Jordan Williams: Taxpayers' Union Executive Director on Tourism New Zealand spending over $9 million on influencer advertising

Concern Tourism New Zealand's chasing clicks, with no breakdown available for the millions spent on social media influencers. 

A response to the Taxpayers’ Union shows $9.4 million has been spent since 2023 on 65 influencers across global markets. 

They were engaged to promote campaigns ranging from destination marketing to Minecraft downloadable content and online shopping promotions. 

Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams told Andrew Dickens that when you’re spending so much money, it’s not good enough for Tourism New Zealand to give the middle finger to transparency.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Taxpayers have spent nearly ten million dollars who oversees social
media influences to promote New Zealand the actual name point
four million dollars on this modern formed publicity. This is
in the twenty three to twenty four year. We're not
really sure what we got from it. The agency did
not provide insights from the return on investment nor a
breakdown of what was spent here. So I'm joined now

(00:37):
by Taxpayers Union Executive Director Jordan Williams. Good morning to you, Jordan,
Happy New.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Year morning, Andrew, has any year to you?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Now?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
You be horrified, You'll be naturally horrified at this expenditure
unless it worked. Did it work?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah? And that's the question. You see the amounts of
getting now quite large. And actually just say in principle,
we're not against and I think reasonable minds can differ
on whether paying know Instagram celebrities to come and come
to New Zealand for all expenses paid junk it's around
New Zealand to do a few posts and videos on
their Instagram as I say reason whys can differ whether

(01:14):
that is a good value for money and whether the
government should be doing that. The question, and the key
question is is when you're paying nine point four million
or one hundred and forty five thousand dollars per influencer
you're paying, we say taxpayers should be able to know
whether we're getting value for money from that. And for
Tourism New Zealand too, And I think it's actually a

(01:36):
deliberate strategy from Renee Demonti and the chief executive of
Tourism New Zealand to refuse to disclose number one, who's
getting how much to what we're getting in return? And
three is the most important is what is the results
from each of those influences. What is the results of

(01:57):
that spending, Because tourism is center to say no, this
is good value for money, go away, whereas you think
about it. So when we look into say a promotion
that's done on television or traditional online advertising, as you
can ask and you'll get this is how many views
we got, This is how many engagements we got, This
was the cost per engagement for example? Yes, so use

(02:19):
the digital marketing term. Now other agencies will give us that,
and I can think of, for example, Auckland Council's Tourism Arm,
which also pays influences, and they've had some real flops,
unbelievably expensive campaigns that have totally flopped. We say, when
you're spending so much money, it's not good enough for
touris in New Zealand to give the middle finger to transparency.

(02:41):
We should know those figures. So I'm not on news
TALKSB pontificating whether this is good value for money or not.
We'd actually know whether it's good value for money.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well said, and I thank you Jordan Williams from the
Taxpayers Union.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
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