Air NZ wins marketing award

AirNZ's ad featured staff in nothing but body paint. Photo / Supplied

Air New Zealand and Progressive Enterprises took top honours in the Marketing Association's RSVP and Nexus Awards for response-driven marketing.

The RSVP Grand Prix Winner was Air New Zealand's "Nothing to Hide" campaign - featuring staff naked apart from painted uniforms - from ad agency .99.

Judges noted that Air New Zealand had specific challenges from swine flu affecting travel, fluctuating fuel prices and low-cost carrier Jetstar entering the market.

Air New Zealand needed people to understand the difference between their fully-inclusive fares and those of lower cost, non-inclusive carriers.

The judges said the campaign had used traditional and non-traditional media. Videos appeared on multiple social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Google, and were viewed around the world.

The other big winner - the Nexus Supreme winner - was supermarket operator Progressive Enterprises' "Onecard mySpecials" from ad agency Affinity ID.

Progressive had applied data-driven marketing principles to the promotion of their range of weekly specials to individual Onecard customers.

Progressive Enterprises had also introduced search functions on the website enabling customers to create customised shopping lists which automatically tallied the total cost of the shopping list and savings made.

The RSVP Awards recognise marketing campaigns that stimulate a conversation, ask for a response, or prompt brand involvement that leads to a sale, lead or other measurable change in behaviour.