Te Ringa Akiaki - A guiding hand
Our amazing artist, Graham Tipene, created a unifying wairua that conveyed the essence of the Safer Gambling Aotearoa mission when designing this beautiful tohu. The tohu stems from a circular tohu which represents a cycle of activity and depicts the themes of manaaki, strength through adversity and protection. Also within this piece are Te Ringa Akiaki, helping hands of those who endeavour to tautoko our individuals and support them to practise safer ways to gamble, or completely stop if they choose to. Artwork in addition to the final logo, there are two artworks (one Māori and one Pasifika), that contain culturally specific iconography, that speak to our Safer Gambling Aotearoa ambitions. These secondary elements, when combined with the corresponding translation, allow the communications to become more culturally specific.
"He ringa maukaha, he ringa awhi, he ringa mou. A tight grasp, a helping embrace, a hand for you. Addiction, acknowledgment, acceptance of help. We knew we had to come at it differently for our people. Something authentic. Something we knew was tika, was right"
- Kaiārahi, creative and artist Graham Tipene (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Manu, Ngāti Haua)
The Mahi
When it comes to talking about our gambling, many within our communities feel whakamā; it's something we're traditionally not comfortable discussing. However, it's only by talking about our gambling in a way that feels safe, that we're actually able to overcome the shame and stigma that can be associated with it.
'Me kōrero tātou | Tatou talanoa' - is our way of encouraging our people, to lift the taboo around the way we kōrero about our gambling. We all want to make our own choices. We know that our audience don’t want to be told what to do, so a message telling them to stop gambling would never prove successful. But with our new brand name Safer Gambling Aotearoa, we're shifting the focus to a positive outcome.
Safer Gambling Aotearoa offers a new destination for us all to work towards. We're hoping to avoid further stigmatising people who gamble, by removing phrases like 'problem gambling'.
There were multiple stages of research conducted and Māori and Pacific audiences were engaged during the process, along with Māori and Pacific cultural advisory on both agency and client side, in combination with clinical experts. Our cultural creative advisor Misty Kimura and CEO Skye Kimura played a significant part in ensuring Māori voices were heard. The project was a hugely collaborative process that required careful navigation and balancing to deliver an authentic cultural narrative whilst ensuring the ads created were effective. In addition, this campaign incorporated multiple instances of stakeholder engagement, involving stakeholders from across the health sector, gambling industry and a range of government entities.
Who is the audience?
This campaign is focused on recreational/low risk gamblers, aged 18 to 44 years, (specifically pokie players) with a focus on Māori and Pasifika, who are disproportionally represented in terms of gambling harm. The secondary audience is whānau/friends/affected others, because people often turn to whānau/friends before any professional help.
We would love to hear from you
Get in touch