Ngāti Kuri: #HīkoiTo100
Māia began as the communications partner of Far North iwi Ngāti Kuri in 2021.
Our first kaupapa was to support their mahi to increase iwi resilience. We delivered an award-winning COVID-19 communications campaign #HīkoiTo100 that culminated in the first music festival in Aotearoa since the Omicron outbreak. The multi-channel campaign included brand design, organic and paid social media content, earned media, a key media partnership and on-the-ground communications directly into the community. It culminated in a music festival we produced to reward collective iwi efforts – the largest ever in the Far North and the first in Aotearoa since Omicron. This sustained messaging helped to increase vaccination rates and ultimately protect Ngāti Kuri whakapapa.
This communications campaign successfully spoke to rangatahi and kaumatua in remote locations who were showing significant reluctance to vaccinating. It was named finalist for the TVNZ Marketing Awards, and was awarded a Silver Effie and Silver Pressie at The Communications Council Effectiveness and Pressie Awards.
#HīkoiTo100 has become a resilience campaign for Ngāti Kuri, which we roll out when the uri needs to rally together.
Its second iteration was a booster campaign where we had local band Papa’s Pack record and release the Far North anthem ‘Muriwhenua’, along with a music video celebrating the collective efforts of the rohe through COVID19. Launching with Waiata Anthems, it has had 800,000+ streams and spent months in the top 10 te reo singles since September 2022.
