New Australia-land - Tourism New Zealand

It is well known that Australians and New Zealanders have a rich history underpinned by friendly rivalry. We argue over the oceanic origins of Crowded House and the champion thoroughbred, Phar Lap.

 It seems that whenever a success story emerges from our Tasman waters, Australia is quick to lay claim to it. But how do you respond when Australia tries to claim your entire country? Well, that’s exactly the predicament New Zealand found itself in when Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) launched its annual Australia Day ad proposing the unthinkable – that New Zealand and Australia merge to form one nation, ‘New Australia-Land’.

But while it became a trending topic online, we discovered that the Australians had forgotten one vital campaign asset — to register a website for newaustralialand.com.au.

We seized on the opportunity to respond and promptly registered the newaustralialand.com.au domain name. Within 48hrs we had turned newaustralialand.com.au into a hub of all the wonderful and unique things you could experience in this newly coined nation. But all was not what it seemed. Every single one of the experiences just so happened to be based on the ‘eastern island’, New Zealand. We completely left Australia off the map, so to speak. Oops.

With a budget of just $28k USD ($42k NZD) and only 48 hours up our sleeve, our response garnered significant news media interest and coverage, including segments across three major TV networks and headlines across national online news outlets.