While MediaWorks’ ownership and debt issues continued to bubble away this year, there were plenty of positives for those working at the coalface, including Four’s media brand of the year award and a very successful first run of The Block. Liz Fraser, who moved from MSN and chair of the IAB to take up the role of director of sales and marketing at Mediaworks TV, has her say.
1) Favourite
campaign that isn’t yours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8-WBjFZQnMPicture this: a group of us in the big
café on National Park down at Mt Ruapehu having lunch. My daughter Jessica
comes back to the table squealing with happiness that she’s found a Coke bottle
with HER name on it. “Guess what”, she
says, “I found a Coke bottle with MY name on it and I’m going to share it with
my friends.” That campaign worked.
2) Favourite
campaign that is yours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx9hDt9wBJoThe campaign that was created internally at
Mediaworks for The Block was exceptional work. The creative was inescapable and it gave viewers the opportunity to
align themselves with a team. With
series two next year, we’ll be looking for viewers to fall in love with their
favourite team all over again.
3) Least
favourite campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTcNMwmm2EI happened to be singing the tune of “Ain’t
nothing gonna break my stride” this morning and Jessica yells out “You’re
watching too much TV mummy”. Clearly,
that State ad has stuck in my mind.
4) Best
brand
Without favouring one client over another,
I believe the best brand still lies with Four. Having seen, heard and read about the launch of this great channel, and
winning Media Brand of the Year, it is exciting to see the growth and
excitement around this very cool and entertaining brand.
5) Best
stoush
The banks are battling it out for all of
our business. BNZ’s ‘money is good/bad’
campaign made an impact, and the ANZ/National merger was a gigantic effort,
then Westpac rolls out its colour campaign trying to say red is best and
forget blue and green.
6) Heroes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSA2UsMpinkAir New Zealand continues to blow me away
with its fantastic marketing campaigns and how it tightly associate
itself to big events. Its recent
association with The Hobbit and how they ‘owned’ Wellington, particularly
flying over the red carpet, was spectacular.
7) Predictions
for 2013
Consumers sourcing content on multiple
platforms is a no-brainer. The research has shown for a while now that
marketers need to be active on all screens.
The trick though is to know what to do on all those screens. Testing and trialling new ideas and
activities is something we all need to do more of.
As I’m now back in tele-land, I’m
predicting that TV ad spend will continue to grow next year. I’m feeling very
optimistic writing this one week before Christmas. But I say that confidently, as the ideas and
opportunities that we’re working on are staggering, and that will definitely
help grow the market.
Personally, I can’t wait to sing on X
Factor NZ next year. It will be the
biggest television event ever to be produced in New Zealand. But I’ll be in the oldies group now…
Enjoy your holidays everyone.
