Nielsen’s latest figures on online shopping show more Kiwis are clicking to buy. And from holographic retail assistants to interactive zombie gaming to mobile apps that allow users to purchase items via QR codes, retailers and marketers are donning their digital thinking caps to find the most creative ways to lure and retain customer attention in the colliding world of bricks, mortar and online retailing. Deirdre Robert shops on.
Amid the controversy that seems to have attached itself to the release of the first Hobbit film, Wellingtonians in particular will be hard-pressed to forget the premiere is taking place in their city, not least thanks to the two-storey Middle Earth wrap that’s been attached to the side of Clemenger BBDO’s Wellington office. That’s one more Hobbit-themed gesture to add to a growing list that also includes DraftFCB’s baggage carousel at Wellington airport, Air New Zealand’s Hobbit aircraft and, of course, Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Middle-earth.
Genesis Energy seems to have a penchant for agencies with numbers in their titles. Hot on the heels of .99 and justONE being appointed the power company’s advertising agency comes news direct marketing and digital agency Twenty has been awarded the Energy Online account – the challenger brand energy business of Genesis Energy.
No one likes to be shouted at, not least by the likes of the Big Save Furniture lady and Harvey Norman, who for the past goodness knows how many years have had sales on every other day apparently worthy of an aural assault. But that’s all set to change this coming Sunday, when Television New Zealand decreases the decibel limit of its television advertising as part of a sound compression agreement signed by all the major networks.
There’s been a lot of hype around the launch of the Shopping Channel this week, and there’s no question awareness of the channel was boosted significantly by the appearance of Eva Longoria. But by and large, unlike a certain online trading website that launched this week, the Shopping Channel’s debut seems to have gone relatively smoothly, and both ACP, which announced its partnership with the channel at a gala event on Wednesday night, and Ogilvy, have big plans for the brand.
With the relaunched New Zealand Herald now simmering along, APN is turning some of its attention to the imminent launch a new website that will be dedicated to all things food and cooking, called foodhub.co.nz. The digital offering will house APN’s new and archival recipe and food content, showcasing more than 6,000 recipes drawn from APN’s newspaper and magazine publications including the NZ Herald, its regional newspapers, and magazines including the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly and the New Zealand Listener.
Toyota has been busy this year. It’s launched a host of cars, including the Prius, Prius c, Prius V, Camry, Aurion, Lexus GS, Lexus RX and new Corolla Wagon. And the 86 has also taken to the streets, but not before receiving some attention from the Fun Police, a campaign developed by AIM Proximity Wellington to launch its sportscar.
With a customer base of over four million paying subscribers and over 15 million active users, it’s fair to say Spotify’s rise has been nothing short of gigantic. And, as it seeks new ways of monetising its service, it has set it sights on big brands that are equally keen to tap into the service to create unique marketing opportunities. The likes of McDonald’s and Reebok are already on board with their recommended playlists, and it’s even making tracks in political circles, with the creation of the official 2012 Obama campaign playlist. It recently gained some traction locally, too, with ASB and Saatchi & Saatchi teaming up to create what it says is a “New Zealand media-first” branded Facebook app that integrated with the Spotify platform and industry commentators to create an ‘Olympic Moods’ soundtrack to the Olympics.
The latest newspaper readership and circ figures might not be much to boast about, but there’s plenty of life left in The Press according to advertising creative agency Simpatico. And to prove that point, it recently launched its direct marketing campaign ‘smell the numbers’, whereby the offices of 100 North Island media agencies were exposed to a pungent smell in a bid to encourage them to smell the positive readership numbers the newspaper has been generating.
The market for specialty food certainly seems to be growing in New Zealand. Farmers’ markets are cropping up all over the place, there’s websites dedicated to it, supermarket refrigerator sections seem to be hosting an ever-growing selection of it and there’s even entire supermarkets dedicated to it. But in a market where locally produced foods are often competing with the cheaper, mass-produced alternatives produced by the big boys, and increasingly, each other, presentation and marketing is key. And Hunter, which dubs itself the “world’s smallest global creative agency” reckons it got it right when it comes to its packaging design for new boutique ice cream company, Little Paddock.
The Ad Impact Awards are often closely fought and the July round proved no exception, with both Steinlager Pure and V performing above the norms as impactful TV ads. But Taika Waititi’s comedic effort in DDB’s Steinlager Pure ‘When things are this good’ ad was too strong, pipping Colenso BBDO’s V Motion Project.
The magazine sector was celebrating a mostly positive swing after the latest readership, circ and, importantly, engagement figures were released last week. And while the numbers aren’t quite as good for the newspaper sector, the sky is still not falling.
Bankland is never short on action and rumours of National Bank’s shaky future look set to be fuelled by the latest Nielsen AIS figures on advertising spend by New Zealand banks. The ANZ NZ-owned brand spent the second lowest amount on advertising in the first half of this year compared to the other five banks, its $3.5 million paling in comparison to ANZ NZ’s ANZ brand, which clocked up the largest bill of all the banks at $15.3 million.
Once the face of a campaign to attract visitors to Australia, Aussie Lara ‘where the bloody hell are you’ Bingle is the latest celebrity to join Air New Zealand’s promotional ranks, staring in the latest installment of its Kiwi Sceptic campaign, where she describes New Zealand as “that thing down there”.
The way traditional telcos work, you’d imagine a mobile phone network with tens of thousands of customers would have a call centre to service the inevitable service issues and enquiries. Not Giffgaff, the UK-based mobile virtual network operator that broke the traditional Telco mould by creating an entirely online service that puts much of the power into the hands of its customers. And fronting the member experience arm of the company is Kiwi lass Claire Kavanagh, who was in town last week for the Marketing Association’s Direct Marketing event. We managed to steal a moment of her time between speakers to have a chat about the unique Giffgaff model and ask whether it could be done in New Zealand.
3D animation, self-walking shoes and a wordy cause round out this week’s offering.
Every year the Women’s Refuge receives 60, 565 calls (about one every nine minutes) from women silenced through violence, intimidation and abuse. But with only 50 to 60 percent of its work funded by government, the organisation relies heavily on public donations and in a bid to bolster those finances, Saatchi & Saatchi has created an innovative Facebook app as part of its Donate Your Words campaign.
It ain’t easy being a magazine in the digital age. Being a food magazine in what has become a very crowded market in New Zealand is even tougher. ACP’s Taste magazine didn’t fare too well in the most recent circulation and readership results and in a bid to position itself in a unique space against the competition, it has been at the centre of an editorial and design overhaul. The relaunched issue went out to the masses this month but is still very much a work in progress.
It’s no secret that the traditional postal mail business model is in decline. And while New Zealand Post’s ability to adapt to change can be exemplified by its 170-year existence, the digital age is certainly proving to be the toughest nut to crack yet. But rather than fight the digital, it’s working with it to create viable business extensions and at today’s Direct Marketing event at Eden Park, a rather chuffed head of digital solutions at New Zealand Post, Simone Iles, offered the first glimpse into its new free digital service, YouPost, designed to make life that much easier to manage.
Earlier this week we pointed out a billboard for the new True Blood series on Prime. And the folks at DraftFCB and Phantom have sent us even more billboard fodder confirming the adult-orientated humour of the campaign. Sally Willis, Prime’s account director at DraftFCB, says the aim was to shake any teenage preconceptions people held about the show, differentiating it instead as a “raunchy, intense and gritty raw drama”. And as these latest examples from the campaign show, there’s more raunchy humour than you could stab a stake at.
As you wind down and get set for your two days off ahead of the next week, spare a thought for Colenso BBDO’s copywriter Simon Vicars. The poor bloke was sitting in an airport lounge when we called him, getting ready to wing his way to Fiji for a week’s “work”. Then we had to break the news Colenso BBDO had won the May round of The Glossies with 34 percent of the votes for its ‘Idiot’ print ad in NZ Rugby World. ‘Idiot’, part of DB Export Dry’s ‘The Wine is Over’ campaign, put itself a fare distance ahead of its closest rivals. Bettle’s Langham ad, featured in New Idea, placed second with 22 percent of votes while BCG2’s effort for Audi in Metro earned it third place with a 16 percent share of votes.
Avid fans might remember the debut of Shortland St back in 1992. Aside from delectable ’90s fashion and haircuts, it featured a particularly naughty romantic rendezvous between Dr Chris Warner and a lycra-clad aerobics instructor played by Suzy Aitken, and also gave birth to that line now etched in the Kiwi psyche: “You’re not in Guatemala now, Dr Ropata.” Early signs weren’t too promising, however, and ratings dropped after its launch. But that was two decades ago and as the show edges closer to its 20th anniversary, its popularity seems well assured, with the show consistently capturing over 600,000 viewers in the 5+ market, second only to One News. And with a big promotional push to celebrate the milestone, culminating in a special anniversary feature episode on Monday 21 May, TVNZ is hoping those ratings will soon be shooting upwards.
DesignCrowd launched on the New Zealand market a few weeks back and while not everyone might be a fan of crowdsourced design, the company certainly plans to stick around. Its presence in the Kiwi market and beyond has been given a booster by way of a $3 million investment from Australian VC firm Starfish Ventures. DesignCrowd chief executive Alec Lynch said the money would be used to enhance the company’s service in Australia, New Zealand and beyond. And after a chat on the phone, he was also quick to defend crowdsourcing, describing it as an “opportunity, not a threat” to existing design agencies.
Not convinced about the sustainability argument when it comes to the purchasing behaviour of consumers? Think again. The latest Colmar Brunton ‘Better Business Better World’ survey results reveal that sustainability influenced the purchasing decisions of 88 percent of respondents. That bodes well for purchasing potential, but on the flip side the survey also found that 72 percent couldn’t think of any brand leaders in sustainability. And if ever there was concern that the term ‘sustainability’ is still perhaps ambiguous in definition to some people, the survey found 20 percent of respondents didn’t know what it meant.
The online domain has created a whole new portal when it comes to the dissemination of ideas and creativity. Crowdsourcing is one of the trends to ride on the back of web-induced capabilities, but in the design domain, it has proved controversial. With companies using it as a way to source, among other things, new logos, some designers complain that it undermines the expertise of qualified designers and design companies. But, like it or hate it, it looks set to stay and in New Zealand, it’s just received a boost with DesignCrowd launching a New Zealand crowdsourcing site, DesignCrowd.co.nz.
When it comes to the latest fundraising initiative for Christchurch, it’s a case of both what you know and who you know. Pixels for Christchurch launched last week at the Yoobee flagship store in Auckland’s Britomart. With the helping hand of brand development agency FlyCreative and Shortland Street star Kiel McNaughton, among others, artist Shane Hansen’s artwork ‘Arohanui Otautahi’ was broken down into 100,000 pixels that were made available for public purchase. The ultimate goal is to raise $100,000 for Christchurch and so far over 18,000 pixels have been sold.
Over 700 designy folk attended the DINZ Best Awards event on Friday night at the swanky new Auckland Viaduct Events Centre. And with a record 812 entries, the highest in the 23 year history of the event, a multitude of Gold, Silver and Bronze pins were handed out, with five winners—Avanti, Wellington Airport, Fisher & Paykel’s Social Kitchen by Alt Group, Sarah Maxey and typographer Kris Sowersby, and Resn for Toyota’s Sponsafier—picking up a coveted Purple Pin.
If the results of the 2011 Pentawards are anything to go by, Kiwis seem to have it wrapped when it comes to creating effective and innovative packaging design in the designer food side of things.
MoMA as a name might work well for New York’s Museum of Modern Art, but apply the same acronym theory to Auckland Art Gallery (AAG) and Alt Group’s Dean Poole reckons it would sound more like something “the cat would bring up”. No, according to Poole, having the consistent theme of ‘ART’ running through the redeveloped gallery’s new branding is much more effective.
Some said they saw it coming, but when ProDesign made the announcement in May that it would be closing its pages for good, it was a sad occasion for many. But at the end of the day, revenue is king and AGM opted to channel its energy and money to the more lucrative interior design sector, with ProDesign editor Michael Barrett taking the reins of the new venture. Last week the fruits of Barrett’s labour were displayed for all to see when AGM launched new magazine Interior.