Watch the stories of a lifetime unfold

Tourism New Zealand's Stories Beat Stuff campaign is winding up 12 months of activity engaging with the influential youth market and showing them just how cool a trip to New Zealand can be.

The last two experiences, promoted entirely through social media channels and without paid media, have been awarded with the winners set to experience Culture Kaboom and City Splendor during October and November.

"While these experiences mark the end of Stories Beat Stuff's challenge to youth to give up their stuff for the chance to win a trip to New Zealand - in many ways it is the start of something much bigger," says Justin Watson, General Manager Marketing Communications.

"Over the course of the campaign we have built a wealth of visual material and established strong social media platforms which have proven to resonate very strongly with this influential market - and as a result will feature heavily in our future activity."

Testament to how well these platforms work is the fact that the last two experiences were promoted solely through TNZ's social channels and Stories Beat Stuff contact database built up over the last year.

"With no paid media placements to promote the competition - we were able to attract good volumes of quality entrants by reconnecting with our social databases - confirming that this is the right way to engage with this market to raise their awareness and get them to book their trip to come to New Zealand."

On Monday 8 October the Culture Kaboom winners will arrive for their two weeks of all things cultural and geothermal in the upper and central North Island. You can watch the winning video from Griffin Carpenter and his three mates from Canada on their blog page - where they will also upload photos and share their stories with their friends while in New Zealand.

Natasha Challinger and three friends from London were the successful winners of the City Splendour experience, giving up their tickets to some of the biggest music concerts in London.

Arriving in mid-November their itinerary will see them enjoying the spoils of inner city by morning and the adventure and discovery of the great outdoors by afternoon. Over the two weeks they will be visit Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin - as well as all the parts in between.

Find out more about the Stories Beat Stuff campaign and the wider Youth activity here.