ARCHIVETourism Fiji Sings Its Way Into New Zealand Hearts With Bula
Tourism Fiji's 'Singing, Bula' is a film-led destination marketing campaign created by Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand, launched in December 2018, that positions the Fijian greeting 'Bula' as the emotional centrepiece of a global hospitality and travel platform built around the idea that happiness is not something visitors bring to Fiji — it is something Fiji gives them.
The campaign launched in New Zealand and extended across the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, making it one of the more geographically ambitious destination marketing efforts to emerge from the Pacific in 2018. According to clapboard.com, it comprised two primary film assets distributed across television, out-of-home, digital, and social media channels, giving the campaign a broad and layered media presence suited to the multi-market ambitions of Tourism Fiji's global brand strategy.
Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand was appointed Tourism Fiji's global brand agency of record on 28 February 2018, as reported by adnews.com.au, following a competitive creative pitch that began in mid-2017. The brand films at the heart of 'Singing, Bula' were developed during the 2017–18 financial year, per Fijisun Com Fj, with campaign coverage and distribution commencing towards the end of 2018. The creative platform anchoring the work is Tourism Fiji's 'Where Happiness Finds You' proposition, a line that inverts the conventional travel promise by asserting that the destination is the active agent of joy, not a passive backdrop for it. In the context of the New Zealand travel and leisure market — where Fiji has long held a prominent position as a short-haul premium destination — this emotional framing carried particular resonance with audiences already culturally familiar with Fijian warmth. Clapboard Score: 63/100.
Tourism Fiji's strategic position rests on a single, durable insight: the Fijian people themselves are the destination's most distinctive competitive asset.
Toby Talbot, Chief Creative Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand, articulated this directly in TravMedia on December 17, 2018, stating: 'Everyone who comes to Fiji seems to leave happier. The authentic spirit of the people and the place are what makes it such a uniquely happy place in the world right now.' That observation is not merely a creative brief summary — it reflects a measurable cultural reality. A 2017 Gallup International Survey identified Fiji as having the happiest people in the world, according to Foreignaffairs Gov Fj, a finding that gave the 'Where Happiness Finds You' platform genuine third-party credibility and provided the strategic foundation for 'Singing, Bula' to lean into emotional authenticity rather than scenic spectacle.
In New Zealand, the competitive travel and leisure landscape in 2018 was crowded with destination brands competing for discretionary travel spend, with Hawaii, Bali, and Thailand all mounting significant campaigns targeting the same short-to-medium-haul traveller. Tourism Fiji's decision to differentiate through cultural musicality and human warmth, rather than beach imagery or price positioning, was a deliberate strategic move away from category conventions. According to the UNWTO's 2018 annual report as published by unwto.org, international tourist arrivals globally reached approximately 1.4 billion that year, representing a six percent increase year-over-year, while international tourism receipts reached US$1.448 trillion in 2018, a four percent rise in real terms per unwto.org. Within the Asia-Pacific region, arrivals grew by seven percent in the first half of 2018 according to unwto.org — a buoyant environment in which Fiji needed a distinctive voice to convert awareness into booking intent across the New Zealand market and beyond.
'Singing, Bula' is produced by Goodoil Films, according to clapboard.com, and its creative identity is defined by a purpose-composed original song that transforms the traditional Fijian greeting into an immersive musical experience.
The original song was choreographed by Igelese Ete and Damiano Logaivau, as documented by Parliament Gov Fj, and performed by Pasifika Voices, a detail that grounds the campaign's claim to cultural authenticity in specific, verifiable creative choices rather than generalised Pacific imagery. The decision to commission original music rather than license an existing track is significant — it gave Tourism Fiji an ownable sonic asset capable of carrying across television, digital, and social media placements without the legal or tonal limitations of a licensed piece. According to adsoftheworld.com, the work was directed by Paul Wilson, whose approach brought a warmth and observational intimacy to the footage that reinforced the campaign's core emotional argument: that the joy Fijians express is not performed for tourists, but is genuinely their own.
Toby Talbot further noted, as reported by adsoftheworld.com, that 'everything we have created is grounded in the extraordinary emotive connection that the Fijian people make with visitors,' a statement that reflects a production philosophy built around capturing rather than constructing. The result is campaign film that reads as documentary-adjacent — prioritising candid human moments over polished travel-catalogue aesthetics. For the New Zealand market in particular, where the audience holds an established cultural familiarity with Fiji as a destination, this register of earned intimacy is more persuasive than aspirational distance. The two film assets archived at clapboard.com demonstrate a consistent visual and tonal language across the campaign's geographic versions, suggesting a disciplined creative framework that could flex for the United States, United Kingdom, and Australian markets without losing its Fijian cultural core.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for 'Singing, Bula' is publicly available in terms of conversion metrics, media reach figures, or Tourism Fiji arrival statistics attributable solely to this campaign.
What the structural evidence does support is a campaign built with the architecture of long-term brand equity rather than short-term direct response. The 'Where Happiness Finds You' platform, which 'Singing, Bula' extended and deepened, demonstrated sufficient strategic durability to anchor subsequent work: per bespokeglobalagency.com and gravityglobal.com, the 2019 'Bulanaires List' initiative extended the same 'Bula' concept as a branded content and public relations campaign, indicating that Tourism Fiji and Saatchi & Saatchi viewed 'Singing, Bula' not as a standalone execution but as a foundational platform asset. Tourism Fiji's earlier destination-marketing work had encouraged visitors to 'find your happiness in Fiji' from around 2010, according to skift.com, and 'Singing, Bula' represents a maturation of that positioning — shifting from invitation to immersion, from promise to proof. In New Zealand, where the campaign launched first and where Fijian tourism carries the highest baseline familiarity among the target markets, this evolutionary creative approach was well-calibrated. The campaign's multi-channel distribution across television, out-of-home, digital, and social media in New Zealand gave the work meaningful frequency and contextual range. The Clapboard editorial assessment places this campaign at 63 out of 100, reflecting a well-executed and culturally grounded piece of destination marketing that is constrained by the inherent difficulty of fully differentiating within the travel and leisure category on emotion alone, however sincerely rendered.
'Singing, Bula' is a film-led destination marketing campaign created by Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand for Tourism Fiji, launched in December 2018. It uses an original song performed by Pasifika Voices to position the Fijian greeting 'Bula' as the emotional heart of Tourism Fiji's 'Where Happiness Finds You' brand platform across New Zealand and global markets.
'Singing, Bula' was directed by Paul Wilson, according to adsoftheworld.com. The campaign was produced by Goodoil Films for Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand. The original song was choreographed by Igelese Ete and Damiano Logaivau and performed by Pasifika Voices, grounding the campaign's cultural authenticity in specific credited Fijian and Pacific creative contributors.
Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand was appointed Tourism Fiji's global brand agency of record on 28 February 2018, as reported by adnews.com.au. The appointment followed a competitive creative pitch that began in mid-2017, with the brand films developed during the 2017–18 financial year and campaign distribution commencing in December 2018.
'Singing, Bula' launched in New Zealand in December 2018 and included market-specific versions developed for the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, according to clapboard.com. New Zealand served as the primary launch market, reflecting Fiji's established position as a leading short-haul premium destination for New Zealand travellers in the travel and leisure category.
Tourism Fiji's 'Singing, Bula' was built on the 'Where Happiness Finds You' brand platform, per adsoftheworld.com. This platform positions Fiji as the active source of joy rather than a passive destination, a strategic line rooted in a 2017 Gallup International Survey that identified Fiji as having the happiest people in the world, according to foreignaffairs.gov.fj.
'Singing, Bula' holds a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects a culturally grounded and well-produced piece of destination marketing that demonstrates strong creative intent and platform coherence, while acknowledging the inherent challenge of achieving full differentiation within the competitive travel, leisure, and hospitality advertising category through emotional storytelling alone.
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