Motion Sickness and Finch win AdFest gold for herpes campaign

The ‘Make New Zealand the best place in the world to have herpes’ campaign has won gold in AdFest’s 2025 Entertainment Lotus category.

NZ Herpes Foundation beat global powerhouse finalists including Netflix, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.

The foundation teamed up with Motion Sickness, Finch, ED.l, DigPR and TRA to launch an ambitious behaviour-change campaign with a strong educational element.

Inside the world’s first herpes destigmatisation campaign

The ‘Herpes Destigmatisation Course’ features local celebrities including Sir Ashley Bloomfield, Sir Graham Henry, Sir Buck Shelford, Angella Dravid and Mea Motu.

Course lessons condense educational resources into accessible, approachable and fun videos.

The campaign generated more than 22.4 million PR impressions. It also prompted over 10,000 watched hours – equivalent to more than a year of continuous viewing.

In eight weeks, 86% of course participants felt more comfortable discussing herpes openly and helping others.

Aotearoa wins at herpes

The website also features the Herpes Stigma Index Leaderboard. Here, users can lower their country’s stigma and improve its global ranking by completing the video course.

The campaign effectively reduced herpes stigma in New Zealand, making our country the best place in the world to have herpes.

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