Once again, online advertising continued its steady rise in New Zealand in 2012, hitting its high water mark in the last quarter. And as the head of Yahoo! New Zealand (which recently launched its year-in-the-making new homepage and mobile site) and the new chair of the local Internet Advertising Bureau, Laura Maxwell-Hansen is well placed to see where it’s heading next. Here’s her take on 2012.
1) Favourite campaigns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpyqjOnqUM8Shapes Roadies. Makes me laugh every time and takes me back to
sharing the backseat with my four siblings (no seatbelts back then though) and
stealing snacks from each other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XSwFDQV9EUSteinlager
Pure by Taika Waititi. This ad makes me slow down from 30x
fast-forwarding. Love it.
AA
Insurance ’Let’s get things sorted’. Creative designed specifically for the site,
clear messaging and not intrusive to the audience. Worked its socks off too.
2)
Least favourite campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmcFKtzcKbQThe
last two Air New Zealand inflight safety videos. Are they getting longer? At least serve
us a drink before we take off so we can cope with watching them.
3) Best brand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiemD4Jtb-0New World. Its creative is weaving stories into
our culture without the obvious go-to and cultural cringe. They know who they are and are creating
enduring brand value.
3) Best stoush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6_phi42z9gTSB
and every Australian bank.
4) Heroes
New
Zealand creative teams. A quick trip over the Tasman is enough to confirm that
we think differently over here—thankfully. The personalisation of digital
media will mean that ideation and message creation are more important than ever
before, so we’re in good hands New Zealand.
5) Villains
Brands
with a one-dimensional social media strategy. Yawn. There is life beyond Facebook
and early adopters are already going there. Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter are live and vibrant communities, so get
amongst it. Oh and please stop asking me
to ‘like’ you on Facebook? Sure, direct me to a brand destination, but asking me to like you sounds a
bit desperate. It’s a relationship and if you need to prompt me to like you,
then you’re not doing a good enough job of courting me.
8)
Most memorable marketing moment
Red
Bull Stratos and Felix Baumgartner. This
activation was so on-brand it’s not funny. Could have gone wrong but didn’t. I
love its risk-taking philosophy.
9)
A few predictions for 2013
Mobile. There will be a surge in
advertisers exploring new ways to connect with consumers on our most personal
device, our mobile. It’s the first
thing we grab in the morning and the last thing we look at before we sleep at
night. Hard to find a way to get closer
to an audience. And if you think it’s
still niche, think again. The audience
is already assembled.
Video. More blurring between published,
advertiser-generated and user-generated content as branded content moves out of
static environments.
Oh, and digital spend will be close to 20 percent of all advertising spend in New Zealand this time
next year.
