Neighbours, but worlds apart

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Businesses marketing their products on both sides of the Tasman Sea face a number of common issues and often struggle to see why their campaigns perform differently in Australia and New Zealand. To find out why, we explored whether there were key differences between Australian and New Zealand cultural constructs, the competitive landscape, the equity of brands in each market, media consumption and digital attitudes and behaviour. 

With similarities between Kiwis and Australians often quite obvious – some shared history and values, a semi-integrated economy, a love of the outdoors – the research looked into the differences and asked the questions: ‘Why are we seeing such differences in terms of the communication effectiveness?’ and ‘Why do some Australian ads not travel well across the Tasman?’.

The answers revealed more pronounced differences in areas such as: the cultural stereotypes New Zealanders and Australians aspire to; humour; and ...