The trouble with DRMLast week we saw a vulnerability in TV3’s On Demand service exposed, forcing the broadcaster to shut down its video streaming service for…
As the recovery mission for the submerged plane thought to be holding the bodies of Eric and Kathy Hertz kicks into gear, tributes are flowing for the 2degrees chief executive—and plans have been put in place by the company to continue his mobile mission.
2Degrees says chief exec Eric Hertz and his wife on board crashed plane near Kawhia, “unlikely to have survived”.
2012 was a comeback year for the Whybin\TBWA Group after something of an annus horribilis in 2011. It put Middle-earth into New Zealand, oversaw the biggest thing in banking with the surprisingly smooth National Bank/ANZ fusion, launched the Digital Arts Network by merging Shift and Tequila\, and its PR arm Eleven won a couple of PR agency of year awards. So chief executive David Walden, who sold a few shares and began the hunt for a successor, ended the year a pretty happy chappy.
It’s been a watershed year for APN NZ, with the Herald’s shift to tabloid and the resulting campaign by DraftFCB, a new nzherald.co.nz, the launch of The Listener’s digital subscriptions and restructures of the IT, editorial and marketing departments. Chief operating officer Todd McLeay, the man who swapped the comparatively easy job of selling Lotto tickets for positioning a newspaper for the rather uncertain future, looks back on an eventful 2012.
While Volkswagen dominates overseas, research showed that Kiwis thought the brand was too cold, too bland and too European. So to change that, it invested heavily in indigenous research and advertising, launched some very successful new products and quickly went from ‘niche street to main street’. National marketing manager Denise Goodwin opines on the year that was.
YWCA’s turning of the tables, Igloo’s double Ohs, 2degrees’ Christmas push and Telecom’s mistaken identity get the vote this week.
The way traditional telcos work, you’d imagine a mobile phone network with tens of thousands of customers would have a call centre to service the inevitable service issues and enquiries. Not Giffgaff, the UK-based mobile virtual network operator that broke the traditional Telco mould by creating an entirely online service that puts much of the power into the hands of its customers. And fronting the member experience arm of the company is Kiwi lass Claire Kavanagh, who was in town last week for the Marketing Association’s Direct Marketing event. We managed to steal a moment of her time between speakers to have a chat about the unique Giffgaff model and ask whether it could be done in New Zealand.
JWT’s Angus Hennah comes home, Rachel Ellerm kicks off her new female-centric strategic consultancy Frock, Pluk continues to grow, Orcon puts its weight behind CanTeen, The PR Shop pulls a deuce, and 2degrees and TBWA\ put their Ad Impact gloves on.
Ross Goldsack re-joins Y&R as non-executive chairman, Trent Harnett joins Malcolm Phillipps at the head of 2degrees’ marketing table, Leonie Collins leaves her post at Eye and Carolyn Enting joins Mindfood.
The Commerce Commission’s 2011 telecommunications annual monitoring report shows competition among telcos is heating up—and consumers, who doubled their consumption of mobile data since last year, are getting better and more diverse deals as a result.
As part of the Ad Impact Awards, Colmar Brunton asked approximately 4000 Kiwi consumers for their thoughts on all of last year’s new brand ads and the top six were announced a couple of weeks back. But the big annual winner is 2degrees and TBWA\’s ‘Mission HQ’, which scored significantly above average across the board in all the key impact measures.
2degrees announces its new chief marketing officer, ACP names a new editor for Australian Women’s Weekly, Ellen Read shacks up with Fairfax, DraftFCB welcomes a new creative pair, Quickflix chooses its local weapon and the IAB re-launches its awards.
2degrees and TBWA\ claimed victory in the March 2011 edition of Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award with its animated ‘Bruce & Brian’ spot. And it’s come out on top again with a brand ad that trumpets the continuation of ‘the 2degrees Mission’.
Since it entered the New Zealand mobile market, 2degrees has been running regular cinema advertising and offering deals like two tickets for $22 on 2degrees Day every month. And it’s continuing that trend with a new exclusive sponsorship that was brokered by Carat, features a fairly strange ad by TBWA\ about a well-moisturised, hibernating blue bear and aims to get moviegoers to turn off their phones before the flick starts.
Larrie Moore, the founding marketing director for 2degrees, has quit the mobile operator.
As 2degrees closes in on its millionth customer, Whybin\TBWA launches its latest 60 second brand TVC for them, The Mission Continues, with the inimitable Rhys Darby.
It seems more and more mates are joining Bruce. 2degrees has announced a larger than expected growth, providing mobile services to 875,656 New Zealanders now, after two and a half years in the market. Included in this are more than 275,000 customers who brought their existing mobile numbers with them.
It’s that time of year again, the time when we’re so busy dreaming of sausages and sauvignon that, rather than write anything ourselves, we rope in some of the industry’s most vigorous cutters and dastardly thrusters to give us their $0.02 on the goods, bads and uglies of 2011. First up, TBWA\Tequila’s chief raconteur Dave Walden, whose agency has bounced back from a fairly tough ASB-related 2010 after getting its mitts on the ANZ and Tourism New Zealand accounts.
As you’re all hopefully aware, the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards were handed out last week, with Progressive Enterprises and NZ Lotteries nabbing the big ones. And to celebrate all the gamechanging bar-raising shapeshifters that won we’re going to publish a short case study each day, along with a few comments from the judges that were filmed by TVNZ. But if you can’t be arsed with just one a day, they’re all available in the latest edition of NZ Marketing and the first 20 humans to subscribe here will receive a copy of James Hurman’s new book The Case For Creativity, valued at $40.
The 2011 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards were dished out last night at the Langham in Auckland in front of around 450 industry bods and a host of game changers and bar-raisers—some well-accustomed to collecting such awards, some venturing up on stage for the first time—were announced. But it was Progressive Enterprises that came away with the most coveted award of the night for merging three of its supermarket brands into one and forging a bold new positioning based on an enhanced definition of consumer value.
In an effort to ramp up the experiential side of its comms, 2degrees recently put its PR account up for pitch. And Spark Activate came out on top, beating out a suspected list of Pead, Mango, Eleven and the incumbent Bullet.
Who’s it for: Telecom by Saatchi & Saatchi and Prodigy
Why we like it: It’s a fairly earnest, emotional affair, but it’s beautifully shot, well written and it uses a range of scenes and an accurate insight to show why so many different people are so …
2degrees came out in March saying it had gained 11 percent of the consumer market since its launch around two years ago. Now it’s gunning for New Zealand’s business customers with new plans, a new TBWA\ TV campaign featuring a dizzying array of Rhys Darbys and a man strapped to a billboard.
…as Sweet Shop director Sam Holst tastes gold at Cannes, Alt Group continues to win things, shifting PRs, MediaWorks signs up a new Breeze host, ASB’s tech guy is acknowledged for customer service innovations and 2degrees adds a couple of newbies.
Loyalty NZ’s Fly Buys programme has captured the attention of another telco after Telecom pulled out of its partnership with the rewards programme close to three years ago. 2degrees has announced it has joined up with Fly Buys to rake in some loyalty points with its ever rising number of customers.
Who’s it for: Whittaker’s Peanut Slab by Assignment Group
Why we like it: Good honest chocolate. Very good entertaining montage. And there are plenty more very funny ‘swear by the slab’ moments here.
Who’s it for: Persil and Curious Film
Why we like …
After taking out the big one at the Marketing Awards last year, selling its wares to over 580,000 customers and bringing home a few other weighty accolades in its 18 month history, 2degrees and TBWA\ are already well-accustomed to winning. And it can add another trophy to the box sitting in Rhys Darby’s attic after the new Bruce and Brian spot was judged the winner of the March edition of Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Awards.
No golds were handed out in the Radio Single category, but DDB walked away with the next best thing, a silver for its ‘Van Gogh’ commercial, which was part of the Arts Channel radio campaign for Sky TV. It was the only award handed out in the category and adds to the Silver Lion Scriptwriting award picked up by DDB last year at Cannes. Listen to it here. No golds or silvers were handed out in the Radio Campaign category, but DDB won bronze for the Arts Channel campaign (Van Gogh, Rothco and Pollock) and TBWA\Tequila followed suit with a bronze for the 2degrees campaign. Anne Boothroyd and Bigid Alkema’s Sliding Doors was voted the best radio ad of the decade for the Radio Bureau’s Grandest Orca.