One NZ: From 80% Negative to 86% Positive Sentiment

When Vodafone New Zealand rebranded to One New Zealand in March 2023, the public response was brutal. Social sentiment sat at 80% negative, people hated the new name, mocked the logo, and weren't shy about saying so.

Making it worse, their social media presence was practically invisible. Content consisted of TVC cutdowns repurposed for social, boring, uninspiring, and completely ignorable. Community management only existed to handle complaints. There was no strategy, no engagement, no reason for anyone to follow.

One NZ needed to turn public perception around, fast and build a social presence worthy of one of New Zealand's biggest brands.

‍

We embedded a dedicated team of 8-9 people and got to work.

First, we addressed the elephant in the room. We created "Mean Tweets" inspired by Jimmy Kimmel's famous segment, where the CEO and rebrand team sat on a green stool against a white backdrop, reading the harshest comments about their rebrand out loud. "Your new logo looks like a butthole" was a crowd favourite.

By acknowledging the criticism head-on and laughing at themselves, One NZ became human again. The campaign became the highest-engaging ad on TikTok globally at the time (by engagement-to-views ratio) and won Silver for Best Use of Social at the TVNZ NZ Marketing Awards.

From there, we built a structured content strategy balancing commercial messaging with culture. We activated their One NZ Warriors partnership, bringing rugby league fans into the fold. We created social-first content at volume, stuff people actually wanted to watch and share.

We established response protocols, tone guidelines, planning cadences, and approval workflows. Weekly touchpoints, content pods, and team-wide alignment made us an extension of their internal team, not just another agency.

‍

- Sentiment flipped from 80% negative to 86% positive within months of launch and held steady for three years

- Grew followers from 14,000 to 140,000, more than all other NZ telcos combined

- "Mean Tweets" became the highest-engaging ad on TikTok globally at the time

- Won Silver for Best Use of Social at the TVNZ NZ Marketing Awards

- Three-year embedded partnership and counting

‍