With January’s peak travel period approaching, Air New Zealand – a small national airline with very big ambitions - wanted to raise consideration and awareness of their global flight network. That’s a little tricky at Christmas time, when much bigger brands with much bigger budgets are trying to do the same. With minimal budget, Air New Zealand tasked us with creating an idea that would cut through the noise of the Christmas period and ensure that their small voice was heard loud and clear.

We created ‘A Very Merry Mistake’ – an online film that celebrated a particularly distinctive, and notoriously confusing quality of New Zealanders – their accents. More specifically, an accent that proved particularly troublesome for the one person who can’t afford any misunderstandings over Christmas – Santa.

Our online film showed Santa and his elves struggling with New Zealand’s not-quite English. Fortunately, Air New Zealand, those experts in all things Kiwi, were on hand to save Christmas, translating the requests from down South. But the campaign didn’t end there. Through a social promo that showcased our global network, we got Santa’s hilariously mis-made toys, from Puggy Banks to Biscuit Balls and Ear Planes, into the hands of children young and old, all over the world. And to continue our helping hand, lighthearted extension videos offered pronunciation tutorials to help the world understand the unique Kiwi accent.