Lightbox launches Kiwi take on hit TV show Suits ahead of S7 premiere via Spark PR + Activate

From the bright lights of New York City to a dull office in suburban New Zealand, Lightbox has debuted its own version of the TV phenomenon that is Suits. To celebrate the much-anticipated arrival of the second half of Season 7, Lightbox teamed up with Spark PR & Activate to add a Kiwi twist to the popular U.S. hit show in its own content series, Suits NZ.

Deliberately mundane, predictable and unexciting, Suits NZ is everything that the American hit TV show is not – and its tongue-in-cheek humour has Kiwi audiences tuning in for more.

To launch the second half of season 7, Lightbox and Spark PR & Activate created three 30-second videos depicting what Suits would look like if it was filmed in a tiny Barrister and Solicitors office above a suburban shop in New Zealand. The answer is simply ‘pretty dull’. While Harvey Spector, Mike Ross and Rachel Zane of Suits work on the big cases while being surrounded by beautiful people and flashy offices, the Kiwi version’s lawyer works in a cubby-hole office, lodging permits for subdivisions and notarising passports.

VIEW THE EPISODES

Lightbox marketing manager, Kirsty Shaw, said developing Suits NZ was a creative way to promote new Suits, one of Lightbox’s top-performing shows, in a uniquely Kiwi style.

Says Shaw: “We know Kiwis love Suits, and with a hit show like this where fans are so engaged, we wanted to offer something a bit unique to highlight the arrival of exclusive new episodes of Season 7 coming to Lightbox. Being a New Zealand owned entertainment platform, we wanted to put our own local twist on the U.S hit show in a way that only we could, and it’s been great to see Kiwis resonating and enjoying the realness, predictability and averageness of Suits NZ in anticipation of the mid- season launch.”

The first two episodes of Suits NZ have amassed over 670,000 views on YouTube and over 274,000 views on Facebook.

Says Chris Lloyd, head of content, Spark PR & Activate: “This is a great way of generating noise for Lightbox and Suits in a way that only a New Zealand company can – by gently taking the mickey out of NZ. This content demonstrates that Lightbox, and by association Suits, are taking the effort to communicate in a distinctly Kiwi way. And comments on the Facebook channel suggest people want to see more of Suits NZ!”

The third and final episode of Suits NZ went live last week on Facebook and YouTube. All episodes of Suits NZ can also be viewed here.

Lightbox is the only platform where Kiwis can watch new episodes of Suits Season 7, exclusive and express from the U.S.

Kirsty Shaw, Marketing Manager at Lightbox

Writer – Sam Smith