We put Air New Zealand ahead of the game

Three heads are better than one

For decades, Air New Zealand have been flying a variety of routes from the UK to their homeland in style. The quickest route from London to New Zealand is via Singapore, which they operate with partners Singapore Airlines and Tourism New Zealand, to create an award-winning travel experience in the air and on arrival

A lot to learn

The three brands shared a common goal: to promote the many advantages of their joint venture to UK travel agents, while also highlighting reasons to visit New Zealand. This meant a lot of detailed information for travel agents to remember, so they needed a digital platform with a difference that made learning as enjoyable as possible. We pitched, won, and the fun began.

A balancing act

Since this was a tri-branded project, we had to make sure each brand was fairly represented.

And because there was a lot of information for agents to remember, we also knew whatever we created had to be interactive, innovative and informative – it couldn’t be just another training platform.

We put our heads together, and decided to make our first foray into game development. We proposed a concept for a game that would communicate all key messages for each of the three brands. It would be fun, engaging, and would bring the customer journey to life for agents across the UK.

Building a journey from top to bottom

Enter Hop it! From concept to execution, every aspect of the game was designed by us: the characters, look and feel, mechanism and structure, storyboarding and content, and a bespoke, mobile-responsive build to be hosted online.

Hop it! brought the customer journey to life, and made learning fun for agents. It was simple, addictive, and featured collectibles and milestones that related to key product points for all three brands.

We framed the game within a custom-built microsite which introduced the campaign, gave a gameplay tutorial, and featured an easy-to-access product reference library with engaging content from each brand. To help measure engagement, the site also featured an online quiz to be taken after the game’s ending, incentivised with a simple prize draw and illustrations showing the prizes up for grabs.

Once the stage was set, we had to draw a crowd. To make sure UK travel agents knew about the campaign, we created a series of communications for print and digital trade press. Our unique and adaptable creative worked throughout various campaign stages, and kept everyone engaged throughout.

Play-by-play

The campaign ran throughout December 2018, supported by print and digital trade media. The results made it clear that agents enjoyed every minute spent on the site: Hop it! was played thousands of times.