Campaign fails to lure NZers home

A marketing campaign aimed at luring expat New Zealanders home from Australia has been canned and declared a failure.

An evaluation of the campaign, obtained under The Official Information Act by The Dominion Post, found it received more media coverage in New Zealand than Australia.

The campaign was launched in May 2006 at a cost $1 million a year.

A similar campaign was more successful in Britain where it was launched in November 2005.

The evaluation found New Zealanders were more integrated in Australia than in Britain and the lifestyle was not sufficiently different to be a selling point.

It was cancelled because it had "not proven to be effective".

Neither campaign made any difference in the number of people leaving New Zealand.

- NZPA