Tonic Media Network Enters NZ – High-Impact Health Screens Go Live

Tonic Media Network, Australia’s largest health and wellbeing media network, has gone live in New Zealand — and it’s done so not by building a network from scratch, but by acquiring an already-established local player. The deal, confirmed on February 23, 2026, sees Tonic take over MediBoard, an Auckland-based patient engagement platform, folding its print and digital assets into Tonic’s DOOH infrastructure to create what’s now one of the largest point-of-care media networks in the country.

For media buyers and planners working in health and pharma verticals, this launch is worth a closer look — not just for the reach numbers, but for what the acquisition-led entry strategy signals about how point-of-care DOOH networks are likely to scale internationally going forward.

The Numbers: What Advertisers Are Actually Buying Into

The combined Tonic-MediBoard network gives advertisers access to an estimated 8 million patient visits annually across GP clinics, hospitals, and diagnostic centres in New Zealand. The physical footprint behind that figure includes:

• 700 MediBoards (the existing print/digital point-of-care format MediBoard had already established in clinics)
• 125 digital screens, split between 90 digital MediPosters and 35 Tonic DOOH screens
• Coverage across roughly half of New Zealand’s GP clinics and all major hospitals on both the North and South Islands

It’s worth noting how Tonic sourced its reach estimates, since transparency here matters more in health media than most other verticals: the 8 million figure draws on the 2024/25 New Zealand Health Survey, 2023 Census data, and GP practice counts from the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. That’s a meaningfully more rigorous basis than a single internal estimate, and it’s the kind of sourcing media buyers should expect to see disclosed by any health-focused DOOH network making national reach claims.

Why Acquisition, Not Organic Build-Out

Tonic only launched independently in New Zealand in August 2025. Six months later, rather than continuing to build its own screen network clinic-by-clinic, it acquired an incumbent with deep, pre-existing clinic relationships. That sequencing is instructive: point-of-care media depends heavily on trust and access — a GP practice has to be willing to host a screen or poster in its waiting room, and that kind of institutional relationship typically takes years to build one clinic at a time.

By acquiring MediBoard, Tonic effectively bought instant national distribution and, more importantly, the pre-existing trust MediBoard had built with clinics over time — something advertising inventory alone can’t replicate quickly. Paula Mooney, General Manager of MediBoard NZ, pointed to exactly this when discussing the deal, framing MediBoard’s clinic-level trust as complementary to Tonic’s content and production capability rather than redundant with it.

The Engagement Case for Point-of-Care DOOH

Tonic CEO Richard Silverton highlighted three specific engagement advantages the network is built around: audio-enabled content, long dwell times, and a trusted physical setting. Dwell time is the detail worth dwelling on (no pun intended) — Tonic cites roughly 15-minute average dwell times in clinic waiting rooms, a figure that’s simply not achievable in most other DOOH environments like transit or roadside, where exposure is typically measured in seconds.

Combined with previously reported engagement metrics from Tonic’s Australian operation — 61% of viewers reportedly taking some action after exposure, and 45% message recall — the pitch to advertisers is fairly direct: a captive, low-distraction environment produces meaningfully higher engagement than ambient out-of-home formats. It’s worth noting these engagement figures come from Tonic’s own in-practice surveys in Australia rather than independent third-party measurement, which is standard practice in DOOH but still worth flagging for media planners doing their own diligence before extrapolating Australian performance data directly onto the New Zealand market.

Localized Content Strategy

Beyond the hardware and reach numbers, Tonic’s NZ content approach is built around local health partnerships rather than simply repackaging Australian content for a new market. The network has established content ties with organisations including Healthify NZ, Asthma NZ, the Health Quality & Safety Commission, and MetService, with an explicit focus on Māori, Pasifika, and other diverse communities in its content strategy.

A launch video series featuring Auckland GP Dr. Jono Hoogerbrug is already running across Tonic’s DOOH screens nationally, covering timely health topics — a format that mirrors Tonic’s founding premise in Australia, where the network was established in 2013 by physician and medical broadcaster Dr. Norman Swan around the idea that improved health literacy leads to better health outcomes.

What This Means for Media Buyers

A few practical takeaways for anyone planning campaigns in the health and wellness space in New Zealand:

1. Point-of-care inventory in NZ just consolidated significantly. Rather than choosing between fragmented local point-of-care providers, buyers now have a single network spanning nearly half the country’s GP clinics and all major hospitals.
2. Regional and cultural targeting is a stated capability, not an afterthought. Tonic has explicitly built messaging flexibility by region, language, and cultural context into the network’s positioning — worth testing directly with any campaign brief that has diverse audience requirements.
3. Dwell time remains the core differentiator for point-of-care DOOH versus other formats. For campaigns where message comprehension matters more than sheer impression volume — health education, complex product information, behaviour-change messaging — this format profile is likely to outperform faster-turnover DOOH environments.
4. Cross-market comparisons should be made cautiously. Engagement benchmarks (61% action rate, 45% recall) originate from Tonic’s Australian network and in-practice surveys; New Zealand-specific performance data will be the more reliable benchmark once available.

Tonic’s entry into New Zealand — via acquisition rather than a slower organic build — gives the combined network immediate national scale in one of the more defensible categories in DOOH: point-of-care health media, where trust, dwell time, and content relevance matter more than raw screen count. For advertisers in pharma, health insurance, wellness, and adjacent categories, it’s now a genuinely national buy rather than a patchwork of regional options — and one built on a data-sourcing approach that’s more transparent than most reach claims in the DOOH sector.