Sir Graham Henry. Photo: Supplied
Of a pool of more than 26,000 entries at the Cannes Lions, a New Zealand ad came out on top. Turns out, Kiwis are good at ads - and having herpes.
When Sir Graham Henry got a call from a young ad man asking him to front a campaign about a taboo subject, his answer was surprising.
"It was quite daunting to call him up," says Sam Stuchbury, creative director and founder of Motion Sickness.
"No one really wants to be in a herpes ad."
Sam Stuchbury, executive creative director of Motion Sickness Photo: Supplied
But Sir Graham said 'yes' to the campaign, and last week took his support of the campaign further by beaming into the prestigious Cannes Lions global ad awards with a tongue in cheek message of congratulations to New Zealand for being "the best place in the world to have herpes".
The campaign was awarded two Grand Prix and four other prizes at Cannes, where they competed with more than 26,000 entries.
Stuchbury tells The Detail how he nervously phoned Sir Graham, and before he could complete his pitch the former All Black coach said, "yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do it".
With Sir Graham on board, the team at Motion Sickness then approached other New Zealand "icons" including Sir Ashley Bloomfield, Sir Buck Shelford and comedian Angella Dravid.
The agency had been given a brief from the Herpes Foundation: to remove the stigma from genital herpes, an infection that one in three sexually active New Zealand adults have.
Foundation trustee Alaina Luxmoore says the organisation had been trying to destigmatise herpes for more than 20 years.
A still image from the award-winning herpes ad. Photo: Supplied
"It has never, ever, ever worked," she says.
"You're up against mainstream media; being the punchline joke in movies and songs and TV; decades and decades and decades of internalised shame about herpes as being akin to some type of sexual proclivity or uncleanliness.
"It felt like you could never shake the stigma."
When the agency came back to Luxmoore with the campaign tagline "Make New Zealand the best place in the world to have herpes", her reaction was instant.
"'Oh my gosh, that's it.' By the end of the weekend after we'd heard that line for the first time I couldn't shake it and we were giddy with excitement."
Both Luxmoore and Stuchbury were shocked at the worldwide reaction, with 22 million PR impressions, a reflection of the number of people reached by the campaign in the first eight weeks, and more than 10,000 hours of educational content watched.
"I didn't expect the level of admiration from overseas people and we had a lot of herpes organisations from other places around the world reaching out and saying, can I share your content, can you tell me about it.
"American podcasts, English researchers who are doing their degrees on the stigma around herpes. Lots and lots of international eyes on us and I didn't expect that."
For Luxmoore it was also a surprising personal experience, as she fronted for media interviews for the foundation about why destigmatisation was so important.
"It was like, 'who is the person who can speak to the lived experience of herpes' and that's me. The reason I'm on the board is because I have herpes."
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