Australia & New Zealand: A Talent For Attention

New Zealand’s agencies have a can-do attitude that bags them their fair share of Lions, and that success is driven by insights inspired by local culture – and not always the Anglo-Saxon version, as DDB Asia-Pacific’s regional CD Andy Fackrell explains

At a recent regional conference in Tokyo, Cannes head of digital Senta Slingerland presented an infographic of Cannes Lions winners in relation to country populations; New Zealand’s two jauntily angled islands appeared to be the biggest land masses on earth. As much as that pleased me – particularly as I was sitting with ECDs from China, India, the Philippines, Singapore and, importantly, Australia – I prefer its place and size just where it is. It’s like the Galapagos of advertising, a land of isolated micro-species, constantly evolving.

Having lived in the US, I’d witnessed many a TV news show cropping New Zealand from their world maps. For a TV station’s graphics department, to include Aotearoa meant also having a ton of needless white space (that’s the Tasman Sea to us), so I guess the easiest solution was to delete everything a stone’s throw to the right of Australia’s east coast. So it was a pleasant surprise to see us standing out like a dog’s balls.

When small is beautiful

Four million people is a tiny market to work with, and that NZ tends to produce so much great work is a testament to the ‘can-do’ attitude of the people in the business. It’s also not coming just from one agency – there are four that keep popping out great work with regularity.

Compared with Europe or the US, I think clients and agencies are way more in sync with each other. It’s less them versus us – marketers versus agencies –maybe because we are such a small group, and people change sides often.

Most clients also realise the power of entertainment and intelligent persuasion. Maybe, like Kiwis themselves, they’re suspicious of the big sell, of being overbearing; that’s almost a national phobia. I think it’s because of our small size that the big agencies’ creative product has not just influenced the industry, it has had a positive impact on NZ’s culture, ensuring advertising is not the scorned industry it is in other regions.

Take, for instance, DDB’s Be The Artist, Not The Canvas campaign for responsible drinking. An insight possibly lost upon the rest of the world (it’s a rite of passage to pass out at parties and have anatomy drawn over your face), it tries not to preach but serves the message with a chuckle. We’re better at a wry smile rather than a LOL.

Clemenger BBDO’s Blazed film for the NZ Road Traffic Authority, directed by Taika Waititi, is a brilliant piece that is part funny, part sad. In fact, some of NZ’s best recent advertising and feature films have been unearthing gems shaped  by Maori and Polynesian cultures. Just as that same agency and client found in the making of Steve Ayson’s hypnotic Ghost Chips spot, our writers are being drawn to storytelling and delivery through local vernacular, and not necessarily the Anglo-Saxon one.

Standing up for Kiwi culture

The bottom half of New Zealand’s South Island was settled by the Scots – not necessarily recognised for their flowery words, and this trait was recently personified by the NZ cricket captain Brendon McCullum. After becoming the first New Zealander to score a Test-match triple century – only 28 players have achieved that feat of endurance in 150 years of the game – a reporter asked if he’d shed a tear. “No mate, I’m from South Dunedin.” It gets a little more emotive, the further north you go. And warmer.

Resourcefulness also tends to show itself in the work here. There is no better example of people mucking in to get things done than FCB’s Driving Dogs campaign.  There’s not a huge amount of money in production, but there are some fantastic people that will roll their sleeves up for a worthy cause.

Well, yes, you say, we’re very good at charity work (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). True, we do a bit of that, and it can win us awards, but I think it’s an important thing for us to do – using the industry’s positive influence on culture to do good is something that should be encouraged.

At DDB, our teams do one campaign a year for something they really believe in, and out of that push came YWCA’s Demand Equal Pay. It proved a big success at Cannes last year and had backing from one of our biggest-paying clients, as well as agency network support for such a sensitive corporate issue. Kiwis generally believe in doing the right thing.

Being nimble is one of our national traits, which is why I think that New Zealand has been quick to embrace ‘stuntvertising’. Saatchi & Saatchi’s Plumber for Tui is a great piece of viral content, as was The Pacific from Colenso, a simulated dogfight over Auckland harbour with real WW2 planes – these are two of my all-time favourite campaigns.

Inventiveness is a necessity

The downside of our tiny market is a lack of budget, particularly for film spectaculars, but at the same time, it lets us get things done ‘on the sly’, as we say. Inventiveness is pretty much a necessity and that tends to work for advertising juries, who are desperately looking for something unique.

New Zealand will always be small – craving, if not demanding, the world’s attention. You just might not always find us on a map.