Everyone on This Island Wants My Fake-Looking Monopoly Money

New Zealand often wants you to act or think a certain way. More often or not, that way amounts to “I want to buy that thing.”

Sometimes New Zealand attempts to accomplish this in surreal and disturbing ways.

Other times, this nation tries a different tactic, the one above being “Would you buy this thing if we make it really fat? Like, unhealthily so?”

And still other times, the marketing gimmick will be boiled down to its essential elements. What you see above is the incentive to buy anything in a New Zealand souvenir shop ever, just stripped of any business savvy or verbal artistry.

And, finally, sometimes the ploy works very well. The New Zealand government is trying to eradicate possums, a non-native pest and a threat to the kiwi, the national bird and an endangered species. (And, besides, a cutie pie species, so double threat status for the kiwi.) Fortunately for the New Zealand possums, they’re also fairly cute — certainly more so than their North American counterparts. In order to underscore the need to wipe these cuddly marsupials off the map, those in charge of the campaign plaster parks with pictures like the one above, which shows a possum eating a kiwi chick, which is one of the most brutal things ever.

So, in summary and in conclusion, New Zealand made me feel ways about things.