National Party spending thousands more advertising Nicola Willis than Christopher Luxon on Facebook and Instagram
Monday, 4 May 2026
The National Party has spent just a few hundred dollars promoting Christopher Luxon videos on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube this year - but thousands on Nicola Willis.
But the party is adamant that this doesn’t represent any kind of drop off in promoting Luxon, and say he has featured heavily in campaign advertising on other platforms - including kicking off a Meta campaign in October.
One social expert said the evidence suggested a “noticeable reduction” in the use of Luxon in paid social advertising over the last year.
Data from the Meta ad library - covering both Facebook and Instagram - shows just two identical video ads featuring Luxon speaking were launched in 2026, with each getting less than $100 from the party to promote them and very few views - around 3000 in total.
Read more:
Former National MP Chris Finlayson calls for 'war' on NZ First
Ranked: The best places to work (and get paid) in the public service
In comparison there were 24 ads featuring other MPs speaking: Willis, Erica Stanford, and Mark Mitchell. They were often essentially identical ads featuring the same video but targeted slightly differently.
The Post is counting each ad that Meta breaks out as a separate piece of content - even when it is functionally identical to another ad.
Data from YouTube showed a similar story, with $8400 spent on ads featuring other MPs speaking this year but none on ads with Luxon narrating.
One Facebook and Instagram ad currently running featuring Willis had received between $5000 and $6000 in spending behind it, and had been seen more than a million times. Other versions of the same spot have received at least $2400 - Meta reveals only a range for its spend, not exact numbers.
Other ads featuring other ministers had low spend but considerably more impressions: One spot featuring Erica Stanford had less than $100 spent on it but received between 30,000 and 35,000 impressions - about 10 times more than Luxon with a similar spend - suggesting it was highly engaged with by Facebook users.
The Labour Party has launched just four paid ads on Meta platforms this year, all featuring leader Chris Hipkins. It has spent between $2500 and $3500 on these ads.
A spokesperson for the National Party said looking solely at 2026 missed the fact that Luxon had featured prominently in a campaign that began in October and continued into the new year, with Luxon at the front of the campaign and other ministers near the end.
That campaign indeed featured nine ads featuring video of Luxon speaking, and received more substantial funding - with one spot receiving $600-699 and between 150,000 and 175,000 views.
Ryan Newton, managing director at social media agency Culture, said based on a simple read of the Ad Library there had been some reduction in Luxon’s presence.
“Looking at their advertising over the past year, there does appear to be a noticeable reduction in Christopher Luxon’s presence across paid activity. By contrast, Nicola Willis has remained a consistent and prominent face of the party, while Mark Mitchell appears to be playing an increasingly visible role as another key front-facing figure,” Newton said.
He noted that Luxon featured prominently in social “organic” content - posts that are not sponsored.
“One possible interpretation of this divergence between paid and organic strategy is that National believes Luxon remains effective with core National voters (people who follow the National page), but may be less effective as a paid acquisition or persuasion asset when trying to reach broader or less committed audiences.”
The National Party has rejected any suggestion that Luxon is dropping out of its paid activity, with a spokesperson noting that the campaign currently running featuring Willis was paired with a print and web-based campaign featuring Luxon.
“National has run a number of paid advertising campaigns across multiple media and social media platforms over the last six to eight months which have been led by the Prime Minister and focused on Fixing the Basics and Building the Future,” a spokesperson said.