Despite their genuinely significant role in shaping which startups do and don’t succeed in NZ, Venture Capital firms have been by and large relegated to a line item in stories about capital raises. Within the industry, Icehouse Ventures had been widely recognised as the country’s most active and important VC group, but not amongst the wider public.

Over the course of the past two years, we have engaged in an active campaign to grow Icehouse Ventures’ voice on the most important topics facing the innovation ecosystem in New Zealand. We have leveraged the existing big ideas of the firm’s partners, sophisticated data sets on portfolio companies, and more narrative-driven articles about their investments, to accurately reflect Icehouse Ventures’ outsized role in New Zealand tech.

Results
77+ feature stories online and in print
5+ Icehouse Partners prominently featured in stories
20 Stories specifically about the Icehouse Brand
57 stories about Icehouse supported startups
3+ reactive opportunities
1x Venture Capital firm seen as best in its field
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Fire and Emergency had an important message to tell New Zealand - Drunk Cooking causes fires. However, telling this through an ad format could only reach so many people. We needed an advertisement that would be novel and exciting enough to get a second tranche of PR on launch.

The You’re Cooked campaign, a series of “no cook” recipes for drunk people, tested on real drunk people in Auckland, became an international sensation. Through cookbook reviews, broadcast features, fire safety interviews with FENZ spokepeople, and widespread coverage of the campaign, we managed to insert fire safety squarely into the national conversation. The story remained fun and light, with a true health and safety message, a testament to our work in controlling a delicate media narrative.

Results
1x TV news feature (Newshub 6pm bulletin)
6x Radio news interviews
14x NZ online news features
3x International digital news features, not incl syndications
1x Best media relations award at 2023 Pressies
1x important message out to the masses
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As a world leading airline, it’s sometimes hard to stop and smell the roses. But 20 years operating in New Zealand was a cause for celebration. While anniversaries can be a hard sell, we took a different approach and made this media celebration of an industry-defining airline one to remember.

We took a two tiered approach, a classical media event in both the North and South Island, as well as this we sent NZ Herald's aviation editor to Dubai to get a feeling from the central hub. The result was a wonderful recap of the incredible aviation milestones Emirates has been a part of for New Zealand.

Results
20+ feature stories online and in print
NZ’s 20 year PR rollout will now form the template for future anniversary campaigns globally
1 x industry milestone celebrated by the entire aviation community
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Fusion energy, if solved, poses the ultimate answer to the world's largest climate concerns. OpenStar believes they can solve this atomic riddle from Wellington, in a classic case of world-shaking kiwi ingenuity. This story needed to be told in a way that underlined the importance of the technology, and put the NZ public on a crash course in nuclear physics.

We dug deep into the fusion technology to understand what makes the OpenStar project special. We carefully curated a high tier media approach based on exclusive coverage with the country’s top media voices. We worked one on one with journalists to make sure they were up to scratch on the complex science behind OpenStar, to deliver a comprehensive but highly targeted media campaign.

Results
One hour prime time interview on Kim Hill, RNZ
20 minute feature on TVNZ Sunday
Multi-page spread in The Listener
Long form feature in Business Desk
1x Business entering the public eye with the heat of a star being born
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K Road is an Auckland street famous for its nightlife, colourful characters, and stylish businesses. A combination of road works and the pandemic meant foot traffic was down though, and they needed a fresh spike in ‘hype’ for the infamous stretch of road.

Alongside ad agency Motion Sickness, we developed a perfume which smells of NZ’s most beloved and maligned street. The resulting high fashion advertisements grabbed headlines all over the country, had tweens and grown men lining up outside stores for a chance to buy the perfume, and generated significant buzz for the street.

Results
2x TV broadcast features
7x Radio broadcast features
1x Radio live-to-air interview
18x Online mainstream stories (Stuff, RNZ, Newshub, etc.)
1x Print feature in Viva
4x Social media stories (TVNZ Re:, Newstalk ZB, Viva)
50+ additional syndications
1x road full of businesses back on their feet
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By 2021, startup accelerator Ministry of Awesome had been doing incredible work for years, but were all but unknown outside of Christchurch. To achieve larger contracts and affect the change they wanted to see, they needed to make a name for themselves on the national stage.

Our process of putting the Ministry of Awesome on the map was a simple exercise in effective storytelling. Over the course of two years, we leaned on the startup community MoA had already built, using their individual successes to tell the broader story of Christchurch’s fast growing startup hub. The strategic campaign transformed the accelerator from relative obscurity to become a nationally significant organisation.

Results
‍15+ broadcast interviews on TV, online and print
Ongoing column on NZ’s largest news site
40+ stories on MoA and its various programmes
Major Government & private grants
Sold-out national conferences and programmes
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The financial services platform needed a way to be seen to be leading the narrative on the NZ first home buying crisis. Their innovative approach to saving for a first home is different to any other method on the market, so we needed them to tell a different kind of story.

After our successful launch with Aera just months before, we wanted to create a report that got to the bottom of just how tough it is for 1st home buyers. The report, based on existing data, found that if the average NZer began saving for a place today, they’d never buy it. We delivered this through exclusive TV interviews, as well as broader mainstream coverage for the widest possible audience.

Results
15 feature stories on report
3 minute feature on 6pm news
5 minute TVNZ Breakfast live interview
Broad coverage across national radio
Aera web traffic and new signups skyrocketed
1x business leading the 1st home buyer crisis conversation
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Businesses doing the same good work year after year don’t always make for stand out profile stories. For Unleashed software, already a global industry leader in inventory management, we recognised what separated their voice wasn’t fancy business stories, but the insights they can contribute to the wider independent manufacturing industry.

Leaning on Unleashed’s sophisticated customer data sets, we built a global Unleashed Manufacturing Report that looked into what we coined the 'overstocking crisis'. The campaign, with releases broken out between industry rags and mainstream news, grabbed headlines in more than 30 media outlets. The success of the initial campaign has seen things evolve into a quarterly campaign, giving up to date insights to manufacturers across the UK and ANZ.

Results
4x broadcast features
37x trade stories
7x Print stories
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