From ‘Absolutely Positively Wellington’ to ‘You would in Wellington’, the coolest little capital sure has seen plenty of slogans.

Wellington’s promotional agency, WellingtonNZ, has revealed its latest ad campaign to attract tourists to the capital city, centred around a new slogan: “You would in Wellington”. 

Over the past three decades, Wellington has made by far the most concerted effort of any New Zealand city to promote itself to the domestic tourism market, accumulating a laundry list of taglines in the process. Some ads were legendary and became part of the city’s cultural lexicon. Others were forgettable or just plain weird. Here they are from worst to best.

11. The World’s Coolest Little Capital 

In 2010, Lonely Planet, the travel guide company that pumps out unending lists of nice things about cities, referred to Wellington as “the coolest little capital in the world”. It was a throwaway line, but Wellington’s marketing boffins absolutely (positively) fell over themselves in excitement and started plastering the slogan everywhere they could, including this 2017 ad.

It all came crashing down in 2021 when expensive marketing consultant Brian Sweeney told WellingtonNZ the slogan was cringe; cool people and places don’t call themselves cool, and promoting the city as “little” made it seem unimportant. However, it is, undeniably, a capital. 

10. Today is a Good Day

“You can’t beat Wellington on a good day” is an inescapable saying that everyone in Wellington simultaneously loves and absolutely hates. In 2013, Wellington tourism finally embraced it with the “Today is a good day” campaign. The ads tugged at the heartstrings, but sometimes had strangely dark vibes. In my head canon, this depressed woman is distracting herself with a beer at Garage Project, this man is dying and his wife just wants to see him smile one last time, and this little girl is playing off her divorced parents against each other for treats and affection. 

9. You Would in Wellington 

Wellington’s newest ad campaign is angled on the many exotic things tourists would do in Wellington that they couldn’t do anywhere else, like drink a mocktail, go to an op shop, or do karaoke. It also highlights swimming in Oriental Bay and diving for crays, both strange choices for a winter campaign. 

The real problem is the slogan. When said out loud, it confusingly sounds like “you wouldn’t Wellington”. And it immediately opens itself up to parody: You’ve never seen three leaking pipes on one street, or spent $330m of ratepayer money on a useless town hall…. but you would in Wellington. 

8. The Wellington Effect 

“The Wellington Effect” campaign from 2019 introduced the idea that visiting Wellington makes you age in reverse, in a terrifying Benjamin Button kind of way. Wellington’s reputation as a southern fountain of youth never really caught on. 

7. Wellington Has Things

After years of building up its brand in the domestic market, 2014’s “Wellington has things” was an attempt to reach the big, scary Australian market. The city immediately got nervous and fell back on classic Kiwi self-deprecation, completely underselling itself in the process. 

The four-minute video was fronted by The Voice host Darren McMullan, who mispronounces Te Papa and celebrates Wellington for having things like “roads”, “water” and “electric doors on public toilets”. It has genuinely funny moment and ends with McMullan being won over by the city, but the incessant self-mockery undercuts the message. 

6. Spoil Yourself in Wellington 

“Spoil yourself in Wellington” was extremely 2008-core, with cutesy indie music and a scruffy-but-handsome boy wearing a hoodie underneath a blazer. The ad pitched Wellington as an upmarket shopping destination where you can buy a pink dress in the Old Bank Arcade, look at jewellery and art, and walk past a theatre. At the end of your trip, that same a scruffy-but-handsome boy will give you some jewellery before walking away without explanation. It’s glamorous depiction of the city, though it possibly missed the mark by pitching itself as a luxury destination during a recession.

5. Do Wellington Your Way 

Launched in 2018, “Do Wellington Your Way” felt like a step forward in the city’s brand, embracing its alternative appeal. It was positive, fun, and different. In the ad, a farmer becomes a drag queen, a real estate agent performs standup comedy, and a teacher joins some kind of a skateboard gang. The plot is a little confusing (are they touring performers, or just doing an open mic on a weekend trip?). It would work slightly better as a pitch for people to move to Wellington rather than visit for a weekend – but arguably that’s what WellingtonNZ should focus on anyway. 

4. There’s No Place Like Wellington 

This 2011 campaign was aimed at the Australian audience, so most New Zealanders might be unfamiliar, but it is delightful. The hills, oceans, and buildings of Wellington are depicted in a beautiful fabric diorama. There was no need to get clever with the slogan when targeting an audience that was largely unfamiliar with Wellington as a tourist destination. The voice-over is similarly straight to the point. It’s an unabashed sales pitch, but it’s direct, succinct, and hits all of Wellington’s best selling points in under a minute. 

3. Wild Wellington

For a moment, Wellington was all about “wild”. The region’s mountain biking and walking trails were promoted with the tagline “find your wild”. WellingtonNZ’s corporate mission statement was to “make the Wellington region wildly famous”. A series of short ads in 2021 promoted different ideas for “wild weekends” in Wellington. It was a nice change to focus on nature experiences, and it was a great point of differentiation against the stale grey husks that are Auckland and Christchurch. 

2. Have a Love Affair with Wellington 

The year was 2005, and Wellington was feeling frisky. “Have a love affair with Wellington” added a steamy side to the capital’s tourism pitch. The ad, which doesn’t seem to be available online, began with a man and a woman sitting at different tables in a cafe, making sexy eyes at one another. He helps her with a crossword, and they spend the day exploring the city together, before heading to a hotel to root. We see them guiltily removing their wedding rings, implying they are each cheating on their spouses. The plot twist is revealed in the final shot: the man has a photo of the woman in his wallet. They were married all along, and simply acting out an elaborate sexual fantasy with the entire city as their voyeur. 

It was bold, risqué and instantly memorable. It directly led to an increase in weekend hotel bookings, mostly from the lucrative kink market. 

1. Absolutely Positively Wellington 

The biggest, the boldest, and still undeniably the best. The 1992 Absolutely Positively Wellington ad spot had everything: cheerleaders, acrobats, air guitars, horses, a businessman rollerblading with a giant cell phone, jugglers, a marching band, a brothel (?) and a guy missing the bus. It’s beautiful, chaotic energy, fun, and unafraid to be corny or kitschy. 

Tracking the locations of political scurrilousness and stupidity across the capital city. 

Wellington’s streets are littered with stories. Most of those stories are about corruption, incompetence, or other stupid/illegal things politicians have done to ruin their own careers.

This is an interactive guide to places around Wellington where big political drama went down. It does not include scandals that happened on parliament grounds, because there would be too many to count.

Claire Curran – Astoria, 159 Lambton Quay

Astoria, the famously loud and indiscreet cafe, was the improbable location of a 2018 meeting between then broadcasting minister Claire Curran, then TVNZ exec Carol Hirschfeld and tech entrepreneur Derek Handley. Both Curran and Hirschfeld lost their jobs for not disclosing the meeting/lobbying event, but their real crime was choosing the very public Astoria for a covert meeting. 

Kiri Allan – 44 Evans Bay Parade

While Wellington has a longstanding drinking culture, the sadder side of this is when it tips from light-hearted into property and personal damage. In 2023 the then justice minister crashed into a parked car after a couple too many drinks and was charged with careless use of a motor vehicle and refusing to accompany a police officer. The location is beautiful site right on the water’s edge, but it’s not a fun memory for anyone involved. 

Christopher Luxon – Kate Sheppard Apartments, 42 Molesworth St

Located across the road from Parliament, the Kate Sheppard Apartments are a popular Wellington base for MPs who want to roll out of bed and into the Parliamentary Precinct. That leads to some of the most awkward elevator rides in the country, as bitter political rivals are forced to either share small talk or stare into the distance and will the journey to be over. The Kate Sheppard Apartments was the scene of a minor scandal when PM Christopher Luxon decided he didn’t want to live in Premier House, instead claiming a $52,000 per year entitlement to live in an apartment he already owned outright.

Bill Sutch – corner of Aro St and Holloway Rd

This is the site where, in 1974, high-profile public servant Bill Sutch met with his alleged KGB handler, Dimitri Rasgovorov, to pass on government secrets. Sutch was charged with espionage, but the court case collapsed after our national security services refused to clarify what secrets he had leaked. They were too late to catch Rasgovorov who fled the rendezvous, and then the country, before he could be detained. 

Talent2, NZ home of Novopay – 70 The Terrace 

While it remains one of New Zealand’s worst scandals, younger readers may be unaware of the debacle that was Novopay. In the late 2010s, Australian human resources company Talent2 was contracted by the Ministry of Education to run the national payroll system for teachers. Launched in 2012, Novopay was a disaster from the start, resulting in teachers going unpaid for months. By February 2013, over 14,000 teachers and school staff were owed nearly $12 million in backpay.

Golriz Ghahraman – Cre8iveworx, 217 Cuba St

While Ghahraman has  pleaded guilty to four counts of theft, including at Cuba St fashion boutique Cre8tiveworx, and has been fairly criticised for her crimes, her work bringing the phrase “five finger discount” back into the public consciousness is commendable. 

Tory Whanau – The Old Quarter, 39 Dixon St

Speaking of bringing back an oldie, the “dine and dash” made an unwelcome reappearance at this Vietnamese fusion restaurant after Wellington’s mayor had a few too many.

Mark Blumsky – Good Luck Bar, 126 Cuba St

It’s hard to say which is more of a relic of a lost age, Wellington having a right wing mayor, or Wellington blithely accepting the foibles of a hard partying mayor. Mark Blumsky, who led Wellington from 1995 to 2001, was famous for being seen at virtually every bar along the capital’s entertainment strip. On one particular night in 2005, he was found by a bouncer at Good Luck Bar at 4.30am with a black eye, facial cuts, a broken tooth, and a four-hour memory gap. It’s still unclear whether he was assaulted or just got really drunk and fell down some stairs.

Tuku Morgan – Kirkcaldie & Stains, 62-72 Lambton Quay

In a scandal annoyingly dubbed Undiegate, first term New Zealand First MP Tuku Morgan was accused of misusing funds to buy himself an $89 pair of underwear… in 1997. To put that into context, the average Wellington house price at the time was $100 and a firm handshake. 

Peter Dunne – The super secret office of the GCSB, 9 Pipitea St (according to Google)

While he’s returned to the public spotlight as a tepid commentator, Dunne’s fall from grace was far more spicy, involving accusations of leaking confidential documents from New Zealand’s spy agency, the GCSB. In her Listener column, Jane Clifton wrote of Dunne: “My best guess is that being a source can be quite ego-boosting, and it is part of a midlife crisis to seek ego-boosts from novel sources.” Brutal.

Colin Moyle – Wellington Central Library men’s toilets, Harris Street

The Moyle Affair was a tragic tale of its era, the highly bigoted 1970s when homosexual activity was still illegal. In 1976, prime minister Robert Muldoon alleged in parliament that Labour MP Colin Moyle, who had been touted as a future leader, had been questioned by police outside a well-known cruising spot for gay men.

The accusation drove Moyle to resign his seat, but helped to fuel the local gay rights movement. It also played a part in both the eventual humiliating defeat of Muldoon’s government and the contempt Muldoon is held in by many across the political spectrum to this day. 

Darren Hughes – Waitoa Rd, Hataitai

In March 2011, a naked and afraid young man was seen running down a street in Hataitai. He made allegations against Labour MP Darren Hughes, but police said no charges would be laid because the evidential threshold had not been met. Hughes said that he had done nothing wrong but his position had become untenable, resigned from parliament and departed the country soon afterwards. 

Back Benches filming location – The Backbencher, 34 Molesworth St

Once the home of “pub politics” TV show Back Benches, The Backbencher was the site where many politicians demonstrated their startling inability to be normal in public. It was also where Peter Dunne famous tried out planking, a short lived viral sensation before the internet became mostly war porn and the dumbest arguments imaginable. We didn’t know how good we had it. 

Multiple covert meetings and romantic trysts (allegedly) – Bolton Hotel, 12 Bolton St

If any place could be said to be the epicentre of scurrilous beltway gossip, it is the Beehive-adjacent Bolton Hotel. None of the (very juicy) stories have ever been confirmed, so this map entry is more a testament to the gossipy nature of a one-industry town than a location of great infamy.

Update: This list has been updated to remove mention of Havana Bar.

This interactive map will be updated as new political scandals emerge. To suggest additions, email Wellington editor Joel MacManus at joel@thespinoff.co.nz.