In a new series, StopPress talks to a range of newsmakers currently trying to shine lights into dark places while also keeping their own lights on and looks at whether commercial realities are leading to editorial compromise. Next up, Damien Venuto talks with Hive News founder Bernard Hickey.
Two Twitter evangelists, head of communications Nathan Burman and international revenue manager Olly Wilton, are currently making the agency rounds in New Zealand as part of a push to increase the scale of the social media company’s business in the local market. Over the course of the last week, the pair have met with various agencies and media outlets to discuss why it’s worthwhile to shift ad spend to the network.
“Everyone is selling audience,” says Mobile Embrace’s Sarah Kavanagh. And this means that ad tech providers constantly have to tweak what they’re offering in order to make it attractive to advertisers. She recently chatted to StopPress about how the mobile industry is evolving and how ad tech players are responding to that change.
Over 234,000 people have downloaded podcasts in the last four weeks, according to data collected by Nielsen. So StopPress spoke to the major radio networks to find out what they’re doing in this space.
Ogilvy has added to its retail portfolio by penning the Number One Shoes brand into its ledger. StopPress understands that there was no pitch involved in the account changing hands, and that Ogilvy and Number Shoes came to an agreement independently. Prior to signing with Ogilvy, the retail brand had taken its marketing and communications in-house (before that the company worked with Contagion).
Modern parents are at times ill-equipped to face these challenges—such as cyber bullying, screen addiction, inappropriate selfies and unsavoury browsing—in that they have no prior experience in dealing with issues like these. They are essentially new challenges for a new generation of parents. So, given the treacherousness of the online landscape, Vodafone has in conjunction with NetSafe and The Parenting Place launched a new suite of services that help parents navigate their way through some of these challenges. At a press even hosted at the Vodafone headquarters in Auckland today, Vodafone consumer director Matt Williams unveiled Digi-Parenting.co.nz, an online hub of articles, videos and printable guides offering practical advice for parents in the digital age. PLUS: the new campaign video hits viewers in the feels.
Self-service is common in supermarkets, petrol stations and at buffet restaurants, but not so much when it comes to producing content marketing pieces for publishing on a major website. And yet, this is exactly what Yahoo has been facilitating to certain selected clients over the last few months through the beta version of new native ad in-feed platform that it has recently made available to the wider market.
Kiwi-born Mark D’Arcy, the chief creative officer at Facebook, has spent the last week in Cannes attending a series of meetings with the advertising community that has converged at the French Riviera. As a veritable Facebook evangelist, his objective has been to encourage creatives to continue experimenting with the platform to see how far it can be pushed.
Earlier this week, NZME announced it would not be renewing its contract with Pagemasters and that it would be taking its sub-editing requirements for The New Zealand Herald titles and regional papers in-house, bringing an end to a partnership that stretches back to 2007.
Ogilvy & Mather has been appointed the lead agency for the trans-Tasman account for Sealord, following a period of working with the brand on a project basis. And to coincide with this announcement, the brand has now released a new brand platform called ‘Savour the little wins’.
In a new series, StopPress talks to a range of newsmakers currently trying to shine lights into dark places while also keeping their own lights on and looks at whether commercial realities are leading to editorial compromise. First up, Radio New Zealand chief executive Paul Thompson chats about why it’s unlikely—and important for journalism—for the state-funded broadcaster to go fully commercial.
In March, the story broke that Yahoo would be releasing all of its editorial staff as part of a restructuring process that would create five new roles, which these previous staff members could apply for. Until now, the regional executives in charge of this restructure have not commented to the media about what the changes have entailed or why the the website had decided to rethink its business operations. After several requests for interviews, Yahoo 7 chief executive for Australia and New Zealand Ed Harrison recently chatted to StopPress about the changes and what they mean for the company.
Nielsen and the ABC have recently released their respective breakdown of the readership and circulation figures. As has come to be expected, the downward decline has continued for the weekly publications, with each of the publications surveyed in this category suffering year-on-year dips in readership. However, there was also good news for some of the publications included within the survey.
Leigh Hart has become a familiar face in front of the camera, entertaining viewers with his offbeat satire on shows such as Moon TV, The Late Night Big Breakfast and SportsCafé. And while the funnyman has injected himself into the mainstream Kiwi consciousness through his on-screen work, he has also taken an interest in life behind the camera through his production company Moon Media.
It’s no secret that smoking is expensive, and yet over 400,000 New Zealanders still swipe their debit cards to purchase a packet of cigarettes on a daily basis. And while the odd $20 splash out on smokes might not seem all that significant, the card swiping quickly adds up, leading to some pretty significant sums, which could be better spent on other items. So, in an effort to show Kiwi smokers what they’re missing out on, Champix has launched a new campaign by BCG2 that illustrates what smokers are in fact puffing away every month.
With a broad range of products that spans the likes of jelly, coffee, spices, hot chocolate and food pastes, Gregg’s has until now advertised these various items separately in their respective categories. However, with the launch of its latest brand ad, the Kiwi company is attempting to consolidate everything it offers under the new ‘fun with flavour’ positioning.
Our ability to consume media is dependent on our ability to see and hear. If we can’t see, then Steve Braunias’ words in the Herald evade us; if we can’t hear, then the ramblings of Paul Henry float by silently; and if we can’t do one or the other, then the messages relayed via the television lose most of their impact. For over two thousand years, humans have developed various means to bridge the gap that separates the visually or hearing impaired from media. One of the more recent innovations in this space was the addition of captioning to television shows in the 1970s. The first application of this process was used in 1972 during an episode of the French Chef, with the words appearing uniformly across all TV sets tuned into the show. And by 1976, the Federal Communications Commission of the United States introduced closed captioning, which gave viewers a choice of whether or not to watch a show.
Recently, the One Weather sponsorship served as a pre-roll battleground for major car brands, as Ford touted the superiority of the Ranger over the Hilux through a faux weather reporter moulded on the lovable pie-eater from Toyota’s advertising. The car brands have since put away their monobrows, and Vodafone has now stepped into the One Weather slot—and the telco is also hoping to give its sponsorship a distinctly Kiwi feel (hopefully, without the monobrows).
In May, Pedigree launched its new global positioning, ‘Feed the good’, in Brazil and Australia via a pair of ads premised on the idea that dogs help humans be the best versions of themselves. And now, following on from this, the dog food company has launched a US spot, which was developed by Colenso BBDO in collaboration with BBDO New York. And While the gritty imagery in the Australian spot was bold as far as advertising for pet sustenance goes, the US spot is by far the most contentious in its portrayal of the tension that pervades race relations in the United States.
Fairfax yesterday announced that it would be restructuring its business to align it more closely with a “modern newsroom,” which is digital-centric and focused on audiences and content rather than traditional mastheads. This immediately led to interest from all major media outlets and speculation as to how many job cuts the changes could result in.
To simplify the process of scouring through apps to find the best ones, Spark Digital has introduced a new offering called Spark Digital Apps that gives small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access to the core digital tools they need to run their businesses. StopPress chatted to the recently appointed Spark Digital marketing manager Mark Redgrave about the thinking behind this move.
Ad avoidance software provider Adblock Plus recently announced that it would be extending its service to mobile devices, leading Sarah Kavanagh, the acting chair of the IAB NZ Mobile Council, to raise a series of concerns about the increasing use of tools designed to dodge ads in the online space. And the extent of the issue on a local level has now been revealed, with Ben Williams, the spokesperson of Eyeo (parent company of Adblock Plus), saying that the company already has 200,000 active users in New Zealand. And, if international trends are anything to go by, then this is only set to increase over the next few years.
Two years after joining the agency from OMD, DDB’s chief operating officer Chris Riley is set to depart.
Assignment Group has won the creative account for premium dairy brand Kapiti, following a competitive pitch thought to have involved several agencies.
At this year’s edition of the Canon Media Awards, The Herald took out both of the key traditional print awards by winning the Newspaper of the Year and the Best Daily Newspaper (over 30,000 circulation). And at a time when the digital is becoming increasingly important, the NZME-owned publication also took out the Best Website award. PLUS: Northland Age editor Peter Jackson wins over the audience.
A piglet named Piggy Sue and a Southern Mail courier driver Keith will replace James Rolleston as the face of Vodafone on Sunday night when the telco launches a new brand campaign developed by FCB.
At a time when radio is being disrupted by digital technology, one thing that has remained consistent is the importance of the personalities that produce the content on a daily basis. The executives across both commercial networks have on numerous occasions posited the local voices behind the microphones as key point of difference that traditional radio still has over its digital counterparts. And at last night’s New Zealand Radio Awards, the industry commended those who have over the last year kept the airwaves alive with their voices, quirky promos and, increasingly, video clips. StopPress looks at who won what on the night. PLUS: see a gallery of snapshots from the night.
Ad-blocking software company Adblock Plus claims that its software has already been downloaded over 300 million times across the world, and WARC wrote a story last year showing five percent of all internet users used the technology (in the US, 41 percent of 18-29 year olds claimed to use adblock software). This means that millions of ads served throughout the world on desktops and laptops do not reach their desired targets. Now the German company has announced that it is currently trialling an update of its ad-blocking software that enables Android users to block ads on their smartphones. So what’s the industry doing about it?
“We’ve been through the bad and the good,” says ANZ’s head of sponsorship Sue McGregor in describing the bank’s 16-year partnership with Cricket New Zealand. And while the recent World Cup certainly falls into the latter category from a sporting perspective, is this also the case in terms of ANZ’s commercial interests?
Only two years after launch, Clemenger Shop has been merged with the Clemenger Group’s other shopper marketing business, Raydar.