For the first time KVH, alongside the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and other industry groups through the GIA partnership, ran a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB) awareness campaign over the autumn/winter period to create awareness with the general public about looking out for BMSB overwintering in homes.

New advertising was created, to focus on BMSB coming indoors to overwinter and infest a house, and channels includes print, social media, digital displays, videos, and ‘out of home’ activity like shopping malls.

The campaign had good results in generating wide reach and awareness but was lower on notifications to the MPI contact centre than in summer, which we think is probably a seasonal thing (more native species to see in summer, so more likely to be reports of bugs). In summary:

· there were 69 calls to the 0800 pest and disease hotline (as with the summer campaigns we run, most calls were generated by digital/video advertising)

· digital/video advertising was seen more than 3.5 million times and as with the summer campaign, MetService was the most seen and delivered the most click throughs to BMSB web pages

· nearly 18,000 people viewed the BMSB web page on the MPI website (15,000 more than last year with no campaign)

· 31 digital screens ran in 18 shopping malls in key airport/port cities of Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, and Christchurch. Suppliers also donated an extra 87 screens and 10 large banners worth around $280,000. All up, these were passed by foot traffic of nearly four million.

Overall, the campaign achieved the objective of generating awareness and reaching New Zealanders. The shopping mall, print, and digital advertising all had high numbers of eyeballs on the ads. There were lower call numbers and website figures (than we see over summer) but this reflects the focus of our winter campaign being on raising awareness rather than taking direct action.

Digital advertising is still proving to be the most effective way of attracting attention and leading people to the website and pest hotline.