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marketing & promotion

Auckland's BIG little City

'Auckland's BIG little City' is our consumer facing brand which features across all of our consumer marketing, promotions and events. The name 'BIG little city' highlights the juxtaposition of Auckland's city centre, which offers both the broadest urban experience of a world-class standard in New Zealand - while still being a small and friendly place to visit. The campaign runs year round, with its major focus during the winter season to drive awareness and increase visitation to our vibrant central city. The campaign focuses on the latest events and new developments for the city, while drawing on the huge range of dining, shopping, arts, entertainment and nightlife that exist. BIG little City works in partnership with Auckland Council and private sector partners.

Across the year the BIG little City website, social media and e-comms are the main channels to market and promote city centre businesses. Currently there are more than 900 listings featured on the BIG little City website, over 20,000 people subscribe to the BIG little City e-letter and more than 6,000 follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Winter Campaign

The BIG little City campaign is in its 3rd year. While the first year was about driving awareness of the city proposition, and the second year was about serving up product and offers, this year the objective was to serve up more detailed information (deals/pricing) to the relevant audiences i.e. the latest events and product presented in a timely and inspiring way, with strong call to action - to engage and convert for more visits and & spend, more often.

The result was an integrated campaign, built on the idea that visitors to the city can create their own 'urban journey's', which simply put means joining up several experiences (a dining experience, a world-class show, a night in a hotel, a shopping excursion) within our vibrant central city - with a social marketing campaign as it's back bone (outlined below). The campaign consisted of:

• Four TV ads - showcasing three different urban experiences and the fourth dedicated to Auckland Restaurant Month
• Online advertising campaign - promoting 'BIG little City' experiences & "48 Hour City" (product & offers)
• Social marketing campaign - driving people to create and share their own ideas via "Urban Journey's" and "Top 5", threaded with an incentive to share, that could see them being crowned "King of BIG little City"
• 48 Hour City - a vehicle for last minute deals and offers with strong call to action - allowing CBD businesses to promote product and to drive visitation in store to our e-comms and social media database.

The results have exceeded our targets and expectations.

How do businesses get listed (or involved with) BIG little City?

If you are a business located within the Heart of the City boundaries and your business falls under one of the four major categories (shopping, dining, nightlife, attractions) and you are not listed on the BIG little city website then please contact us via info@biglittlecity.co.nz.

Sponsorship & Events

At key times, we will increase our level of marketing to support the 4 pillar events that we invest in, plus Christmas. We have adopted a 3 tier sponsorship strategy to support events that are:

• Unique to the CBD
• Brand fit with BIG little City
• Enable retail inclusion and activation
• Deliver visitation numbers around the event
• Facilitate consumer spending around the event

CBD Parking Promotion

Recently, we have also worked with Auckland Transport to develop a discounted city parking campaign as research showed that perceptions around parking rates were a deterrent to CBD visitation. This campaign runs to the end of 2011. You can find more information on our CBD parking offer here...