The secret to becoming New Zealand’s favourite ad

As the best-loved campaigns of the summer show, consistent investment in powerful ideas is the key to rising above the rest.

TRA is now in its fourth year of tracking New Zealand’s favourite ads. In that time, we’ve seen some campaigns come and go in the rankings, while others have consistently made it into the top 10. 

Recently, we announced the favourite ads of summer 2023, and ASB secured first place for the third consecutive time. What’s driving this winning streak? The answer lies in ‘creative commitment’, a term coined by industry experts James Hurman and Peter Field, and it’s what’s setting these top-performing brands apart.

Understand the concept 

Creative commitment, as defined by Hurman and Field, outlines three crucial commitments for brands to make if they want to embed their campaigns more deeply into the public’s consciousness. The first is that to achieve greater commercial impact, brands must commit to a recognisable creative platform over the long term. The second is media spend – brands need to have a sufficient share of voice in their category – and the third is extending this commitment across multiple advertising channels and brand touchpoints. 

This theory is evident in the consistent success of brands like ASB, ANZ, KFC, PAK’nSAVE and Turners, all of which appear regularly in the top 10 favourite ads named by the public. These brands have embraced a long-term campaign platform or characters and extended these well beyond TV ads alone.

Perhaps the most iconic example of creative commitment is the PAK’nSAVE ‘Stickman’ campaign, which has been running for almost 16 years and regularly secures a top spot in our ad rankings. More recently, ASB has also reaped the rewards of this approach with their ‘Ben and Amy’ campaign, launched in February 2020 – a campaign that continues to be one of the top-performing in recent years. 

Extend the commitment 

Brands that remain among the top 10 favourite TV ads for years have extended their idea beyond just TVCs, using touchpoints throughout the entire customer experience. The distinctive brand assets KFC uses on TV, for instance, are woven throughout its stores, app, packaging and advertising channels. 

Similarly, PAK’nSAVE uses Stickman in its stores, and on its website, mailer and other customer touchpoints. ASB, ANZ and Westpac mimic this approach, even using their TVC characters to talk about their partnerships and sponsorships. In all these examples, it’s clear that committing to characters, soundtracks and brand codes pays off. 

Make your budget work harder 

Although media spend helps, it isn’t a controlling factor. The big banks’ big spending may be lifting the salience of their campaigns and pushing them to the front of people’s minds, but lower budgets can still achieve impact. Campaigns with longer durations, diverse media channels and multiple touchpoints achieve strong salience and effectiveness – even if their budgets aren’t as high. 

You may not regard Lotto’s ad budget as small, but it’s modest in comparison to the banks and supermarkets. Lotto’s ‘Imagine’ series has been successful since it launched with the ‘Pirate Ship’ execution in 2015. Lotto need to keep showing new winners, and in every fresh execution, they retain the core ‘Imagine’ idea, while every ad stars the distinctive yellow ticket. 

For the latest ‘House Hunt’ ad to make it into the top 10, Lotto had to compete against the snowballing creative commitment gained by the likes of the aforementioned brands. This is where they too used creative commitment, sticking with their long-standing ‘Imagine’ platform and ensuring they’d secured the rights to use the TVC characters across other channels, such as outdoor, as well as all their owned touchpoints: in store and direct comms, and on their MyLotto app. This maximised exposure of the TV characters, helping the campaign break into the favourite ads list in September 2023. 

Turners has likewise made their budget go a long way, by committing to their Tina from Turners character across all touchpoints for years.

Keep consistent

Consistency often takes a back seat in the pursuit of creating buzz and excitement. To overcome the allure of
a creative overhaul, the key is finding a balance between familiarity and freshness. The most successful
brands understand that consistency isn’t about creating something entirely different every time. Instead,
it involves identifying elements that resonate with the audience and incorporating them into new campaigns time and time again – elements such as characters, colours, music, sounds, taglines and images. 

The sweet spot lies in blending the familiar with the new. KFC has mastered this art, launching a new, humorous ad just about every month, while maintaining familiar brand elements. It’s an approach that keeps the ads a favourite in the minds of New Zealanders survey after survey. ASB and ANZ are also adopting this strategy, placing their characters in new, surprising scenarios to keep their campaigns fresh and engaging.

When deciding what to keep consistent, a brand code study is a useful guide, advising marketers on how to maintain a brand identity while allowing for innovation. A brand code study will identify which assets are unmistakably linked to a brand – assets that can be seamlessly woven into new campaigns. Brand codes can thread through a brand story without getting in the way of the entertainment – it’s much more effective than simply relying on a logo at the end. 

Construct a platform

The main takeaway for marketers is to shift the mindset from merely briefing in something new to instead constructing a built-to-last creative platform. This means developing a big idea that both encapsulates the core brand proposition and can be executed in new and surprising ways over the long term.

In the competitive landscape of New Zealand’s advertising scene, the success of certain brands is not just a stroke of luck. By embracing long- term campaign platforms, characters and consistent brand codes, these brands have etched themselves into the public’s memory. 

TRA’s brand and ad tracking points to a clear lesson for marketers: don’t just focus on individual campaigns
– instead, think about constructing a creative platform that can evolve and surprise over time. In doing so, brands will achieve lasting impact by resonating with audiences across diverse touchpoints. The secret is in the commitment and the results are in the rankings.  

NZ’s 10 favourite ads in December 2023

Note: ‘+/-’ indicators note how the ranking of each ad has changed since the last survey in September 2023.

This was first published in our March/April 2024 issue.