I’m consistently surprised by how often we use language in ways that undermine our efforts as an industry. It surprises me because communication should be the one thing we nail – clear, precise language that explains exactly what we mean – but actually we’re often pretty bad at it.
In this installment of Michael Carney’s Marketing Week: Classified advertising was hit hard last year. How long before newspapers give it up? All change in the New Zealand movie business. And will 3D advertising change the game? US publishers are adding online readers to total circulation and charging advertisers for all of them. So is that likely to happen here?
You know it was a bad year when an industry organisation comes out and says it’s fairly happy with a significant core revenue decline. But that’s exactly what the papers have done after the release of the Advertising Standards Authority’s New Zealand Advertising Turnover scorecard. Online, however, is sitting pretty as the only sector to notch up an increase.
Independent design and ad agency Strategy has snaffled Ogilvy New Zealand’s recently departed head of planning Michael Prentice. He will take up the role of group strategic director for the Auckland, Christchurch and Sydney offices and will also be general manager of the Christchurch office.
After a stellar 2009 – so good, in fact, that it’s currently on a pitch ban – DraftFCB has taken the 2010 Fairfax AdMedia Agency of the Year award.
Rhys Darby continues to capitalise on his awksome (so awkward it’s awesome) Murray Hewitt-inspired profile in the US, this time as the front man in a big – like NZ$80 million big – campaign for Hewlett Packard called Let’s Do Amazing.
Monocle magazine, a respected mouthpiece in the fields of design, trends, retail, art, pop-culture and politics, has published a list of the world’s 25 best retailers and Takapuna’s The Department Store has taken the number one spot.
The Don (not the delicious Japanese meal, but the funny-haired American business tycoon), is currently gracing a range of New Zealand media channels to promote the New Zealand Lotteries Commission’s latest Big Wednesday prize. And everyone wants to know how much he got paid.
Aside from these, this, and this, StopPress loves nothing more than data. And we’re particularly fond of hard data. Of course, the brilliant thing about data is that it can be used selectively to show how good you are, and how bad other things, like competitors, are. And there’s almost no better example of this than the tit for tatting that is news ratings data in New Zealand.
Who it’s for: Vector (working with Y&R), which is trying to drum up support for fibre optic cabling and get fibre to Auckland doors so users will be able to download illegal movies at speeds 50 times faster than current levels.
Why we like it: Quirky …
Fairfax Media has announced the launch of the 2010 Fairfax Media Cannes Young Lions competition, which will give four of New Zealand’s top advertising talents the chance to compete at this year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival.
Comedian and writer Raybon Kan, who has recently returned to Kiwi shores after a stint in London, is set to dazzle the magazine industry with witty quips in his role as MC at this year’s Magazine Awards.
Some of New Zealand’s top young musos have donned their promotional caps for a tourism campaign that shows off a few of their favourite Kiwi haunts in an effort to entice young Aussies to come for a visit.
You may be an official or unofficial ‘brand ambassador’ for all things social media in your organisation. Maybe it’s even in your job title. But how do you formalise social media within the company without it becoming oxymoronic? And how do you get more people involved?
A virtual e-cornucopia of comings, goings, changes, movements, postings and various new things compiled to belatedly celebrate the long-awaited departure of summer.
Air New Zealand has kept the novel marketing fires burning with another new – and potentially slightly controversial – social media campaign featuring Dai Henwood that aims to capitalise on the buzz created in January over the new long-haul innovations.
Consider it your Monday morning brand warm-up. And tell your boss it’s solely for the purposes of market research. But try to wrangle 17-minutes to watch Logorama, the film featuring more than 2500 logos that recently took home an Oscar for best animated short.
Eco-friendly Kiwi cleaning brand ecostore has signed an exclusive distribution deal with Duane Reade of New York, which, with more than 250 outlets, is the biggest drugstore chain in city.
There were scones and jam and cream. There were a host of digital natives and possibly even a few digital virgins. There were a few ironic technical glitches. And there were a range of social media truths laid bare and observations made by the five speakers at yesterday’s CAANZ Digital Leadership Group Social Media in Business forum.
So many ads@6, so little time. Sam Neill leaves his Central Otago grapes unattended for a bit and pops up on screen with Raymond for some Kiwibank backpatting, courtesy of endorsements from ‘The Media’, in the ‘Kiwi Thinking’ campaign; NZTA’s new spot laughs in the face of Father Time; and tank enthusiasts rejoice, because the long-awaited Tank Collection is available now.
The latest Nielsen Market Intelligence report shows unequivocally that anyone who reads StopPress will almost instantly become extremely wealthy and is up to four times more likely to be accepted into New Zealand’s nouveau über-riche set. Either that or all of you marcomms and media folk are overpaid.
It was was a double-whammy for Anne Boothroyd and Brigid Alkema from Clemenger BBDO (WGN) at the Grande ORCA awards, with ‘The People’ overwhelmingly agreeing with the judges and picking ‘Sliding Doors’ for the New Zealand Transport Agency as their favourite radio ad.
Do you like fine rum? Do you like delicious food? Do you have a spare $1000? Then read on and your wildest rum, food and money related dreams could come true.
Methven, the New Zealand-owned designer, marketer and exporter of water and energy efficient bathroomware, has won a Red Dot Product Design Award at the 2010 competition in Germany for its Shower Infusions, a system that “transforms a daily shower into a luxurious, mood enhancing spa experience”, as can be seen from the reaction of this showering naked lady.
It’s still 18 months until the Rugby World Cup kicks off, but a massive behemoth of a billboard has already been erected on the corner of Albert Street and Custom Street East in Auckland to mark the auspicious occasion and Heineken New Zealand thinks the rather lovey dovey text (“Turning great rivalries into even greater friendships, since 1873. It’s almost time”) hints at the experience tournament attendees can expect from the beer brand in 2011.
The way Kiwi organisations measure the value of PR-generated media coverage is the subject of a nationwide review being conducted this month by the CAANZ Marcomms committee and the New Zealand Marketing Association (NZMA), with agencies and clients around the country being surveyed in an effort to find out about their use of Advertising Equivalent Values (AVE) and other PR measures.
The latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers Insight Report shows the total online ad spend in New Zealand for 2009 coming in at $213.89m, a 10 percent increase from 2008 ($193.15m). And, while this could be viewed as modest growth when compared to previous years, Michael Gregg, the IAB chairman, believes it demonstrates marketers’ confidence in online as a medium that delivers results when budgets were being cut on other media.
Tim Skellern, who spent three years with Wattie’s after immigrating to New Zealand from the UK in 2004 before throwing in the towel to set up his own company in 2007, has returned to the nurturing bosom of Heinz Wattie’s to take up the role of general manager marketing.
Traditional business presentations are often characterised by slow moving slide shows, unreliable software and cheesy whirling squares. But Christchurch company Orly Productions hopes to change all that with a new, more engaging and extremely user-friendly business presentation platform called iPRES that it has designed to help companies communicate better and sell more.
Who it’s for: The New Zealand Transport Agency, by Clemenger BBDO Wellington and PRODIGY director Matt Palmer
Why we like it: It’s like real life, only backwards. Strangely, messing with accepted chronology and going for the good old film it in reverse approach always seems to …