Digital engagement specialist Affinity ID set up its Auckland office just two years ago. And, after spying a gap in the Australian market, there will also be an office in Sydney in the New Year.
“We’ve been working with Australian clients for several years, including Visa Platinum, Visa Entertainment, Visa’s Payclick and Australian business for Air New Zealand,” says founder and co-director Angela Day. “From this work and other consulting roles we’ve undertaken recently in the Australian retail sector, we’ve learned that our end-to-end eCRM and loyalty offering is unique. We’ve not seen anyone else offering the depth and breath of strategy, development, creative and high-volume deployment that we do as standard, every day of the week.”
Geoff Cooper, Affinity’s other founder and director, says the key difference lies in how aware Australian business is of the power of relevancy to drive customer engagement, loyalty and emphatic bottom line results.
“Our client work here in New Zealand is certainly ahead of much of what we’ve seen in Australia when it comes to relevancy, so it’s a huge opportunity for an agency with our strategic and data development resources,” he says.
Affinity’s Australian client service team will be headed up by group account director Karen Looker, who is moving to Sydney, together with digital producer Oscar van Dijk. They will recruit local digital creative talent.
“There are some very talented marketers in Australian business. We’re looking forward to working with them to lift the return on investment they’re currently seeing through traditional DM campaigns,” Looker says.
Day adds: “As well as the Sydney-based team, we’ll be harnessing the large development, data mining and technical teams we have back at the mothership here in Auckland to drive the back-end of Australian customer relationship and loyalty marketing campaigns.”
Affinity ID, which was established in February 2009 when Cooper and Day assumed full ownership of the part Clemenger-owned Proximity ID, now has over 60 staff to service its stable of New Zealand clients, which includes Progressive Enterprises, Air New Zealand, Vodafone, Microsoft, Resene, Cavalier Bremworth, VISA and the Accident Compensation Commission. And, adding to the excitement of the impending foray into Aussie territory, the agency is also in the running for seven RSVP & Nexus Awards.
