Ad campaign for tracer app

The Government has launched a new $2.5 million advertising campaign aimed at encouraging New Zealanders to continue using their Covid19 tracer app over summer.

It’s called the “Make Summer Unstoppable” campaign and it premiered in the ad break during the Black Caps test in Wellington yesterday afternoon.

Speaking to media yesterday at the Basin, the Minister Responsible for Covid-19, Chris Hipkins, said New Zealand should be proud of its Covid19 prevention efforts.

“We’re one of the few countries in the world that can be doing this,” he said, gesturing at the crowd watching the match.

“But we can’t take anything for granted. If we want to keep that freedom over the summer, if we want to make summer unstoppable, we all need to keep doing the right thing.”

Four ads will be playing on New Zealand TV screens and social media this summer, all following the same theme: encouraging people to scan in.

In one, a man and his partner walk into a pool party but everyone is frozen in time.

“Summer, it’s stopped,” the man says, asking his partner if she had scanned the Covid-19 tracer app.

As soon as she goes back and scans, the party continues as normal.

Hipkins said the ads were “a little bit lighter” than other Covid-19 ad campaigns the Government had run.

“But it is a reminder to all of us that actually we’re very, very lucky compared to the rest of the world, we want to keep that life.”

Data from the Covid-19 tracer app shows New Zealanders have been scanning in less and less in recent months.

Hipkins said New Zealanders tended to be much more mobile over summer so the campaign was designed to help remind people not to be complacent.

The campaign cost $2.5m but Hipkins said that was “a fraction” of the cost of another outbreak.