Auckland, April 19: From the bright lights of New York City to a dull office in suburban New Zealand, Lightbox has debuted its own version of the TV phenomenon that is Suits.
To celebrate the much-anticipated arrival of the second half of Season 7, Lightbox teamed up with Spark PR & Activate to add a Kiwi twist to the popular US hit show in its own content series, Suits NZ.
Deliberately mundane, predictable and unexciting, Suits NZ is everything that the American hit TV show is not – and its tongue-in-cheek humour has Kiwi audiences tuning in for more, says Lightbox marketing manager Kirsty Shaw.
To launch the second half of season 7, Lightbox and Spark PR & Activate created three 30-second videos depicting what Suits would look like if it was filmed in a tiny barrister & solicitors office above a suburban shop in New Zealand.
The answer is simply ‘pretty dull’. While Harvey Spector, Mike Ross and Rachel Zane of Suits work on the big cases while being surrounded by beautiful people and flashy offices, the Kiwi version’s lawyer works in a cubby-hole office, lodging permits for subdivisions and notarising passports.
Kirsty Shaw said developing Suits NZ was a creative way to promote new Suits, one of Lightbox’s top-performing shows, in a uniquely Kiwi style.
“Deliberately mundane and unexciting, Suits NZ is everything the US hit TV show is not – and it has Kiwi audiences tuning in for more.”
“We know Kiwis love Suits, and with a hit show like this where fans are so engaged, we wanted to offer something a bit unique to highlight the arrival of exclusive new episodes of Season 7 coming to Lightbox.
Being a New Zealand-owned entertainment platform, we wanted to put our own local twist on the US hit show in a way that only we could, and it’s been great to see Kiwis resonating and enjoying the realness, predictability and averageness of Suits NZ in anticipation of the mid- season launch,” Shaw said.
The first two episodes of Suits NZ have amassed over 670,000 views on YouTube and over 274,000 views on Facebook.
Spark PR & Activate head of content Chris Lloyd said: “This is a great way of generating noise for Lightbox and Suits in a way that only a New Zealand company can – by gently taking the mickey out of NZ.
“This content demonstrates that Lightbox, and by association Suits, are taking the effort to communicate in a distinctly Kiwi way. And comments on the Facebook channel suggest people want to see more of Suits NZ!”
The third and final episode of Suits NZ went live last week on Facebook and YouTube. All episodes of Suits NZ can also be viewed here.
Lightbox is the only platform where Kiwis can watch new episodes of Suits Season 7, exclusive and express from the US.
SUITS NZ CREDITS
Client: Kirsty Shaw, Marketing Manager at Lightbox; and Danielle McNaughton, Marketing Lead at Lightbox.
Agency: Spark PR & Activate (part of PHD New Zealand)
Production: Social Fabric
Writer: Sam Smith
About PHD
PHD is known globally as an innovator in communications planning and buying across broadcast, print, digital, mobile, social and emerging media, reflected in the network ranking 2nd most awarded network in the world, according to the Gunn Media 100 report – a benchmark of the most creatively awarded agencies and networks.
PHD New Zealand was also named Media Network of the Year at Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity 2017.
PHD has over 4000 staff working in over 80 offices worldwide, having been founded in London in 1990 as the first planning-led media agency. Built on a culture of thought leadership, innovation and creativity, with a philosophy of “Finding a Better Way”, PHD is today one of the world’s fastest growing media and communication agency networks.
The PHD network is part of the Omnicom Media Group (www.omnicommediagroup.com), a division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC)
About Omnicom Media Group
Omnicom Media Group is the media services division of Omnicom Group, Inc. (NYSE: OMC). Omnicom is a leading global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5000 clients in more than 100 countries. Omnicom Media Group includes the full-service media networks PHD and OMD as well as a number of specialty media communications companies. By being part of OMG, these entities are able to fully leverage the media resources and buying scale of Omnicom on behalf of its clients.
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