PRINZ Unveils Supreme Award At The 2025 PRINZ Awards - Pead Brought The Haka Home

Pead took home the coveted Supreme Award at the annual PRINZ Awards for their campaign, Restoring Mana: The World’s Largest Haka for Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust. 180 PR Professionals gathered last night to celebrate excellence and achievement in Aotearoa’s public relations and communications sector, which resulted in over 75 award winners.

The categories ranged from Best Use of Digital and Social Media to PR In-House Team of the Year to Marketing Communication. This year, five campaigns went head-to-head to take away the final award of the evening, the Supreme Award. Each campaign, submitted by Acumen New Zealand, Pead, Hamilton City Council, Great Scott and Special PR, received gold awards in their respective categories, making them eligible for this award. Ultimately, Pead was unveiled as the Supreme Award Winner for their work with the Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust.

Pead’s campaign was born when the Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust was faced with funding cuts. After looking into Aotearoa’s most marked act of unity, they found that the Guiness World Record for the World’s Largest Haka was held by France. They created a nation-wide call to action, reclaim the World’s Largest Haka title from the French and raise funds for RMTT. Their efforts resulted in 6467 New Zealanders performing the Haka at Eden Park Stadium and over half a million dollars raised for RMTT. Furthermore, their campaign led Guinness to revise its rules ensuring only Māori can lead future haka records.

The judges noted that their campaign “brought all of New Zealand and the world on an exciting journey to create positive change”. It was described as joyful, insightful, creative and a truly inclusive communications campaign.

Chief Judges Nikki Wright APR FPRINZ and Andrew Pirie FPRINZ comment “This bold, nation-building campaign showcased some of the best qualities of public relations as it harnessed the power of haka to unite New Zealanders and reclaim the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the World’s Largest Haka. It aptly combined cultural pride with a charitable purpose.”

Other notable gold awards of the evening were awarded to One Plus One Communications for PR Consultancy of the Year (Large), Scope Communications for PR

Consultancy of the Year (Small to Medium) and ProCare for PR In-House Team of the Year.

The Public Relations Institute of New Zealand were thrilled to have celebrated another year of incredible mahi in Aotearoa at the PRINZ Awards Gala Dinner last night. The calibre of campaigns this year was extremely high and represents just how valuable the public relations and communications industry really is.

See the full list of winners below:

Telum Media - Best Use of Media Relations

Bronze Award Winners:

• The Shine Collective for One in Five - A Transformative Shift in Māori Data. • Great Scott for The new apartment on the block - The opening of Christchurch’s Rānui apartments

• Quantum Jump for Campaign for Greater Wellington

Silver Award Winners:

• Blackland PR for A new household name in building: NZ Certified Builders • One Plus One Communications for RMHC NZ: Not every family will be at the beach this Christmas

• Development West Coast for Putting the West Coast back on the map • One Plus One Communications for NZFN: Pitching in to feed Aotearoa Gold Award Winner:

• Special PR for KFC Gravy Train

Isentia - Best Use of Digital and Social Media

Bronze Award Winners:

• Ngai Tahu for Kauraka e Mataku kia Takatū! Don’t be scared, be prepared • Breakout Room (MBM) for Unpro - Sport New Zealand Ihi Aotearoa Silver Award Winners:

• Hamilton City Council for The cost to run a city

• One Plus One Communications for The Team Talk that Rarked Up a Nation

Government Relations and Public Affairs

Bronze Award Winner:

• Auckland Transport for Tackling Drink Driving in Auckland - An evidence based, partnership approach

Silver Award Winners:

• ProCare for Patient Voice – giving power back to the people

• Employers and Manufacturers Association for Change the Act – EMA’s campaign to simplify holiday pay

Gold Award Winner:

• Acumen for Advocating for Food Security: How Ingham’s secured a policy change for poultry farming in New Zealand

Streem - Corporate and Business Public Relations

Silver Award Winners:

• Acumen for Taking Animal Health forward with Boehringer Ingelheim • One Plus One Communications for Lifting the lid on 2degrees’ books to show NZ they mean business

Robert Walters - Internal Communications

Bronze Award Winner:

• Summerset Group Holdings for From gratitude comes greatness: transforming Summerset’s employee recognition programme.

Silver Award Winners:

• Fonterra for From Indifference to Inspiration: Sharing Fonterra’s revised strategy • Port Marlborough for Portsafe – Empowering our people through internal communications

Gold Award Winner:

• Great Scott for Connecting the dots to protect lives – Methanex’s process safety campaign

Community Relations and Engagement

Bronze Award Winners:

• Auckland Council for Last Call: Tackling alcohol harm head on in Auckland • Coastguard Tautiaki Moana for Coastguard Bar Awareness Roadshow • Ashburton City Council for 5 for our future – Kia Rima Mō te Anamata Silver Award Winners:

• Palmerston North City Council for Shaping Palmy together: the Long-Term Plan that listened

• Pead for Restoring Mana: The World’s Largest Haka for Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust

Gold Award Winner:

• Hamilton City Council for A rose amongst thorns – the challenging evolution of Hamilton Gardens

Issues, Crisis or Reputation Management

Silver Award Winner:

• Common Ground PR for Strength After Scrutiny: The Ārepa Rebuild

Marketing Communication

Bronze Award Winners:

• ACC for Turning Critics into Champions: Redesigning ACC's Sensitive Claims Service with Empathy and Trust

• Māia Studio for Step Into your place

• Hamilton City Council for Manu with Mana

• Anthem for Driving Omoda Jaecoo’s entry into the New Zealand market • Special PR for Cold Call Back Service

Silver Award Winners:

• Development West Coast for The Coast Calls: how we made New Zealand listen

• Acumen New Zealand for Streets, Eats and Snow-Capped Peaks: Celebrating a decade of Uber in New Zealand

• One Plus One Communications for NZFM – Pitching in to Feed Aotearoa • Bay of Plenty Regional Council for Baybus On Demand: Smarter public transport, on your time

Gold Award Winner:

• Pead for Restoring Mana (prestige): The World’s Largest Haka for Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust

Celebrity Speakers - Experiential and Activation

Bronze Award Winner:

• Special PR for Pou-o-kai

Silver Award Winner:

• Acumen New Zealand for Streets, Eats and Snow-Capped Peaks: Celebrating a decade of Uber in New Zealand

Truescope - Sally Logan-Milne Young Practitioner of the Year Award • Highly Commended – Hannah Powell

• Winner – Fiann Blackham

Isentia Prize for Excellence in Research, Measurement & Evaluation • Winner: Great Scott for Connecting the dots to protect lives – Methanex’s process safety campaign

PR In-house Team of the Year

• Silver Award Winner: Development West Coast

• Gold Award Winner: ProCare

PR Consultancy of the Year - Small to Medium

Silver Award Winners:

• Blackland PR

• Brainchild

Gold Award Winners:

• Scope Communications

PR Consultancy of the Year - Large

• Silver Award Winner: Special PR

• Gold Award Winner: One Plus One Communications

PRINZ Supreme Award

• Winner: Pead for Restoring Mana: The World’s Largest Haka for Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust

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