China 100% Pure You campaign reaches Yao Chen's 12 million Weibo followers

Multiple award winning Chinese actress Yao Chen continues her excellent work as Tourism New Zealand's brand ambassador in mainland China.

On 20 August, Yao Chen started her five-day 100% Revival tour of New Zealand and phase one of the 100% Revive your emotions campaign was launched.

Phase one of the campaign followed Yao Chen as she experienced five emotions (relaxation, happiness, romance, excitement and reflection) on her travels through the rich and unique New Zealand landscape.

In between filming she found the time to 'tweet' over 70 times to her 12 million followers, the equivalent of 14 tweets each day! One of her first tweets read "New Zealand, the first country in the world to be kissed by the sun".

At the core of the campaign was a micro site that hosted images, video, messages from Yao Chen, product (packages and airfares) and links through to New Zealand operators. Chinese Active Considerers were encouraged to engage in the site through digital advertising, social seeding and PR activity. As a result over 477,000 people visited the micro site with 19.5k referrals generated off it.

The international media programme produced 313 media articles and major Chinese newspapers, including China's number one English newspaper China Daily, covered her tour.

Tourism New Zealand's General Manager Asia Markets Mark Food believes Yao Chen's influence will help raise Chinese tourists' interest and encourage them to experience New Zealand first hand.

"We've always been of the view that we want Chinese influencers telling the New Zealand story to Chinese people. This is the key to unlocking the potential of the 100% Pure You proposition.

And it seems to be drawing a lot of people in, especially to the newzealand.com website. New Zealand tourism operators have a huge opportunity to take advantage of this platform to get their product in front of Chinese 'Active Considerers'".

Phase two of Yao Chen's 100% Revival tour started on the 17th October with the launch of digital, print, out of home and PR activity, utilising the images and video from her trip to New Zealand. This is where the campaign focuses on converting the interest in Yao Chen and her New Zealand experience to visitation.