Lakes And Mountains On YouTube - For A Price
If you visit the YouTube homepage on September 18, you should see a video there from Tourism New Zealand and made by Weta Workshop, who brought you much of Lord of the Rings and King Kong. (If the video’s gone by the time you read this, you can still watch it here.)
Wow, New Zealand looks beautiful. I want to go! Wait, I’m already here. Although I don’t spend my days commuting to work over snow-capped mountains, or my lunch breaks kayaking smoothly through a silent mirror lake.
What I find interesting is that they reportedly paid $NZ450,000 (US$320,000) for that 24-hour homepage slot, as well as a special channel page valid for three months. Seems rather steep. Did they know you can upload videos for free, and the best ones make it to the ‘most-viewed’ section? And call me old-fashioned, but isn’t the point of YouTube that it’s user generated, user selected and user rated content?
Still, good on them for being modern and stuff, and obviously being on the homepage for 24 hours will result in a flood of traffic. My budget would not cover such a promotion but it’s exciting to see companies here seeing the benefits of advertising online, especially on an international site. Has been rather a long time coming.
And for those who are not overly concerned with the state of online advertising in NZ, it’s a pretty video. 
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Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
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Cool video there. It makes me really want to visit NZ! Not that I did not have that urge already! One thing is for sure though when I come to visit that country is that I would like to go on a hike. It does seem like an unspoiled paradise. If too many people go there however I fear that it will lose that quality.
September 19th, 2007 at 3:46 ami agree with you rich, too many people wanted to travel an untouched part of the world will turn it into what the rest of these touristy areas are becoming. i live in southern california and you have to travel to certain mountains or deserts to find untouched land, and even then it is being spoiled by tourist traps and activities
September 19th, 2007 at 4:18 amGreat video - I love New Zealand. So much so that I often joke I should work for New Zealand tourism. It’s one of the most beautiful countries in the world, the people are friendly and I can’t wait to get back there and spend some more time drinking it in.
Glorious.
September 21st, 2007 at 9:17 pmloved the video, its so beautiful and serene… I’d love to be able to visit and I’m sure I’d wanna stay there forever… agree with Richard, seems like paradise!
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:09 pmI just love NZ, that much I’m coming to join you in Jan 08 for an extended stay.
Its just all good, Mountains, Sea everything is slower and not quite there yet, maybe it was who I met but know ones seems that bothered by material things and yet the country on a whole is very proactive about its image.
Cool
September 24th, 2007 at 11:27 pm