sees Vero spring into action like this. ‘We’re on it’ conveys a sense of the attitude, spirit and willingness of Vero’s claims team to treat every claim as a matter of urgency, irrespective of the scale of loss or damage.
Our connection to what makes New Zealand special has never been greater than in the summer of 2021. Barfoot & Thompson’s new campaign leverages this surging local pride in Auckland and Northland, following the crowds and the excitement to assert its place as the real estate agency that knows your place the best.
The campaign, featuring a range of outdoor, print and digital placements, takes instantly recognisable real estate assets and partners them with the iconic features of Auckland and Northland.
You can’t go to SkyCity without feeling something.
A delicious meal, a relaxing massage or yoga class, a walk around the outside of SkyTower, or a jump off it, a stay in one of the hotels, or a night at the roulette table; they all create memorable feelings.
This campaign, in digital video, large format outdoor and print, reminds Aucklanders that there’s never been a better time to Feel it.
It’s hard to imagine – or even remember – the Auckland skyline without the 328m high Sky Tower. Despite this, there has never been a video tribute dedicated to the tower, and the presence it holds for all of us. That was our brief.
The Sky Tower film is whatever the viewer makes of it, based on their own relationship with the Sky Tower; it is deliberately unencumbered with promotional messages, and more powerful as a result.
In the run up to the General Election, an OOH and digital campaign reminded New Zealanders that RNZ’s election coverage was available across its radio and digital platforms.
Vero’s intermediated business model is one of the insurer’s key differentiators; all of the insurance it underwrites is via brokers or advisers. However research shows that more and more SMEs are choosing to buy their business insurance direct (from other insurers). The message in Vero’s latest TV, Print and digital campaign is that some jobs in life that are best left to an expert, and organising business insurance is one of them.
An outdoor-led campaign for RNZ National that respects both the medium with its simplicity and the brief with its singleminded call-to-action. A finalist at the 2019 New Zealand Effie Awards.
A classic New Zealand success story, Gerard roofs are established in 120 countries worldwide. But from once being a household name on our shores, the brand has lost much of its awareness. In this series of magazine and press ads, we re-introduce New Zealanders to the benefits that make Gerard roofs so popular here and overseas.
In the biggest overhaul of the company’s visual identity in 40 years, the new look spans every conceivable medium plus 77 branches, 1700 salespeople and 5 divisions. A fresh new master logo, sub-brand iterations, refined colour palette and design elements set the platform for the myriad of executions to follow. The master brand design was a joint venture between Big Communications and Simon Byers Design with the Barfoot & Thompson in-house studio team instrumental in developing the brand’s guidelines and rolling out many of the elements.
In an age when many marketers are turning their backs on print, Pioneer is keener than ever to put high-quality catalogues in the hands of customers and prospects. Along with product details there are farm success stories, great photography and insightful research. The catalogues underscore the company’s commitment to farming – and provide a compelling case to grow maize.
Owned and run by the founding families every day since 1923, Barfoot & Thompson is a values-based organisation. The importance of People, Family, Diversity and Community is evident in the day-to-day life of the company. More importantly, these are their words, not ours. In a world where many organisations are desperately trying to define what they want to be, Barfoot & Thompson have simply described the culture they already have. This brand campaign reveals the values in a thoughtful and fun way. Designed to run over a wide number of platforms and formats, there are 20 different executions in the campaign launch.
Many New Zealanders aren’t aware RNZ also has an extraordinarily comprehensive website covering the latest in news, sport, culture and more. To encourage trial of the site, this wide-reaching outdoor and digital campaign explains what makes rnz.co.nz an excellent – and very different – source of news.
A gaming promotion encouraging customers to enjoy a night out at the Casino takes on a Moulin Rouge-meets-circus theme.
To leverage their major sponsorships, Barfoot & Thompson put up major prizes for event attendees. The online video promotes the brilliant prizes offered in 2020.
A July school holidays favourite with families, the snow globe gives many kids the chance to experience snow for the first time. We brought this moment to life all over Auckland on posters, billboards and buses. The animated video screens around SkyCity worked well too.
We developed a distinctive personality and look for this recently-launched brand of maize hybrids in New Zealand. VPMaxx targets farmers that don’t want to become maize experts – they just want high-yielding crops and good advice along the way.
After a 2018 season culminating in the extra-time final victory at home, Auckland Rugby were keen to continue the momentum in 2019. We brought back the crowd chant from the halcyon 80s and 90s as a clarion call to encourage fans to head along to the Eden Park matches. “Let’s go, Auckland, let’s go” resounded across radio, video, billboard, web banners, EDMs, press and posters and was supported with strong ticketing offers.
To persuade farmers to consider growing maize for silage as a supplementary feed, we send them actual maize silage packaged up like breakfast muesli. The many benefits of maize silage are designed onto the box. And the farmers can even feed it to a cow to see how they like it. The mailing is followed up with a call from the local Pioneer representative to secure an appointment. It’s proving a big hit with farmers and many are switching to maize silage as a result of the campaign.
With Vero’s insurance products being sold through intermediaries, there isn’t the need for continuous retail advertising activity – which means brand awareness can be low compared with other insurance brands. In this campaign we show how Vero thinks and acts in ways you wouldn’t expect of an insurer. Three well-crafted stories, told with slow-moving pans and satisfying twists.
With 25,000 local and International athletes competing, the Auckland World Masters games was a massive event for Auckland, and a major sponsorship for Barfoot & Thompson. To leverage it across every medium, we created a 3D cityscape of Auckland incorporating equipment from every one of the 28 sports featured. The campaign was recognised globally with a Best Ads award for Outdoor.
Every diva needs sparkling sequins. To promote a one-night-only show of Cindy of Samoa for SkyCity we naturally decided to use sequins, and only sequins. After a fun shoot with the highly-entertaining Cindy, the image was artfully built in 3D by our good friends at Bunker. Nice job, everyone.
Barfoot & Thompson sponsor two subcategories of the ASB Auckland Marathon. Initially briefed with the option of having two separate campaigns, this idea combined both sponsorships in a playful way that trumpeted the kids marathon sponsorship in its first year.
An outdoor-led campaign (bus, billboard, adshel) supported by digital, press and branch screens.
The equivalent of our own Melbourne Cup, it’s another major Auckland sporting event that Barfoot & Thompson gets behind. In this simple illustrated execution, we reveal a subtle similarity between horse racing and real estate.
A high-ticket development in a prime position on the Grey Lynn ridge, Crest targets an emerging market: sophisticated empty nesters moving in from the suburbs. We developed the name and branding to reflect this premium positioning. And rather than a loud retail voice, we chose a more discreet tone – with the language and art direction being just-so. Elements include brand strategy, naming, look & feel, collateral, website, hoardings, show suite materials and advertising. The campaign won Best Asia Pacific Marketing Campaign (and runner up overall) at the 2017 International Property Awards. In a rapidly tightening apartment market, Crest is now under construction.
A brand TVC that demonstrates the scale and breadth of Vero’s offering, and does so in a visually captivating way. Post Canterbury EQ, the client was keen to show insurance putting things right, rather than merely being protection from what may occur. At the same time, we were keen to avoid the destruction-fest you see in many insurance ads.
Boys will be girls. To celebrate its involvement in the Pride Festival, SkyCity created Queens of SkyCity – a weekly cabaret revue show featuring some of Auckland’s finest (and tallest) drag queens. The show also helped to reinforce SkyCity as an organisation that welcomes sexual and gender diversity, evidenced through its Rainbow Tick accreditation.
With many brands out to own a share of the festive season, SkyCity were keen to underscore their many Christmas activities with a strong campaign in 2018. The whimsical notion of snow on the SKY Tower was realised with an image created entirely in 3D. Further tactical executions drove traffic to the various activities (Santa, Markets, entertainment) as they happened. An outdoor-led campaign (bus, street poster, billboard) supported by digital and press plus on-premise posters and activations.
Barfoot & Thompson has been a Five Star sponsor of Starship since 2004. It’s a sponsorship that is wholeheartedly embraced across the entire network, from the Barfoot and Thompson families to the individual salespeople, many of whom create their own initiatives to raise funds for Starship. This simple execution is designed to be used across any medium, from a billboard to an email signature.
A registered charity, The Selwyn Foundation has been serving older people and their families for over sixty years. As the population ages, it is continually innovating and diversifying to extend its reach and effectiveness in the community. It’s an inspiring story to tell.
A simple idea that communicated the launch of a very strong – though quite complicated – house insurance feature called SumExtra. Essentially, SumExtra increases your amount of cover if the loss is greater than your sum insured amount.
A major sponsor of the Blues, Barfoot & Thompson asked us to develop online videos to leverage the sponsorship across their website and social media. Importantly, they wanted the videos to be entertaining and worth sharing with friends; they didn’t want them to be sales videos.
What better way to celebrate a sport of three disciplines with a campaign of three executions – all shot at homes around Auckland.
After establishing the creative proposition based around its incredible location, we developed the logo (with its equator device to reflect the name), look and feel, collateral, touchscreen, website, advertising, showroom materials, signage, hoardings and more. The results? The Antipodean is now under construction after a highly successful off-the-plans sales campaign.
Entering a crowded market, the project didn’t have a name when we started. We came up with one, along with a multi-layered marketing campaign to strongly differentiate it from the competition. Working closely with the Barfoot & Thompson Projects team, we developed the branding, website, collateral, hoardings, showroom materials, interactive touchscreen and more. Nugent Rise is now under construction with owners set to be handed the keys in April 2018.
Before the season starts every year, Auckland Rugby gives away 14,000 rugby balls to help encourage kids to play club rugby. To build community awareness around this significant undertaking, we ‘filled’ a shipping container with balls and show it off at strategic locations around Auckland. An accompanying activation challenged kids to blow up a rugby ball faster than Charlie Faumuina.
Haumaru Housing is a joint venture between Auckland Council and The Selwyn Foundation, launched in July 2017 to manage Auckland Council’s portfolio of social housing for older people. We were responsible for creating the corporate identity, including the name. We managed the consultation with Maori to develop the name (in Te Reo, Haumaru has meanings of shelter, and a safe and caring haven) and we worked with a specialist Maori designer to add further meaning through its visual representation. We then developed all collateral, signage, website look & feel and communications.
While it makes financial sense to leverage off global marketing assets where possible, for the landmark launch of the Kodiaq SUV, we felt it important to add a local touch. Our positioning of this amazing new SUV as being It’s a family thing led us to shoot a genuine Kiwi family enjoying its many features.