Around the world, Christmas has always been a Northern Hemisphere-dominated event, synonymous with frosty snowmen and frightful weather. Problem is, for the Southern Hemisphere, those things don’t represent Christmas at all. Down here, Christmas is in the middle of summer, not winter. But our warm and sunny festive identity is never represented. So we set out to give New Zealand a special gift – a chance to ditch the traditionally Northern traditions and embrace their very own Christmas identity - and put Air New Zealand at the heart of the holiday season in the process.

Partnering with multi-Platinum selling artist Ronan Keating and young kiwi actor Julian Dennison (Hunt For The Wilderpeople), we reworked the iconic Christmas carol Winter Wonderland, and turned it into Summer Wonderland - a brand new carol that the warmer half of the world could finally rally behind. But Summer Wonderland wasn’t just a song. It was a musically-led, integrated tourism campaign, designed to get people dreaming of a summer Down Under.

Our hero film launched on Facebook and YouTube on December 1st – the first day of summer in New Zealand.

We followed it up a week later with a music video designed to teach people the words and get them singing along.

A digital hub let musicians download sheet music and make the song their own, while Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music and Google Play let people download and stream the official track. The song was embraced by New Zealand.

- Within the first month, the campaign had received more than 15 million views (84% organic).

- The campaign achieved a total PR reach of over 500 million, and a 96.6% positive sentiment score.

- We gained traction with over 120 PR stories across international online publications, including MTV, Daily Mail, The Sun, and Twitter Moments.

- We were trending on Facebook and YouTube within the first 48 hours, and went on to become New Zealand's Most Watched Ad on YouTube in 2016.

- Summer Wonderland, an openly brand-made song, charted on both the New Zealand and Australian official ARIA charts.

- Best of all, the official Summer Wonderland track beat artists like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheerhan and Zayn to reach #1 on iTunes.