Creating commercial outcomes by colouring outside the lines
California is still considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation, environmentalism, and politics. It is the birthplace of American cinema, hippie counterculture, fast food, and the personal computer.
Now home to thumping population of 39 million people, it’s also an uber-sized American economy filled with innumerable brands and businesses that have something fabulous to sell to tourists from all over the world. There are a vast number of reasons adults choose to visit the Golden State but what about kids? How can California have the same impact on the children?
To answer this question, Gate 7 teamed up with Air New Zealand to discover a family-first approach to increasing visitation to California from the Australian and New Zealand markets. Through an interactive installation called Kidifornia, Gate 7 not only achieved the deliverables of this Visit California campaign but created an iconic and unforgettable experience for children and their families.
To carry out Visit California’s Kidifornia campaign, Gate 7 conceptualised a street-based activation in the form of a giant digital colouring wall, using a huge depth of content to showcase California to children. From crossing the Golden Gate Bridge to getting up close and personal with the giraffes of the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park, children could select the images that most appealed to them and learn more about the experience, before seeing their name burst to life on the giant screen in front of them.
Kicking off with a preview to 33 media in November 2017, Gate 7 rolled out Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane iterations of their colouring Kidifornia installation to reach over 4000 users. Kidifornia was not only an ad campaign, installation and microsite, it was a fun idea that consumers could easily connect with.
With Los Angeles and San Francisco being such important gateway cities for Air New Zealand, they immediately saw a fantastic opportunity to showcase their family product, the Skycouch. At every activation, Air New Zealand set up a small station, showing off their Skycouch flat family seat and played 15- and 30-second ads approximately every 10 minutes on the activation screens. Follow-up emails that the users received post-engagement contained a call-to-action for Air New Zealand flights to California – prompting people to make it real and dream big for their next family holiday.
Due to the success of the Kidifornia campaign in 2018, Gate 7 extended the campaign into 2019 using activations at both the Werribee & Melbourne zoos in Victoria and taking it back up to Garden City Westfield in Brisbane.
Aside from street-style activation inviting children to colour in their digital collage, Gate 7 also rolled out a digital and social campaign that has already touched more than 13 million users and engaged at least 3,000 unique users on the site.
The impact on sales for Air New Zealand was almost immediate. Following a range of digital calls-to-action on follow up EDM’s and banner ads on the local Visit California site, Air NZ saw an uptick in their Cali bookings with a year-on-year increase of +5% in January and +31% in February 2019 The partnership was successful in making a genuine connection between kids and families.
If you are interested in a Gate 7 partnership, please explore the different clients we represent.