Kiwis Keep Mum Over What They Want for Christmas

Tuesday 20 December, 2005

Kiwis are bashful about asking for their perfect Christmas gift from Santa or loved ones, and are more concerned with keeping in touch during the festive season, according to a new CallSouth survey.

The survey on how Kiwis keep in touch, commissioned by South Island-based telecommunications company CallSouth, found well over half (55.7%) of Kiwis wouldn’t ask Santa for their favoured pressies while one in three (35%) wouldn’t even tell loved ones what they wanted for Christmas. If they were to ask Santa for a special gift, 32% said they’d phone him and 34% said they’d post their requests.

The CallSouth survey showed keeping in touch, particularly around Christmas time, is important to most Kiwis, with 88% of respondents saying they were good at keeping in touch with family and three out of four (75%), with friends.

Aucklanders and Southlanders consider themselves best at keeping in touch – 91% from both regions claim to keep in touch with family and 82%, with friends – while Otago dwellers were a little slacker with 67% saying they’re good at keeping in touch with friends.

This year, more than half (57%) of New Zealanders plan to phone loved ones who are out-of-town or overseas on Christmas Day. Just over 15% of Kiwis planned to email or post their Christmas greetings, while 7% said they’d keep in touch face-to-face.

CallSouth chief executive Peter Roborgh said the company wanted to find out how New Zealanders like to keep in touch with people from all parts of their life – from their accountant, to their in-laws, to their ex.

“Kiwis love communicating, especially at this time of the year, and most people said they were good at keeping in touch with friends and family,” Mr Roborgh said.

“There were some interesting findings around preferred means of communicating specific messages to specific people, but what we’ve found overall is phoning someone is always a popular choice.”

The survey found most of the “big” messages – like telling someone you love them, saying sorry, or asking for money – are still best done face-to-face, though over half (54%) of people share news of a baby over the phone and almost 28% ask someone out on a date with a phone call.

Many keep in touch by phone with parents (62%) and in-laws (58.9%) rather than face-to-face, while if they do keep in touch with ex-partners (60% of us don’t), phoning them is the preferred method (51%). And contact with accountants is mainly limited to the phone (61%) while 16% of Wellingtonians say they don’t contact their accountant at all.

The survey also revealed many Kiwis multi-task while on the phone. Just over 11% of people do housework, another 11% walk or wander around, while one respondent claimed to kill an ant colony during her time on the phone.

The survey, conducted by Pulse Business Solutions Limited and analysed by Advanced Business Research, was of 914 randomly selected people across nine regions. It has a 4.5% margin of error. CallSouth is a New Zealand owned, Oamaru-based telecommunications company offering landline, internet and calling services nationwide. For further information on CallSouth, visit www.callsouth.co.nz.

ENDS

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