Government and cross-cultural agency team up to deliver targeted campaigns

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet have partnered with Bananaworks Communications to coordinate communication campaigns with Asian community groups in New Zealand.

The cross-cultural marketing and communications agency has worked closely with the Covid-19 Group Campaigns and Channels Team since August 2021 to promote campaigns on Chinese social media channels informing Chinese communities about the actions taken by the New Zealand Government on Covid-19.

These campaigns aimed to remove the language barriers and provide equitable access to public service information and facilitate a positive relationship between the communities and the government. 

Bananaworks Communications contributed to delivering the key messages to these communities by selecting appropriate media channels across various stages of the Traffic Lights system. 

Last month, the organisation fully produced two videos for online platforms that added to the series of the ‘Doing it for Each Other’ campaign. 

Having a solid sense of New Zealand immigrant’s voices, Bananaworks team showed why behaviours that limit the spread of Covid-19 help to protect vulnerable people in communities by telling an authentic person’s story. 

Two immigrant groups, Chinese and Indian, were targeted because they account for a large portion of ethnic groups in Aotearoa, and suitable talents were found from each group, an early childhood teacher in the Chinese community and a business owner in the Indian community.  

For this campaign, featuring ‘everyday’ people instead of actors helps to better represent and resonate in Chinese and Indian immigrant communities.

Kate Baker, the Manager of Campaigns and Channels team from the Department of Prime Minister Cabinet, says that this creates an emotional connection with the target audience and encourages them to maintain healthy behaviours, “…so (by) sharing personal stories and most likely showing imagery of people close to them who are higher risk from Covid-19, including the nature and depth of the relationship”.

This media strategy was revised to suit the cultural values of Chinese and Indian audiences.

“We recognise the benefits of extending this creative concept, so it resonates and applies to our Chinese-speaking and Indian communities,” Baker says. 

These stories are now launched and available to watch on YouTube, Chinese social media, and on a range of Indian New Zealand owned radio station social media.