E2NZ.org

Muzzerino, another blog I follow, just put a “NZ flavoured” Twining’s tea ad up. (@Muzzerino, thanks!) Unfortunately, the youtube account where the clip was put up was deleted, but you can still see this ad at
https://www.twinings.co.nz/#/?page=home

It shows an ivory-complexioned young woman in a cr*ppy London bedsit looking out her window at the grey dingy blocks of flats, deciding to sip the new “NZ flavour” of Twining’s tea and then being carried away to the sunshiny fantasy land she’d rather be in. ROFL.

“Inspired by birdsong in the bush” it says? One Australian friend here in Godzone said the one thing she missed the most about Oz was all the birdsong in the morning. It was aurally dead-as here by comparison with Australia. I have been to both places, and lived in the bush, and I can vouch for that.

There is also the New Zealand Springs dishwasher detergent (wtf) a friend pointed me to
http://dishwasherdetergentreviews.co.cc/cascade-4x-concentrated-new-zealand-springs-scent-actionpacs-20-count

The only reason I can think of New Zealand branding itself as a smell or flavour (of the “fresh natural category” along with lemony, pure, spring, cleansing, young, breezy, green, etc. and all that total rot) is that some greedy palms were greased to take Brand New Zealand marketing to the next level. Next thing you know they will be coining their own shade of green.

More annoying and deceptive propaganda of the paradise escape variety.

They use NZ imagery to sell lamb in the EU
http://www.inderscience.com/search/index.php?action=record&rec_id=14983&prevQuery=&ps=10&m=or
“The New Zealand lamb-marketing scenario supported the heavy use of country of origin images by specialist marketing boards for niche products”.
http://nzexporter.co.nz/2010/09/nz-lamb-more-sustainable-than-welsh-rival/

As natureshopnz remarks on its site, “The natural image of New Zealand is a compelling sales instrument”.

Not that this hasn’t been going on a long time. Who knows how many British gels read descriptions of green hills, sheep stations and manly men in the books of authors such as Essie Summers and thought they would be moving to a dream life?
http://www.squidoo.com/Essie_Summers_vintage_romance_books
Only to find it was hard, lonely and dangerous. They had to wrap their breasts in plastic to stop wool worms from digging into them. They would have little female company and support. They would work long hours feeding and beering mobs of strange rough shearers, far from medical care, books or culture. All creature with no comforts!

This cash-hungry little chippie of a nation will never stop flashing its wares. The Internet has permitted her to broaden her potential revenue with greater exposure. Luckily, that same Internet can host sites like your own, offering a few bracing sips of reality. Ever smelled a sheep?

‘Cheese is a luxury’

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/food/news/article.cfm?c_id=206&objectid=10712130

Counsellor Sylvia Jennings has spent years helping other people resolve their deep seated personal problems. But it’s the skyrocketing cost of living that has forced the silver haired 56-year-old from Otahuhu to dramatically change her own life.

She’s dispensed with what she now considers luxury items, such as good-quality eggs, cheddar cheese, drinking chocolate and biscuits, and shops strictly by price – and nutritional value.

“I’ve downsized my shop,” says Jennings, who shares a home with her adult son. “Where I used to spend $150 to $200 a week I now spend $60 to $80.

As for those staples of the Kiwi diet, she hasn’t had a roast for about six years – lamb is too expensive and she thinks the best meat is being exported.

Friday night fish’n'chips were part of growing up in New Zealand for Jennings-but she hasn’t had them for more than a year. It is sad, she says, that such rites of passages for Kiwi kids are being lost.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9508819

They are recommending you make more than 80K a year to live here. Well,
I am a single parent of two and get by on 40K a year NZD with no assistance, and it is hard. I buy days-old baked goods, on-sale produce, and older meat as well. Food is astronomical. 100 NZD will fill your petrol tank or buy you about 5 days’ food. We do little travel and take one vacation a year. We buy secondhand clothing. Monthly electric is roughly 150 averaged to include the higher winter months. That is if you heat only one or two rooms and crouch in them for months, as we do. We do not manage to save anything – rented housing is 1200 a month. Medical, car repairs for old used car and other expenses eat anything we would otherwise put aside to save.

This is NOT a lifestyle, I am sorry. It has nothing to do with material goods and everything to do with having to work very hard and then spend it all on overpriced life necessities. New Zealand is not worth this as a destination.

Here in Northland the papers are full of Kiwi exodus stories, shops closing, record-breaking numbers leaving for Australia, and people having their electrical bills cut off because they cannot afford the latest hike just in time for winter and before it’s even cold enough to put the heaters on! Imagine how bad it will be when people start to crank up their heaters. But you do not see these stories on the Internet. I went looking for them after seeing them in the newspapers and could not find them. I am telling you, they manage their bad news like Nazis.