Kiwi hikers love to explore their own regions, but many don’t think of the safety risks. It’s a challenge for the NZ Mountain Safety Council, which has taken its Plan My Walk app to the next level.
Every year, more than 1.1 million New Zealand adults go hiking or tramping, with thousands getting injured, hundreds requiring search and rescue, and a handful never making it home.
The NZ Mountain Safety Council’s mission is ‘enabling people to enjoy their outdoor recreation safely’, and its prevention work has successfully reduced the rate of serious injuries, search and rescues, as well as fatalities in New Zealand’s outdoors.
Central to its success is Plan My Walk, an evolving app and website that saw remarkable growth during its latest 2023/24 campaign.
“Our strategy was to provide local inspiration for summer adventures. We showed outdoor enthusiasts how their region could be ‘even better’ with Plan My Walk, helping them enjoy ‘even better adventures’,” the MSC says.
“We combined stunning imagery of walking tracks with the enticing proposition that they could find 1,600+ walking tracks for free, with options for all fitness/skill levels.”
Regional targeting paid off across all media channels, and this is something the MSC will continue in future.
Across Facebook and Instagram, MSC ads mentioning the targeted region had a click-through rate eight times higher than nationwide advertising.
“Our regional display ads had a cost per click one-fifth the price of our nationwide ads. In search, targeting the top 50 tracks walked and searched for in NZ contributed to us getting 372% more track reviews than we anticipated based on previous years’ results.”
The MSC’s research was clear that Plan My Walk makes people safer, but it had to tailor its messaging to reach different parts of its large and diverse audience.
“Many casual hikers/walkers don’t see their participation as intensive enough to face safety risks. They often don’t consider themselves ‘trampers’. We’ve seen this in social media activity, our own research, and the skill levels in Plan My Walk registrations compared to the tracks users complete.
“For this audience, solely focusing on the safety features in our marketing reduces the perception of Plan My Walk’s relevance. So, we switched our focus to attracting this audience by showcasing exciting walking opportunities within their region.”
The MSC partnered with organisations including ACC, the Department of Conservation and MetService, and had to work around tracks damaged by Cyclone Gabrielle.
The campaign was so successful the MSC set ‘stretch KPIs’, and was still on track to beat each of them by between 20%-80% at the time of its awards entry.
Judges’ comments
“A clever approach to the serious subject of safety, wrapping it up in a better user experience to win overall awareness, engagement and usage.
“Great learnings and agility in optimising the strategy in flight and use of partnerships to stretch the campaign for success.”
This was first published in the 2024 September-October NZ Marketing Magazine issue. Subscribe here.
