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Year in Review: Andrew Lewis, TRA

1. Favourite local campaign that isn’t yours

Spark’s ‘Everyday Magic’ campaign with Big Tony. A beautifully executed piece of communications, that taps into a universal human emotion of connection between father and child.

2. Favourite campaign that is yours

We created our own magazine Frame at the end of this year. I like the idea of taking things old-school with a hard copy magazine.

It turned out even better than we imagined. The theme for the first issue was ‘The Human Face of Auckland’ discussing the key issues facing the city and the people who live in it. We’ve got a couple of exciting issues lined up for 2017 which will focus on key topics of interest for marketers.

3. Favourite international campaign

Y&R’s McWhopper campaign for Burger King was a clever way to raise awareness for Peace One Day and tell a strong brand story at the same time.

4. Least favourite campaign

McDonald’s Create Your Taste – overwhelming customers with too much choice.

5. Your own biggest success

TRA achieving a revenue growth rate of 40 percent this year. We’ve worked with great clients, on amazing projects and had a lot of fun as a team.

Also carrying out a successful crowd-funding capital raise for our new business Zavy, which is a social media data analytics software that we are taking global.

6. Most significant launch/innovation/thing of the year

Steinlager’s Tokyo Dry launch.

Big ups to the Lion innovation and marketing team who have delivered an outstanding product, a brand that is ‘on-code’ and aligned with cultural currents and executed with aplomb. Proof that big brand campaigns that drive an emotional, System 1 response work.

7. What should be un-invented?

Netflix and chill.

8. Lamest trend

Double denim.

9. Best brands

Kiwi brands that take the best of what they have to the world – Air New Zealand, Lonely, Karen Walker, Crane Brothers/Gubb & Mackie, Rocket Lab, Karma Cola to name a few.

10. Best stoush

The Commerce Commission versus everyone.

11. Heroes

Obama. Silo Theatre. Auckland’s developing restaurant scene.

12. Villains

Russia. Facebook metrics. Fake news.

13. What died in 2016?

Political polling.

14. What’s the biggest mistake marketers will make in 2017?

Spending too little on insight to drive decision-making. When I talked to you guys [NZ Marketing] a month or so ago we discussed this great statistic, and I think it’s especially relevant here – New Zealand is one of the biggest spenders on advertising per capita, and one of the smallest spenders on insights. For every dollar we spend talking to people, we spend five cents on understanding them.

New Zealand marketers think they understand their customers because we’re a small country. It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that everyone else is like ourselves. But they’re not, and there’s now a multitude of statistics showing that Auckland is more culturally diverse than London. Insight drives true understanding of why people behave the way they do. 

15. Will the robots become sentient and kill us all (asking for a friend)? 

If machine learning enables machines to becomes smarter than humans, then yes.

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