Tauranga Firm To Continue Te Reo Billboard For The Year

The boutique PR agency, Whare PR, has decided to use its high-profile billboard to promote te reo Māori all year around, not just this week.

Bridgette Tapsell, CEO of Whare PR, says their electronic billboard is situated above the bag collection carousel at Tauranga airport.

This week, to celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori their billboard displayed a simple phrase ‘Kia pai tō wiki’, which included the translation ‘Have a good week’.

“We’ve had feedback from travellers that they love seeing this billboard. Simple, everyday phrases is the great way to start, to weave them into your daily kōrero. If we just saw two phrases a day, while out and about, before long it would be normal for everyone and is a great building block towards being conversational or fluent.

“Te Wiki o te Reo Māori is an incredible concept and New Zealanders are embracing the language in record numbers, and as businesses we can continue the movement throughout the year by ensuring we are using te reo in our business communications,” Tapsell says.

Whare PR specialises in iwi communications and works with many Māori organisations and Trusts around Aotearoa.

“This week it’s been exciting to see so many people having the confidence to give it a go in the form of basic conversational phrases. The efforts by media, government and the business community to acknowledge and embrace our language in their marketing has been really heartening.

Tapsell says they will changeout the billboard phrase each month.

“We are just small, but our billboard is big and high profile. Everyone can do their bit,” she says.

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