Getting to know us with Census

Advertising agency FCB is behind the $2 million Census awareness campaign

Grinning 20-something nurses Libby and Victoria want to know "how many more nurses we're going to need to look after us when we're older".

The suited schoolteacher wants to know "where my fellow Ngati Porou tribesmen live" and the apprentice builder's question is: "How many houses I should build and when I should think about buying out my boss?"

Welcome to the $2 million taxpayer-funded Census advertising campaign which hit our TV screens last night.

Endearingly folksy? Effective, says Brian van den Hurk, general manager of FCB, the advertising agency behind the campaign.

"The commercials are very engaging for New Zealanders - they are real people giving their story," says Van den Hurk.

"Tied in with that is the link between their story and what the benefit [of the Census] is for them." The campaign's catch-line is: "We're going to grow, so we need to know."

FCB has a stack of research and focus-group analysis to back up its claim that the ads will appeal.

When it pitched Statistics New Zealand for the work last year, the agency went to Wellington armed with an ethnographic study into how Kiwis think and a portfolio of previous "social marketing" campaigns it had worked on.

After winning the account, FCB pulled together focus groups to find out "what people really felt about the Census and what role it could play in their lives". "The overall concept is to engage all people on the importance of the Census for all of us in terms of the information it provides to help create and develop a better New Zealand for all of us," says Van den Hurk.

"Within that we need a lot of specific messages about the date, collectors coming to your door, what happens if you're in a hotel or motel, the 0800 number if you don't have forms, that collectors will come back and collect forms, and so forth."

FCB has created 14 TV commercials covering the different messages to run over six weeks between now and when forms are collected after Census night, March 7.

The campaign will also appear in print, on radio and in website banner ads. This year is the first time Census forms can be filled in online.

To reach all ethnic groups, parts of the campaign are being run in 14 languages.

Brian Pink, Government Statistician and head of Statistics New Zealand, says the aim of the campaign is to raise people's awareness of the Census, guide them in taking part and enable to them to see the benefits of the information the Census produces.

"We want people to be motivated to participate," Pink says.

FCB's previous social marketing experience - campaigns aimed at influencing behaviour for the wider public good - has included work for several Government ministries.

The agency's long-running "Like Minds, Like Mine" mental illness awareness campaign for the Ministry of Health won a silver award for sustained success in last year's industry effectiveness Effie awards.

Van den Hurk says FCB's ethnographic research has shown that "New Zealanders want to feel that they are part of New Zealand and that we're one country".