Author Damien Venuto

A recent article published on Gigaom.com revealed that Wake Me Up by Avicii has been become the most streamed song on Spotify by amassing over 200 million views, but this still lags well behind YouTube’s mammoth 450 million views of the song. And that wasn’t even the most-streamed song on YouTube. That accolade goes to Psy’s Gangnam Style, which has over two billion streams. Driving much of this traffic from within the YouTube platform is Vevo, the video hosting service that often has its name attached to artists’ channels. StopPress recently sat down for chat with the company’s newly appointed country manager Brendan Muller and its executive vice president international Nic Jones for a chat about what they plan to bring to the local market.

On Friday, Twitter announced the Kiwi launch of Twitter Ads, a self-serve ad platform that aims to provide advertising options for small and medium-sized businesses. Twitter Ads has already been launched in 21 international markets, and it will almost certainly come as a welcome marketing tool to smaller businesses that have thus far been precluded from using Twitter’s advertising services due to the minimum spend threshold that the company previously set for its advertising services. We chat to Nick Bowditch, Twitter Australia’s small business evangelist, to find out what this means for the Kiwi market.

Over the last decade the digital age has swept over the cornerstones of newspaper publishing and eroded them with unforgiving consistency. Now, each time the Nielsen’s print readership and the ABC’s circulation results are released, what remains of the major publications look a little smaller than what they were the quarter or year before.

The Better Drinks Company has just released its first batch of Charlie’s Straight Up Cola, and it was produced and canned in only 10 weeks. And while this might be impressive, the speed of the product development isn’t even the most interesting part of the project. As part of the launch, Charlie’s is asking customers to take to social media and say exactly how they feel about the new product. The company is giving Kiwis the chance to share their opinions, and only if the feedback is positive, will another batch be produced.

As recently as the 1990s it would’ve been difficult to imagine a catalogue of oddly numbered lists turning into one of new media’s biggest success stories. But now, as we find ourselves neck deep in the zeros and ones of the digital age, the question ‘Have you seen that BuzzFeed list on …?’ has become a phrase as familiar—and commonly used—as ‘Google it’ or ‘there’s an app for that’. Andy Wiedlin, BuzzFeed’s chief revenue officer, is someone who has first-hand experience of BuzzFeed’s journey from being a quirky idea to a pop culture phenomenon.

To spare online shoppers the chore of scouring through scores of deals featuring massages, fairy lights and costume jewellery in the lead up to Christmas, GrabOne has launched the Giftinator, an online tool that allows users to narrow their searches to find gifts that match their interests. As New Zealand’s biggest daily deal providers, GrabOne publishes over 1,700 deals a week, which means that there might be more than 1,600 offers available on the site at any given time. And while choice is a good thing, it can be frustrating for time-pressed gift-buyers to scour through everything available to find what they want. By launching the Giftinator, GrabOne now enables customers to streamline their search for gifts in terms who the gift is for, the amount they’re willing to spend, and the age group and interests of the recipient. PLUS: we look at some of the risks that come with brands recommending items.

With the rise social media, the way marketers think about experiential marketing has changed. Not long ago, the term experiential was used as a synonym for on-site promotion and often annoyingly manifested itself as a brand lurking about a car park, shopping aisle or public venue. The fact that consumers can now publish their responses instantly to massive audiences means that brands need to be more strategic about how they incorporate experiential marketing. The experience that they offer needs to be something worth talking about. So, as part of its sponsorship partnership with the Armageddon event, V Energy brought in Colenso BBDO and Beryl to create an experience that fans would be willing to share.

Despite announcing record profits at last week’s AGM, Sky does not appear content to rest on its laurels. The broadcaster recently unveiled Neon, its subscription video on demand (SVOD) offering, and from today it will be screening a new channel called The Zone. Designed to fill the sci-fi void in Sky’s programming, the new channel will screen horror, fantasy, science-fiction, cult and superhero shows via Sky and SkyGo.

Over the weekend, Fairfax distributed a revamp of Sunday, the magazine insert included on a weekly basis with the Sunday Star-Times. The new version features an updated portrait layout, more pages and a combination of new content and the return of various favourites that have thus far appeared in the pages of the magazine over the last ten years. To incorporate the new design elements, Fairfax brought in art director Delaney Tabron to work closely with Sunday editor Rebecca Kamm, who joined the publication in January.

Z Energy has followed in the footsteps of New World and Countdown by launching a campaign that gives customers the opportunity to collect a series of collectibles when spending a certain amount of money. Dubbed ‘Blokhedz’, the campaign features a series of 16 stackable figurines, based on superheroes and villains from the DC comic franchise, which consumers can collect if they spend more than $40 either in-store or on petrol (purchases of tobacco products cannot be used to redeem BlokHedz).The campaign—which was created by JWT as the lead agency, MBM and Mediacom for media, and Heyday for digital—is currently being promoted via a short YouTube clip and a specially dedicated section of the Z Energy website, which features profiles of all the characters available for collection.

Nielsen has released its statistics for New Zealand’s most-visited websites by unique audience, and the figures once again confirm New Zealand’s preference for Stuff over the NZ Herald website—although the gap has narrowed substantially following Nielsen’s correction of its data collection in April this year. StopPress chats to Fairfax’s Sinead Boucher and NZME’s Brad Glading about the figures.

According to Nielsen’s stats, approximately 934,000 Kiwis currently have a mortgage. And when this considered alongside the issue of housing prices, it’s clear that this is a major source of revenue for banks. So, in an effort to consolidate its position as the biggest mortgage provider in New Zealand, ANZ has launched a new campaign that features a slow-motion auction scene playing out to an operatic score.

On 15 October, StopPress attended Google’s Brandcast event in Sydney, and the general theme delivered over the course of the 90-minute show was that YouTube stars provide an effective means by which brands can communicate with various target market. Here’s what some of the speakers had to say at the event.

In an effort to encourage Holden fans to engage with its 60th anniversary microsite and share their stories, Holden has created an online competition that gives entrants a chance to win a restored 1969 Monaro. But rather than simply give away the car, Holden has used it as a content opportunity by documenting the restoration process through a video series fronted by Greg Murphy. When StopPress first covered this story, Holden had only uploaded the first video in the series, but since then an additional five have been uploaded (the most recent of which was published on 2 October).

Fonterra has taken a page out of the mainstream retailer’s playbook by establishing a rewards initiative that gives its members access to a range of perks to those in the co-operative. The introduction of the loyalty programme is part of a series of changes, which also includes plans to rebrand all 67 of Fonterra’s RD1 stores to NZ Farm Source hubs (there are also plans to introduce four new stores), launch new digital technology, introduce on-site support and initiate a range of financial options exclusive to members.

The New Zealand Breast Cancer foundation has launched a new campaign via Colenso BBDO that features actress Geraldine Brophy displaying pictures of a series of women’s breasts to illustrate what changes are likely to take place in the event of breast cancer. The ad, which is based on a successful Scottish campaign featuring Elaine C Smith, was initially meant to run last year, but the Commercial Approvals Bureau blocked this move on account of the rule that female nipples are not allowed in television advertising. However, the Bureau has now backtracked on this decision.