Client: A major New Zealand home improvement retailer.
Expertise: Cross-cultural influencer marketing including influencer strategy and Instagram and Tiktok channels.
Mission: To create culturally relevant content that earns trust and fosters long-term loyalty between the brand and its audience.
Desired Outcome: A campaign that delivers on reach and engagement.
The Objective
The client aimed to:
- Boost awareness of the brand to New Zealand’s new migrant Indian community.
- Ensure content is culturally relevant
- Position itself as a relatable and trusted home improvement destination.
- Achieve this across key social media channels including Instagram and TikTok.
Our Approach
The foundation of any effective influencer marketing strategy is influencer selection. We needed a creator who could bridge the cultural gap authentically. Not just someone with a large following, but someone whose audience reflected the exact community our client was trying to reach.
The Foundation of Influencer Marketing in NZ:
The first step in our Influencer marketing strategy was to identify and partner with the right Indian creator – one that speaks the right Indian language (with 121 languages in India!) and with a strong following that matches our target audience.
Secondly, ensuring that the influencer is a right fit for the brand and the type of content they create would naturally fit with our client’s brand.
This led to us partnering with a well-liked Indian lifestyle creator with almost 3 million followers across both Instagram and TikTok. Their content style was fun, warm and practical and their key audience was new migrant Indians settling into New Zealand.
Thirdly we ensured that the content created had a powerful hook, is engaging and is able to communicate the key message effectively. As a result, the campaign focused on an outdoor video, a topic that resonates strongly with our key target audience looking to make their spaces feel like home. Rather than a scripted brand read, the content was built around the influencer’s natural storytelling style, ensuring that the influencer remains genuine to their audience while maintaining the brand’s goal of reaching the new migrant Indian community.
The timing of the release of the influencer’s content was also timed so that it was published in Instagram Reels and on TikTok simultaneously and at peak viewing time, allowing us to compare platform performance and optimise both TikTok and Instagram influencer marketing accordingly.
Results that Matter:
In comparison to previous campaigns, this influencer campaign delivered strong performance across Instagram and TikTok.
4x increase in views across all platforms
4.7x increase in engagements across platforms
67% decrease in cost per 1000 views across all platforms
The Impact
This campaign reinforces something we believe strongly at Marketing Minds: when you reach multicultural audiences through the right channels, with the right voices, and culturally relevant content, the results speak for themselves.
Tik Tok and Instagram influencer marketing gave the client genuine visibility within a community they had previously been unable to reach at scale and the low cost per 1,000 views proved that influencer marketing in Aotearoa New Zealand doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective. It has to be strategic and thoughtful.
For brands looking to build long-term loyalty with New Zealand’s Indian community, the formula is straightforward:
“Invest in cultural credibility through trusted creators, and let authentic storytelling do the work”
Done well, social media influencer marketing doesn’t just generate views, it builds brand relationships that last.
*The client’s name has been hidden to protect the company identity
If you want to find out more about branding and marketing, or if you have any other questions, call us at +64 9 634 4390, email info@marketingminds.me or contact us.
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