Discover Whanganui
Making people feel Whanganui before they booked the trip.
For Discover Whanganui’s 25/26 visitor campaign, we led a digital-first strategy designed to turn the city’s art, culture and awa into a feeling people could recognise, remember and act on. The campaign built on the online community we were already growing alongside their team.
Explore Discover Whanganui
Discover Whanganui · 25/26 visitor campaign
Artura’s role
Campaign strategy, social media strategy and management, content direction and copywriting, and photography direction
Creative partners
Alanah Brown Photography
— photography
Create Now
— videography
Little & Loud
— digital ads support
Destination
A destination campaign built to create desire, not just awareness.
Start with the feeling
Whanganui already has the substance: the awa, a thriving creative culture, significant heritage and a city full of distinctive experiences. The job was not to invent a tourism story, but to make people feel what was already here.
Focus the investment
Rather than spreading the budget thin across every possible channel, we took a deliberate digital-first approach. Investment was concentrated where visual storytelling could reach the right people and give them a reason to look closer.
Build the story
We shaped the campaign direction and copy, directed the photography and worked alongside specialist production partners to create content that felt cinematic without losing the everyday character of Whanganui.
Give it somewhere to land
The campaign did not arrive to a cold audience. It built on months of social media management and online community-building, giving the paid activity a stronger foundation and extending the story well beyond a single campaign window.
Not a checklist of things to do. A place people could already imagine themselves in.
Strategy before spend.
Destination marketing can quickly become a long list of attractions, audiences and channels. We made deliberate choices about what the campaign needed people to feel, where the story would work hardest and how every piece would connect.
01
Emotion before itinerary
Lead with the atmosphere, character and creative energy of the place. The practical trip-planning information matters, but first people need a reason to care.
02
Fewer channels, used well
Put the budget where strong photography, video and copy could do their best work, rather than dividing the investment into smaller pieces that never had the chance to build momentum.
03
Campaign and community together
Treat campaign activity as one layer of the wider destination presence. The everyday social content, community engagement and larger visitor campaign all needed to reinforce the same story.
The campaign is one moment. The destination story is always moving.
Our work with Discover Whanganui extends beyond the campaign itself. Through ongoing social media support, we help maintain a useful, engaging presence between larger visitor pushes, while working closely with their internal team and creative partners.
- Social media strategy and day-to-day management
- Content planning and destination storytelling
- Copywriting and campaign rollout
- Community engagement and audience-building
- Creative direction and production coordination
Content grounded in a real place, not a tourism cliché.
The visual direction gave the campaign room to feel polished while keeping Whanganui recognisable: creative, textured, welcoming and closely connected to the awa.
Need people to feel what makes your place different?
We help regions, organisations and ambitious local brands turn a strong story into a campaign people can feel, remember and act on.
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