KISSES CAPTURE AD WORLD ATTENTION

I KISS New Zealand, a campaign to promote New Zealand’s advertising sector, saw hundreds of delegates puckering up to create an interactive artwork at www.justaddnewzealanders.com during the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France last week.
"I KISS NZ is a piece of digital art, a collective demonstration of the art of the kiss that caught delegates’ imagination and garnered a lot of attention for the New Zealand advertising industry," says Kaye Glamuzina, a New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) spokesperson.
NZTE is working with the New Zealand television commercial (TVC) industry to promote the sector internationally and instigated the campaign to drive traffic to www.justaddnewzealanders.com, a website created to showcase leading work by the New Zealand TVC sector and provide links to individual companies. Hits on the site soared during the Festival, with visitors increasing 10-fold during three days.
A contingent of New Zealand directors, production and post-production companies descended on Cannes Lions intending to collect as many kisses as possible. And the response was lip smacking good… Kisses were collected from individuals via mobile phone cameras, supported by flip books, badges and t-shirts that became sought-after collector’s items.
With the focus at the 2007 event on participation and interactivity, the Kiwis garnered plenty of positive attention for their creative work in engaging delegates to raise the local industry’s profile.
"In our mediated world, everyone is a camera, a director, a star. I KISS NZ is a reminder of the human connections that bookend the media we're busy generating," says Kaye Glamuzina, “and successfully positioned the New Zealand industry around the quality of its ideas and innovation.”
“Cannes is a highly competitive marketing space and the I KISS NZ campaign was a great example of a creative, interactive approach that got the New Zealand industry key international attention,” said Paul Prince, Managing Director of NZ film production company The Sweet Shop.
New Zealand companies attending Cannes included The Sweet Shop, Batch Film, Curious Film, Flying Fish, Park Road Post, Prodigy Films, and Film Construction.

You can view the installation at www.JustAddNewZealanders.com