Imagine living in New Zealand without speaking English as a first language. For over 115.8k of those in Aotearoa, this is an everyday reality. From regular interactions in real life to online activities, cybersecurity awareness is critical for all New Zealanders. Evidence indicates, however, that cultural and language differences can act as a barrier to understanding, awareness and access to information. 

CERT NZ, part of the NCSC, approached Aro to help people in this very situation. The challenge - help those who don’t speak English as a first language understand the importance of cyber security. They wanted to provide education about two-factor authentication and the importance of long, strong, and unique passwords. 

Pop quiz: Do you have two-factor authentication set up?

Research shows more than one in two people are very concerned about the security of their online personal data, with Asian and Pasifika peoples having a higher concern and they are experiencing more cyber-attacks. One statistic revealed the scale of the problem:

“Only 39% of Pasifika peoples have not experienced an online threat/attack in the past six months (vs 51% total population).”

This research and more helped identify eight languages that were of a higher risk. These were those whose first language was Tongan, Samoan, Cook Islander, Fijian, Korean, Punjabi, Chinese, and Hindi.

Reaching these eight audiences effectively and efficiently was exactly the kind of challenge our team at Aro thrives on; especially in a digital world with limited targeting abilities for those whose beautiful languages are not recognised officially. 

We had previous experience with campaigns like Karawhiua and Te Ngāngara to tackle this challenge head-on. 

The strategy 

With a video-first approach and a variety of languages to target we knew that both Meta (Facebook and Instagram) alongside YouTube would be our go-to channels. 

Channels & creative

This channel mix of YouTube and Meta allowed us to optimise towards video views and bring the educational value into the ad itself, with additional detail on the website landing page for those who wanted to learn more. 

Using simplified visuals that could visually communicate the principles without closed captions or voice-overs was the foundation of our animations. Layered on top of this we had closed captions fully translated in each of the eight languages, with four languages having voiceovers. 

Creative Insights

Naturally, short and sweet placements worked better across social. There was an average video play time of 8 seconds (5 seconds higher than the average), with this reaching as high as 12 seconds for the ‘in-stream video feed’ placement which had the majority of delivery. 

Across YouTube the longer-form (1-2 minutes) content was a hit with an average watch time of 47.8 seconds. This was as high as an average watch time of 55.8 seconds for those who spoke Hindi, followed by 49.2 seconds for Chinese. These are very engaged, high-quality watch times for skippable video placements which reflect the high average video completion rate of 26%. 

In total we had two educational themes across the eight languages, exported to fit the channel and placement. In total, there were 48 video animations to export, upload, and monitor once live. 

Targeting

Channel selection was also important for our targeting approach. This was an impactful combination of language targeting options and interest-based targeting to reach our key audiences and allowed for greater coverage without substituting quality. 

Across Meta and Google, there are still limited language targeting abilities. Only half of the eight languages were available to target directly, with YouTube limiting this further to only Chinese, Hindi, Punjabi, and Korean ads being able to run on the platform as our ads were fully translated across these eight languages. 

Targeting takeaways

While Punjabi has one of the highest average completed rates for YouTube at 28.6%, it was the lowest on Meta at 0.3% (only 200 completed views). 

Across Meta, Chinese had both the highest volume of videos completed (4,870) and the highest number of video views started (152.5k). On YouTube, they were the most likely to engage, with a completion almost 30% higher than other languages.
This indicates a solid appetite from this audience to learn more. 

People aged 65+ were nearly twice as likely to watch the videos to completion - and click through to further content. Meta was a great platform to engage with this audience. 

Our Impact

The team at Aro are incredibly proud of this campaign. Both from being able to deliver great results for CERT NZ, but also for the good it’s done across communities. There was a clear appetite and appreciation for this information being presented fully translated into their first language. 

Overall, the campaign was able to achieve: 

• 2.1 million impressions across both platforms 
• 703.7k video views 
• 97.4 thousand videos were viewed to completion across both platforms, with this being as high as 88.5k on YouTube and 8.9k on Meta. This equates to a 26.4% completion rate on YouTube and a 1.24% on Meta.
• A cost per view of $0.03

There are several exciting ways to extend this campaign in both platforms and creatively. In particular, FAQ question-based ads to help directly provide education with questions like, “How do I stop my Facebook being hacked?” 

So if you haven’t already, make sure you set up two-factor authentication on all your important accounts and ensure your passwords are long, strong, and unique.