How Topham Guerin powered Christopher Luxon’s TikTok-led 2023 New Zealand election win
Topham Guerin led the social and digital media for Christopher Luxon and the New Zealand National Party’s winning 2023 campaign, building a TikTok-first strategy to reach young voters. In the final three months Luxon’s TikTok content drew 17 million views to Labour’s 1.3 million, with 75% of views from 18–34-year-olds.
- Published in
- RealClearPolicy
- By
- Sean Topham
- Published
- 6 February 2024
- Type
- Opinion
- Topics
-
- political campaigning
- TikTok
- social media strategy
- youth vote
What we argued
- Led social and digital media for the National Party’s 2023 NZ election campaign
- Luxon’s TikTok content reached 17 million views in the final three months, versus 1.3 million for Labour
- 75% of those views came from the 18–34 age group
- Built the National Party’s TikTok presence to 60,000+ followers, reaching ~1 million voters a week in a country of five million
Read the full article at RealClearPolicyTo create that connection with younger voters, Luxon’s campaign combined the recognizable hallmarks of TikTok when communicating around key issues – often mixing silly and entertaining creative with serious content. The new Prime Minister fully embraced TikTok’s aesthetic and sometimes campy trends, from ASMR videos that had him whispering his economic policy to revealing his outfit choices at the start of a day campaigning with a ‘Get Ready With Me.’
“In the three months leading up to election day, Luxon’s content on TikTok had 17 million views, compared to 1.3 million for Labour.”
Sean Topham
“the youth vote is on TikTok, which means you must be too.”
Sean Topham
- 17M Luxon’s TikTok views in 3 months (Labour: 1.3M)
- 75% of those views from 18-34-year-olds
- 60,000+ National Party TikTok followers
Questions & answers
How did Chris Luxon use TikTok to win New Zealand’s 2023 election?
Luxon’s campaign met young voters where they already were: nearly half of young New Zealanders are on TikTok. In the three months before election day his TikTok content drew 17 million views to Labour’s 1.3 million, and 75% of those views came from 18 to 34-year-olds.
What role did Topham Guerin play in the Luxon campaign?
Topham Guerin led the social and digital media for Christopher Luxon and the New Zealand National Party’s 2023 campaign, with co-founder Sean Topham serving as a Senior Advisor. The party’s TikTok presence had been built over more than a year, reaching around a million voters a week in a country of just over five million people.
Did TikTok actually move votes in the 2023 New Zealand election?
National’s own exit polling a week after the election showed it beat Labour 29% to 27% among 18 to 24-year-olds, the cohort the TikTok strategy targeted.