Behind the scenes on Tourism New Zealand’s campaign with Taika Waititi - No Place Like It On Earth

Academy Award winner Taika Waititi – and his stunt double – have taken time out of a big HBO production being filmed in Aotearoa to promote the country overseas.

The writer, director, actor and producer helped make and starred in an advert targeted at the valuable North American market. It is being launched around an HBO Max show he’s making here.

The ad is playing with the second season of the show Our Flag Means Death and is being released today after teasers were pushed on social media earlier this week.

Stunning South Island scenery, a scenic flight over Mount Tarawera, dolphin-watching in Kaikōura and wine-tasting in Auckland are included in the three-minute, 30-second ad, which has a running gag going with his stunt double, Jade Daniels, and New Zealand writer, actor and director Jackie van Beek.

The show has been described as a pirate comedy with heart, and its first season won critical acclaim. It plays on Neon here, and besides Waititi, it also stars Rhys Darby and has benefitted from screen production grants here.

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Tourism New Zealand chief executive Rene De Monchy said as part of that agreement with the NZ Film Commission and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Waititi gave his time to create and act in the ad, called No Place Like It On Earth.

“Taika is not paid for this time, but the [show’s] production benefits as part of that. We were delighted that he was keen to do that with us - he’s a unique and well-known New Zealander.”

The ad was filmed last December over three days, with the opening scenes at Piha. Waititi and his team worked closely on the concept and scripts with Tourism NZ, which had a goal of displaying the parts of the tourism experience it wanted to promote.

The emphasis is on variety, and Waititi says: “I always tell people you can go surfing in the morning and then drive a couple of hours and be skiing in the evening [in New Zealand]. I don’t think there’s anywhere else on earth where you can do that. It has everything.”

A poster promoting the latest Tourism NZ campaign.

Van Beek said she had a ball making the ad.

“There’s nothing I enjoy more than pretending to be myself bickering with Taika over what makes a good director.”

De Monchy said it cost $673,000 to make the advert, the biggest Tourism NZ production in several years, and part of a push to get noticed in the increasingly hot competition for international tourists.

“Competition is high, and I think that with economic challenges around the world, we’re going to keep being more innovative as a country in how we show up and how we promote ourselves.”

He said besides paying to advertise around Our Flag Means Death on HBO Max in the US and Canada, the ad will be run through Tourism NZ’s social channels and “earn” views that way. “The focus very much is on earned media, getting people to see the content and share the content. We are working hard to attract high-quality visitors.”

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Care was taken to film around the screenwriters’ and actors’ strikes in the United States, which have had an impact around the world.

“The timing of the launch has been a little bit delayed because of the strikes. We’ve worked with the Film Commission on that to be really clear of that, that we’re not in breach of any of those things,” said de Monchy.

The new campaign comes as Tourism NZ faces cuts to its baseline budget as part of the Government’s belt-tightening for the public sector. Tourism advocates say it’s the wrong time to be cutting spending on promoting New Zealand, as other countries are doing the opposite as the global outlook for tourism weakens.

Grant Bradley has worked at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.