Pure takes New Zealand away from the edge

By Fran O'Sullivan

Pure takes New Zealand away from the edge

I am starting a "Rehabilitate Kevin Roberts" campaign.

As a sucker for a great line - and the occasional author of one - the idea of rebranding New Zealand as NZEDGE.COM has it all over.

The symbolism is compelling.

An all black 747 jumbo embossed with a magnificent single silver fern and the sole inscription NZEDGE.COM lands at Heathrow airport.

Out stride the All Blacks.

They are fearsome.

Clad magnificently in their new Adidas uniforms, pumped up to win the Rugby World Cup.

The sight of the All Blacks landing at Heathrow in this pirate ship is just what our rugby-mad nation needs to lift its sights after a winter of carping criticism of our tall poppies and too much introspection.

CNN would love it. The arrival of the All Blacks in their jet would make headlines throughout Britain. The publicity would ensure great television and newspaper headlines here too - as happens when other nations celebrate our heroes. And, dammit, the All Blacks could not fail to win - no other rugby team has ever arrived in such style.

But a political furore killed Saatchi & Saatchi's brainchild. The Tourism Board dumped the agency and awarded its advertising business to rival M&C Saatchi.

Even Air New Zealand chief executive Jim McCrea refused when Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide chief executive Kevin Roberts asked him to paint one of his jumbos in the NZEDGE colours. (It's not too late Jim, get on to it.)

But Roberts is too good to kill. A week ago he launched a New Zealand home page: www.nzedge.com - inviting anyone who wants to register for updates and become part of the New Zealand Edge Community.

The Tourism Board kicked for touch with an astoundingly conservative 100 per cent Pure New Zealand campaign.

At last year's Tourism Industry Association conference, Roberts earned plaudits with his New Zealand on the Edge address.

His theme - and dream - that New Zealand would become one of the world's most prosperous countries if we all re-oriented our collective psyche away from murky introspection to a rampant, ballsy internationalism, was evolved by Saatchi's Wellington creatives into the Edge campaign.

We all know about the live billboards. "Too radical," the tourism conservatives sniffed. And too expensive.

But let's go back to where Roberts started. Before Saatchi & Saatchi was fired (his words), the team had been briefed to break the mould. To do something radical and force New Zealand into the consciousness of world travellers.

The Wellington creatives - the same brilliant team which won the agency a Golden Lion in Cannes for Toyota's "Bugger" campaign - looked for a simple idea to represent New Zealand. They kept coming back to the Edge.

As Roberts relates: So Edgy we often get left off the map.

Fewer people than Sydney. But the same size as Japan. One of the most remote countries on earth with few economies of scale, nothing except our land, our brains and our innate competitiveness.

The Roberts burble continues: The very idea of New Zealand is as improbable as it is attractive - one of the great experimental cultures. First with votes for women; the welfare state; the freest market economy, powered-flight; nuclear physics, anti-nuclearism; biculturism. First-isms.

Look into the nzedge web site if you want a fuller list of firsts - and the world-beating New Zealanders who scored them. And have a look if you are one of the many New Zealanders who have talents valued elsewhere in the world.

In Roberts speak, you may be about to join the half million other Kiwis living overseas who comprise the NEONZ - the Network of Overseas New Zealanders, stars of the edge of the global stage.

Such adspeak is clearly all too much for many terminal newsmedia depressives who constantly slag off those of us in business who want to belong to peak-performing organisations and who get passionate about what we do. Wholesale tall-poppy lopping is now endemic in Wellington as public servants, sensing the political tide has reversed, shaft their bosses by leaking every spending misdemeanour to the Labour Party.

Changing Government won't address the prevailing mindset.

Roberts' formula might: As he recently urged MBA graduates: firstly, put money on the table - into high-tech or agritech, biotech, film or tourism or brand projects. Secondly, provide funding for scholarships at schools, universities or polytechs. Thirdly, look into your own companies and ask what stories your international activities and branding tell about New Zealand - look at your corporate language and images and make sure they work the New Zealand Edge angle hard.

Forget Pure New Zealand. I'll take the Edge anytime.

So, I suspect, would new Tourism Board boss George Hickton if the clobbering machine had not got to his organisation first.