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100% PURE WELCOME: When Jacinda Picked Up Stephen Colbert

A classic 100% Pure NZ Welcome doesn’t get any more authentic than when you get picked up from the airport by the Prime Minister and then have a casual BBQ at her place with Lorde.

A classic 100% Pure NZ Welcome doesn’t get any more authentic than when you get picked up from the airport by the Prime Minister and then have a casual BBQ at her place with Lorde.

If you’ve missed all the buzz, this beautiful relationship started in September 2018, when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared on his show and extended to Colbert, who is a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, the offer to become a citizen of Hobbiton.

Then in September 2019, Jacinda appeared again on the Late Show in New York to personally invite Stephen Colbert to come down and visit New Zealand.

Not only that, but she promised him she’d pick him up at the airport. How could he possibly refuse?

This is how it all played out…

Talk about putting New Zealand back on the map.

So then you may be thinking, “Yeah sure, he won’t come!”

But no… In late October, Stephen and his team did indeed fly down to New Zealand for a week and created a series of hilarious spots including a “Lord of the Rings” Spinoff with Peter Jackson, a trip around Wellington with Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess) and Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords) and Rugby Lessons with Legends from the All Blacks.

The five ‘Newest Zealander’ spots are being aired this week on The Late Show with Tourism New Zealand estimating that the segments will reach 3.5 million people each night and a total of 17.5 million viewers over the week.

It is expected to generate over $5 million in advertising value with Tourism New Zealand saying their investment of just NZ$104k is “a tiny fraction of the organisations overall marketing spend.”

And let’s face it, a very ingenious one.

 

KIA ORA NEW ZEALAND!

The spots are warmly authentic and further highlight New Zealand’s position and ongoing ‘100% Pure Welcome’ campaign in another engaging and human way.

Like most Kiwi’s, they simply speak for themselves.

Stephen England-Hall, Chief Executive, Tourism New Zealand says of the campaign:

“Tourism supports many of our communities, it employs one in seven Kiwis, it’s our top export earner, and it’s a significant contributor to conservation as well as the economy. It’s incredibly important we keep it that way. The USA is one of our largest markets, it’s one of the only markets that is still showing signs of growth, so we jumped on the chance to work with the show,”

“The investment versus the return is significant and we were over the moon to get the support of so many Kiwis like the Prime Minister and some other famous faces to help make it pretty special.”

Stephen England-Hall, Chief Executive, Tourism New Zealand

 

STEPHEN COLBERT MEETS THE ALL BLACKS

The episodes also aired one day after they aired in the US in New Zealand to no doubt only further enhance most Kiwi’s deep pride of their nation and their leader.

Given Air New Zealand’s announcement of their new nonstop Auckland to New York service next year and of course, leveraging the success of their Auckland to Chicago route, stateside capacity can only be looking up too thanks to the campaign.

Find out more at www.tourismnewzealand.com and head over to The Late Show YouTube channel for the latest videos.