Auckland band Pluto recorded Forever Young for the advertisement.
New Zealand is being promoted by a song first recorded in Germany and now a well-known hit for an Australian band.
The international television advertisement draws on Maori legend and starts off showing snow-capped mountains rising from the sea.
In the background the song Forever Young pushes Tourism
New Zealand's message that we are "the youngest country in the world".
Forever Young was recorded for the advertisement by local band Pluto, but it came out of Germany more than 20 years ago. More recently it became a hit after being covered by Australian band Youth Group, who recorded it for an episode of the US television show The OC.
"The new Tourism New Zealand ad might be very nice to look at," said one Herald reader, "but why on Earth did they use a song from Youth Group, an Australian band, for the soundtrack? Good song, but the whole thing really just gives the Australians another thing to have us on about."
Tourism NZ chief executive George Hickton said the song was chosen because it "absolutely" matched the commercial and the message Tourism NZ was trying to portray.
"It just connects so well with the message and we just couldn't find anything else that did it so well."
Mr Hickton said Tourism NZ had previously used local singers but no other song could be found that reflected the message as well as Forever Young.
To keep a local link the song was re-recorded by Pluto in Neil Finn's recording studio.
Asked why a New Zealand songwriter wasn't commissioned to write something for the advertisement, Mr Hickton said there was no guarantee that commissioning a song would have produced the same desired result as Forever Young.
Tourism NZ's two previous campaigns have used New Zealand songs by Dave Dobbyn and Neil Finn.
