Don’t mess with NZ girls – worst boyfriend
Category: Outdoor/Ambient; Award: BRONZE
Special Honours: MOST COST EFFECTIVE
Agency: DDB
Client: nzgirl
Advertiser Campaign Credits: Jenene Crossan – Managing Director
Agency Campaign Credits: Regan Grafton – Art Director; Bridget Short – Writer; Sarah Goldring – Account Director
Entry Rationale: In 2004 we achieved great success proving that huge results can come from working a captive audience. The challenge for 2005 was to build on this campaign, to show that ‘Don’t mess with NZ girls’ was more that just a one-off stunt and could have massive impact and longevity.
For this years campaign we wanted to bring NZ girls on the journey and invite them to participate. Revenge was the campaign theme and that’s what we have the girls of New Zealand – a chance to get even.
‘The Worst Boyfriend in New Zealand Competition’ was launched via an interactive viral email and the nzgirl website. The winner of our online competition had their ex boyfriend’s name and misdemeanour towed across the 45,000 strong crowd at the 2005 Big Day Out:
The first plane towed a banner that read – “Josh short likes it with a strap-on”
An hour later the second plane towed the banner “Don’t mess with NZ Girls. nzgirl.co.nz”
We wanted to give the crowd another surprise on the day, one that would really bring our campaign to life. So we parked a late model, hotted up car outside The Big Day Out. As thousands of people waited for the gates to open, a girl put a sign in front of the car which read – “My cheating boyfriend’s car. 2 hits for $2”
Over the next two hours hundreds of girls (and even some guys) took turns smashing the car with baseball bats and sledgehammers. We recorded the stunt and sent it out virally.
You can’t buy the sort of media that these ideas generated. We involved our audience, built a strong experience and word of mouth, then encouraged the media to get behind us.
The result was new memberships increased to an all-time-high and traffic to the website increased significantly, in fact, we achieved 200% over the set target.
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