Everyone’s got an opinion in this industry! Thought leadership pieces from in and around New Zealand Adland.
Happy 100th birthday David Ogilvy. No doubt he’ll be smoking a pipe and spitting out acerbic one-liners wherever it is that admen go to play their harps. And if he were still alive he’d have hours of fun writing stabby, beautifully crafted columns to add to the traditional versus new media debate.
If there is one ‘new wave’ trend engaging retailers and businesses at the moment, it’s the burgeoning pool of knowledge, insight and digital tools that shoppers are now drawing on to shop smarter and save more. And while it’s often claimed New Zealand is 12 to 18 months behind global trends, it was staggering to learn at the recent eTail Conference in Palm Springs that retailers in the USA have more like a three to five year lead on their Kiwi counterparts.
In our debut Colmar Brunton nzgirl Tracker, we uncovered some noteworthy social media statistics. While we’re all aware of high usage of Facebook (our results show 70 percent of respondents check/update Facebook daily or more), we were surprised by the sheer size of the networks: 65 percent had between 100-400 friends and the average number was 300.
While we obviously enjoy the fact that the marcomms community seems to like getting its fix of marketing, advertising and media news, views and hullaballoos on StopPress, we’re still dirty old traditionalists who like nothing more than sitting back with one of those old, supposedly antiquated paper-based things known as magazines. And there’s plenty of editorial goodness to soak up in the May/June edition of NZ Marketing, which is filled with what a host of Belgian experts have said is ‘Essential Marketing Intelligence’. As such, you can probably ask the boss to pay for a subscription, but to grease the wheels you can get 35 percent off the retail price (subscribe for one year here or two years here) if you sign up before Friday. Anyway, enough of the sales pitch. Here’s what you’ll find in the latest issue.
This is a synopsis of the advice I give all of my clients during our initial meeting and some of what I talk about when giving my painful lectures/presentations. It is the slow, patient, credible, organic and day-to-day way of maximising your results from social media and I have found these principles to be pretty solid over the four years I have been involved in this industry.
It’s about time we faced up to reality. We have a burgeoning digital signage industry in Australia and New Zealand that’s set to become part of a $2 billion global industry, but there are a great many confused brands and retailers. Recent Trans-Tasman research conducted by n.gage has uncovered 71 percent of brands and retailers are willing to look at digital signage models if they can understand the return on investment. However, a staggering 86 percent felt trans Tasman digital signage companies, on the whole, were not addressing digital signage from a holistic business viewpoint. So just how do we help these brands and retailers assess the role of digital signage at retail?
Winter is on the way and I find myself wondering about the media community’s craze with ‘premium content’ online. Industry executives are constantly debating the rate at which TV ad dollars will move to the web, but when it comes down to it, the advertising budgets can’t move in significant ways until the marketing and media communities fully understand and get what people are actually watching online.
When it comes to fruitful agency client relationships in New Zealand, Sky and DDB are near the top of the pile and, over the past few years, a steady stream of very entertaining, award-winning and, judging by subscriber numbers and MySky’s complete domination of Tivo, pretty effective work has spewed forth. But for our money, the latest spot by Thick as Thieves for MySky’s ‘TV on your terms’ campaign, which shows 60 things in 60 seconds that husbands all over New Zealand could potentially be doing instead of watching TV, is one of the best yet. Just try not to like it.
I once heard about a wine industry meltdown when New Zealand wine wasn’t on the menu for an Auckland-based Tourism New Zealand schmooze function. And good on the winemakers for kicking up a stink, I say. Yet who would do the same if the branding, media services, website or PR wasn’t run by Kiwis? Overlooking New Zealand talent for ‘experts from out of town’ is a hate-crime against the country and, in front-facing services such as marketing and communications, it’s just bloody stupid.
Trumpet blowing, back-patting and self-congratulation are par for the course in the world of marketing. But it’s always more interesting if there’s a bit of healthy confrontation involved, as this promotional number for TV3 shows.
Tourism was the country’s biggest earner in 2010, just nudging ahead of dairy and putting $9.5 billion into the nation’s coffers. And while New Zealand has rarely had to deal with image crises in the past, the recent quake in Christchurch and the ensuing media coverage will have a detrimental effect on visitor numbers. But, for all those patriotic souls out there, there are ways you can help to get the visitors coming back.
NZ Marketing magazine, the mother of StopPress, has come out and it’s shockingly spiffy-licious. “The best business magazine in New Zealand,” reckons one of our readers. This month the mag has received a fresh lick of design love, giving the gritty content a smart spit and polish.
The CEO looked worried. The share price is down another few cents. Where will it finish up? The revenue figures didn’t look too flash either. A report she received from Sales told her that they had lost 142 customers in the previous month and they gained only 98 new …
How things have changed over the past few years. New Zealand is now punching way over its weight in the ad business. For decades, New Zealand creatives simply didn’t have the budgets that the bigger markets had. But, as the best ad people do, they have turned this negative into a positive and worked out how to use these small budgets to make big, world beating campaigns.
An earthquake influenced five metre print
Everyone from the Adgraphix team in Christchurch made it through the earthquake safely and the large-format printers are once again fully operational. But company director Scott Shore says it’s time for businesses—both in Canterbury and around New Zealand—to stay positive and support each other.
We have to mobilise the New Zealand design community around the relief and rebuild efforts in Christchurch. This means we have to coordinate our own meaningful industry response. We have an important role to play in assisting both now and throughout the rebuilding of a shattered city. And I think this can work at two levels.
Charlie Sutherland (Chalks) was a good guy; a guy who spent a long time wrestling with his own particular demons. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Charlie, so I want to recall the good old days when he was something of a rock star in a young, emerging Colenso. And those were tough, competitive days.
As a practitioner of a new form of marketing I am faced with the question we all confront in this industry: can I convince clients that experiential marketing can be measured effectively and deliver meaningful ROI and value for spend?