Encouraging Kiwis to Have Their Say: Data Driven Insights Kickstart Meaningful Conversations.

Industry
Infrastructure
Market
Government
Country
New Zealand

The Infrastructure Commission of New Zealand, Te Waihanga, are a government agency specialising in the current and future states of infrastructure in Aotearoa. Infrastructure is more than just roads and pipes, it affects the housing market, climate, public services and so much more.

Te Waihanga asked us to develop a full campaign strategy from creative concepts and production, to full media planning and optimisation. This was to encourage New Zealanders to ‘Have Their Say’ in the Aotearoa 2050 infrastructure vision.

With low brand awareness and Kiwis often reluctant to spend time voicing their opinions - driving successful and insightful engagement was no easy task.

Our challenge: how could we encourage Kiwis to care about the state of Aotearoa in 2050 and get them to open up and have their say, without the look and feel of the government?

At a glance

30,101

sessions on the "Have Your Say" landing page

23,568

recorded submissions

78%

completion rate

The campaign

To really get insightful feedback, helping to develop the Aotearoa 2050 infrastructure vision, we required at least 5000 Kiwis to open up and have their say. Often a reluctant bunch to spend time engaging with serious topics - we needed to use data driven insights to pin point the topics that got Kiwis passionate about the future of our infrastructure.

Reason's approach was centred around “Getting Ahead, Getting Ready and Getting Around” – we sought to find a message that best drove action and tested multiple messaging & creative themes across a range of traditional and online media channels, moving our budget fluidly based on performance as we learned.  

It was no surprise that traffic and public transport got the masses fired up and ready to shed light on what they felt could help build us all a better Aotearoa.

Our messaging strategy: Help build a better Aotearoa.

Audience
Impressions
Ad click rate
Ad clicks
Clicks to site
Click to site %
18-34
107,715
5.51%
5,936
560
9.43%
35-44
82,162
7.29%
5,990
735
12.27%
45-54
69,280
11.94%
8,274
996
12.04%
55-64
54,468
16.63%
9,059
1,046
11.55%
65+
58,901
23.40%
13,785
1,656
12.01%
Broad travel interest
134,680
9.81%
13,207
1,433
10.85%

Campaign ideation & creative management:

Reason pulled out all the stops integrating its capabilities across content and brand  strategy, production and media planning/buying.

To start with we needed a non government brand to promote our media from. After ideation and development, Aotearoa 2050 was the perfect output.

We landed on three key themes for testing, all of which included a variety of assets with different messaging.

To ensure thorough and accurate testing, we also built a creative testing framework for our digital channels.

Cross-channel, aligned creative – with a lot of testing:

We ran ads across core digital channels; Facebook, Instagram, Display, YouTube, MetService and Video.

We also ran relevant traditional media (radio and print) to help push the message in higher  reaching / contextual  environments, plus capturing Kiwis who may not necessarily spend time online.

Creative and budget were rotated throughout the campaign to shift the performance dial, ensuring spend was  maximised in the areas that were  performing best.

Being relatable is what gets Kiwis talking:

No Kiwi is the same, so we wanted to deliver a more regional focused approach – therefore giving us the opportunity to talk to all Kiwis, in a more approachable and relatable tone.

We developed video and social content talking to both urban and regional New Zealand, using regional data from initial engagement.

Also, it was important to include translated content in Te Reo Maori, Mandarin and Hindi.

The results

Tangible performance:

Through ongoing analysis, optimisation and data driven creative, we were able to help Te Waihanga achieve their stretch goal of 20,000 responses with a staggering 23,568. Not only did our results back up our media approach, but also how Te Waihanga can start framing up the Aotearoa 2050 vision based on public feedback.

Channel
Passport application starts
Media investment
Cost per new application
Gmail
172
$4,491.72
$26.11
Display
92
$4,452.58
$48.40
Total
264
$8,944.30
$33.88
Paid social
provided exceptional performance and engagement, with 78% of total digital responses
30,101
sessions on the "Have Your Say" landing page
23,568
recorded submissions
12,326
single form submissions
10,451
submissions across Getting Ready, Getting Ahead, Getting Around
78%
completion rate
$12
cost per submission

Insights for future use:

Reason were able to deliver meaningful insights on what worked, what didn’t work, and recommend actions for The Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga for subsequent consultancy campaigns.

  • Generating 12k form submissions from the media campaign was a strong result, showing the integrated channel approach from highly targeted digital to traditional channels all worked together to achieve the common goal.
  • Although larger regions such as AKL, WLG, CHC delivered volume; we saw notable conversion rates from the smaller areas of NZ. Therefore showing the value in regional messaging and not dismissing smaller areas in paid media due reach potential.
  • Recommendations on channels that performed most effectively from a CVR% and CPA perspective.
  • Opportunity for transport focused media as this was definitely a talking point!

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