StopPress sat down with Scroll Media managing director Jane Ormsby for a look behind the scenes at what the company does, what’s trending in digital advertising and what’s on the horizon.
StopPress: Kia ora Jane! Let’s get started by looking at what Scroll Media offers – what’s the difference between Scroll and an advertising agency?
Jane Ormsby: Scroll Media is a digital advertising network – we hold the rights to sell the advertising space across a group of premium web publishers, apps, travel data, podcast ads and games.
Each month, Scroll reaches over three million unique users across our network here in Aotearoa. Some of our premium publishers include Pricespy, Newsroom, Concrete Playground, Rolling Stone, AccuWeather, Reuters, FIFA+, TicketMaster, Gaspy, Kick and NRL.com. By combining our extensive reach with standout formats, we help brands get noticed in a digital world.
Our model has also changed massively to keep meeting the market – we’ve tried to make it easier for independent publishers to get advertising dollars and get a more even playing field in Aotearoa New Zealand to support local publishers. This has certainly had its challenges, but the team are really happy with where Scroll Media is now. We have carved a niche representing exclusive platforms from Aotearoa and overseas.
Also our audio and gaming offering helps extend the reach of the media plan. We try and offer something innovative that other publishers are not thinking of to attract user attention.
SP: So, who are your clients?
JO: Ninety percent of our clients are media agencies planning advertising campaigns on behalf of their clients. With our exclusive inventory rights, we can guarantee advertisers the right message at the right time on specific websites, apps, games or podcasts.
By representing over 15 different publishers in our portfolio, we make it easy for media agencies to plan and buy across multiple sites and optimise for the best performance.
I’m really impressed with the quality of work and thinking that comes out of Kiwi media agencies. The challenges media agencies face with competitive forces are overwhelming but they constantly strive to do the best for their clients.
SP: What sort of ads do you offer?
A big chunk is premium IAB display ads, contextually targeted to specific sites. We also offer CTV, BVOD, and Pre Roll videos, with 15 seconds being the most popular.
Site takeovers, skins, and interstitials are examples of rich media that we sell a lot of, which generate huge engagement rates. We access games like Mahjong, Wordle, Candy Crush, Roblox and Angry Birds with in-game advertising, where we often gamify the creative to make it more engaging.
Scroll Media also offers premium digital audio, selling 15 and 30 second podcast ads. Additionally, with our Travel intender offering, we use email advertising and display to target travel intenders.
Plus we run sponsorships and branded content for integrated briefs. Digital media is complicated these days, and we try and simplify it.
SP: What are some of the big trends you are seeing?
JO: Audio represents a big shift in our growth. We’ve seen enormous advancements there because podcasts are so popular – the average person listens to over five podcasts a week: in the car, walking the dog or at home relaxing.
Digital audio is often forgotten on the media plan, so we are trying to fix that, as there is a huge missed opportunity for brands to capture attention in relevant podcasts.
SP: Audio is interesting; tell us more about that.
JO: Scroll Audio can reach over 70% of the digital audio market, with a curated list of over 300,000 podcasts, tailored to the brief. Thanks to our in-car audio capability, we are currently running a speed campaign for Waka Kotahi that targets people listening to podcasts while driving, encouraging them to slow down and obey speed limits.
With audio, we can reach several different listening apps and give a unified reach numbers, which our media agency clients love.
SP: What are some other examples of recent campaigns you have run?
JO: We run across many different verticals. Here are some recent campaigns which really stood out lately:
- Working with the government to encourage Māori/Pacific people to enrol in the next election. We use postcode targeting and contextual relevant podcast ads to do this.
- Campaigns on the Pricespy website always work well for retailers and telcos. I like how Spark continues to advertise on Pricespy around phones above a certain price point.
- Helping Burger King reach gamers by running reward video within games.
- Using our Amadeus travel intender data to target users coming into NZ from overseas to tell them to declare or dispose of anything to protect our natural environment.
I love the diversity of campaigns we work on. Every day is different and it never gets boring.
SP: What is on the horizon?
JO: We recently signed a partnership with a global rep house called Ad Scholars, which gives us Australian and NZ sales rights to FIFA+. The FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, and only comes around once every 4 years, so brands can access football fans on CTV and app. The interest in FIFA+ has been phenomenal, especially with impactful ad formats like L bars and picture in picture ads which are served at key moments, like when a goal is scored.
Strategic alignments are helping us grow our business. We also partnered with rich media vendor Azerion to build out our capability across more premium publishers, allowing media agencies to book high impact ads over multiple publishers. Some of the creatives on desktop and mobile are mind blowing and we love showing media agencies examples of InSkins from overseas and here in NZ.
We are now supporting media agencies as they navigate advertising on ChatGPT, which allows sponsored ad placements to appear below AI-generated responses for Free and Go subscribers in Australia and Aotearoa. This is both incredibly exciting and challenging.
