Kia Kaha te Reo Māori’: Out-of-Home Continues Support for Te Wiki o te reo Māori

In September this year, New Zealanders will again be encouraged to use te reo Māori with the support of OMANZ and the wider industry.

September 4, 2019

In recognition of Māori Language Week, OMANZ (JCDecaux, oOh!Media!, QMS, Media5, and Ad-Vantage Media), with assistance from LUMO and Go Media, will be continuing their support of the NZ community and te reo Māori.

In 2018, the Out-of-Home media industry utilised over 400 digital out-of-home advertising panels in 6 main centres across the country that displayed changing creative due to real-time elements such audience, time of day, day of the week and dynamic triggers such as weather or traffic.

The objective of the campaign was to provide a snapshot of te reo Māori language lessons in everyday words using Out-of-Home media assets out there in the community where people are.

The partnership will return in 2019 as New Zealanders will again be encouraged to use te reo Māori.

The Chief Executive of the Māori Language Commission Ngahiwi Apanui says Out-of-Home media brings the Māori language to a very wide audience and makes it welcome in a visible, attractive and engaging way. This OMANZ initiative is a wonderful contribution to the success of Māori Language Week, illustrating the opportunities for businesses to expand their use of te reo Māori.

Nick Vile, OMANZ Chairman, says that the success of last year’s te reo campaign proves that when creative taps into contextually relevant moments, awareness and engagement levels for campaigns are significantly increased.

“By combining a simple and concise message, with striking imagery and effective use of colour, plus adding a layer of contextual relevance, the creative demanded attention,” he says. “With ever-evolving opportunities to engage audiences utilising digital technologies in Out-of-Home we look forward to seeing even more and interesting use of contextually relevant creative in the coming year.”

Using contextual relevance, the industry set out to discover if this would deliver greater engagement levels and opportunity to influence attitudes versus non-contextual campaigns; the results found that it:

• Drives greater recall: The simple and contextually relevant messaging achieved a high recall of 33%

• Encourages trial: 46% of respondents were likely to increase their use of te reo as a result of seeing the campaign

• Increases engagement: Having contextually relevant creative resulted in 43% of those recalling the campaign noticing the change in creative

• Influences brand value: Those who saw the digital advertising were significantly more likely to value te reo Maori @ 72%

The chosen theme for 2019, ‘Kia Kaha te Reo Māori’, continues the direction from 2018 and is about strengthening New Zealander's use and knowledge of their native language.

Māori Language Week will run from 9-15 September 2019.