This week, Instagram announced a new sub-header on posts specifying when a commercial relationship exists between an influencer and business. We chat to the ASA and IAB about whether this is a step in the right direction.
Instagram ads have only been available in the local market for the last 13 months, and in that time marketers have started to identify some do’s and don’ts on the platform. Here are ten tips from the team AdRoll.
There’s a lot going on in the world of media. Each week new updates see platforms change and communication habits follow suit. So how can marketers keep up? In a new series we talk to people in the industry about what the updates mean to marketers. This week we look at how Instagram’s Carousel ads have evolved to increase creative expression through video, a feature New Zealand marketers will be able to use on the platform as of next week.
This year the Toronto Silent Film Festival is celebrating films that have been lost and to uncover them, Instagram users are invited to play in the festival’s Escape Room.
Whittaker’s paid its respects yesterday to those who fell at Gallipoli by creating a quirky animated video announcing its intention to send chocolate to every RSA in the country.
It’s hard to scroll down an Instagram newsfeed without becoming a witness to someone’s #green #healthy smoothie and now Sonic has taken the sharing to a new level by creating square smoothies to fit perfectly into an Instagram post.
Contagion’s Tom Bates shares key trends coming out of SXSW including social messaging as the new brand frontier, the search for uniqueness and realness in an age of mass content production and of course, virtual reality.
Spark is continuing to utilise its younger, cooler post-rebrand persona by venturing into target market territory. Its most recent effort is its summer Instagram campaign, developed with its PR agency Sherson Willis, which rewards the most creative fans with credit (or as Spark calls it, ‘social currency’) if they capture and share Instagram shots (based on trending images on the platform) with the correct hashtag. And halfway through the campaign, the telco has already given away thousands of dollars of credit, increased sign ups and seen a growth in its Instagram following.
Something that stood out during our research for the influencer feature in the latest edition of NZ Marketing was the willingness of brands to relinquish creative control to the content creators they work with. So we followed suit by handing the cover creation duties over to a few brands we interviewed for the issue.
Whittaker’s is one of the most loved Kiwi brands on Facebook, with almost 500,000 fans—and a knack for launching new products directly to them. It’s hoping to replicate that success on Instagram. And to launch its account, it appears to have invited the chocolate whisperer back into its midst.
Earlier this month, Instagram kicked off its local ad offering with launch partners Burgerfuel, Air New Zealand and Sky TV, which have each been running campaigns through the platform. And now, following on from a relatively short testing phase, Instagram has extended its advertising options to all Kiwi brands. And Spark has joined the fun by launching a campaign that uses 3D technology.
Social media is being used in all kinds of creative ways to market these days. One of the latest initiatives is by Tourism New Zealand and travel group Helloworld which has created the world’s first social media relay, through Instagram, in celebration of United Nations World Tourism Day.
Since taking his post as the head of Facebook in New Zealand, Spencer Bailey has become accustomed to fielding questions about when Facebook-owned photo-sharing app Instagram would be opened to advertisers in the local market. Asked how many times he’s had to sidestep the question since April, he gives a wry smile and says: “Just a few times … every week.” Well, the wait is finally over. Facebook has announced that advertising will now be available to Kiwi advertisers on Instagram.
Korean car manufacturer Hyundai has made an impression on the Instagram scene with its latest marketing attempt. A quiz spanning 18 accounts and close to 400 images determining which vehicle best suits the user’s lifestyle, the Tucson, Santa Fe, or Santa Fe Sport.
Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy have created a comic-styled story through Instagram where players get to choose their own alternate endings using the platform’s tagging function.
Tourism New Zealand has taken the unique approach of teaming up with Facebook and production company Symphony to create an online series for its latest campaign which follows the adventures of a young couple travelling around the country in a Kombi.
In New Zealand and in many other places, the female nipple is commonly censored among mainstream media outlets. Social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram are guilty of removing images of women with bared breasts. But now women have been illustrating the absurdity of the idea of a mere areola making something rude by photoshopping male nipples onto their breasts, while the results are pretty funny, they also make a bold statement.
Justin Bieber has made headlines again. And no, not for peeing in mop buckets or destroying hotel rooms or dangerous driving, this time it’s for… his butt.
Lorde once said that all the internet is “ … is doing your own PR”. And in modern times this rings truer than ever. We curate the material we put on our social media accounts, crafting the image of ourselves that we want to present to others. You could say we are our own brand and social media is how we market ourselves, and while most of us get paid in ‘likes’ or ‘followers’, some social “influencers” are teaming up with brands and getting paid in cold hard cash. And on that note, here are the top ten followed Instagram accounts in the country and how a few of these media personalities are racking up the dollars from doing what they do best.
Wanaka is a place well renowned for its beauty, with its crystal blue lake, mountainous terrain and great slopes. And while stunning promotional imagery for the town is common to see, it’s not as often we get to see a hyper-fast compilation of the township through 4,000 images carefully stitched together by an experienced videographer, here’s Lake Wanaka Tourism’s latest marketing approach.
There was a time when people seemed to get angry about autoplay video, with Fairfax in Australia getting a kicking a few years back. Now it seems to be part of the online furniture. Instagram and Facebook launched auotplay video in 2013 and Twitter has also just announced it. But as those videos don’t play with sound unless users click on them, brands and publishers are adapting to an era of silent video marketing—and, just as some have done with pre-roll ads, they’re starting to find some creative solutions.
Jamesons was reportedly the first brand to embrace the nascent realm of 3D videos on social media when it slid a sponsored shot across the bar for St Patricks Day. Now AMP Capital, which owns four malls across New Zealand, is using the multi-dimensional technology across its social media channels to create a series of short, innovative videos showcasing its food and fashion.
The human psyche is seemingly embedded with an unrelenting draw toward buttons—something illustrated in the exasperation of a parent begging a toddler to leave random switches alone. And this base impulse is something that brands are looking to capitalise on by putting ‘buy now’ buttons just about everywhere (those with koumpounophobia are advised to look away now).
For many years, one of the primary tourism marketing strategies has been to pay for high-profile humans to come visit. Generally, that’s been in the form of travel writers. But as social media democratises publishing and individuals gain huge audiences through various social channels, that’s changing quickly. Tourism New Zealand has been embracing this for a while now (as has Contiki, which recently announced local YouTube star Jamie Curry would join its fourth roadtrip) and Tourism Wanaka got in on the act recently with its first official #instameet last weekend.
For the third year running, Tourism New Zealand has reworked its ‘more magic every day’ campaign in a bid to attract Aussie skiers across the ditch for a winter holiday. The latest iteration of the ongoing campaign by Whybin\TBWA Sydney sees the Kiwi tourism body partner with Air New Zealand, Flight Centre, Instagram and the ski industry in New Zealand to drive holiday visitor numbers. And while Tourism New Zealand has previously collaborated with the other parties, this marks the first time that the organisation has partnered with Instagram to promote New Zealand through paid imagery and video content. PLUS: StopPress chats to Tourism New Zealand director of marketing Andrew Fraser about the organisation’s digital strategy.
When Smirnoff launched its #PurePotential campaign, promising that the company could see potential for a yummy cocktail in any ingredient, I thought the idea was romantic but unrealistic. It’s proven me wrong.
What’s in your fridge at the moment? According to Smirnoff’s new campaign, ‘Pure Potential’, it can see the potential in any ingredient to make a great drink.
The tendency of diners to take snapshots of their meals has become almost ritualistic in its frequency. It has become the pre-meal prayer of the digital age, an unwritten rule that no food will be touched until the formality of prerequisite photography has been completed. And although this does little more than annoy those who go to restaurants for food rather than photo shoots, one Auckland restaurant is experimenting with the concept in an effort to drive online engagement. As part of its birthday celebration, Miss Clawdy is offering (ends after Sep 28), every diner a free cupcake when they show proof of an Instagram post of its birthday cupcake (check out our other Miss Clawdy article).
Back in the day, giving up food or money was the ultimate sacrifice for a cause. But in an age when parents punish their children by taking away electronic devices, ASB is taking social media use away from its most avid team member for a week to help its sponsor organisation St John.
Facebook remains our dominant social network when it comes to user numbers and engagement, but it’s betting its future on an increasing array of options for users from what it’s brought into the stable and in-house development of standalone apps with mobile at their heart. And it touts itself as the logical partner as data-centric decisions become more central to personalised marketing off the desktop.