Ben Guerin: why political leaders must master Reels, Stories and TikTok

Reflecting on working with Johnson, Guerin says: “Boris is a brilliant campaigner. He’s a phenomenal communicator and what he had to say resonated with a lot of people. But I think it goes to show the difference between being a good campaigner and being a reforming prime minister. Changing the way that government works is really, really hard. It’s almost easier to persuade millions of people to vote for you than it is to persuade a few thousand people to change the way that they work in the British state.”

He says: “New Zealand and the UK have a lot of things in common. When it comes to politics, New Zealand is a small place, but it is more likely to take risks. We had an opposition leader at the time, Christopher Luxon, who previously had one of the biggest corporate jobs in New Zealand. So, we had an incoming party leader who understood the value of marketing. He also understood what he didn’t know. So when we worked with him, we said, you know, you’ve got to be embracing vertical video formats, Instagram Reels and TikTok. We know they’re going to be really important.

In the case of Christopher Luxon he really jumped on it all. Quickly, he was coming up with his own content ideas, he was really comfortable doing a selfie video and we even launched a TikTok game.”