Apparently, data is the new oil. But, just like oil, data needs to be refined to be useful. And Dot, a ten-strong Wellington company that mixes analytics with storytelling is doing just that in an effort to find influencers, reduce churn and even beat the bookies.
Nielsen has released its annual list of the top ten websites Kiwis visited over the course of December. And while the list was populated by the usual suspects, there were a few surprises in terms of the year-on-year changes for some of the websites.
More than 80 percent of a worldwide research panel (including over 3,000 advertisers, marketers, service providers and technology developers across 17 countries, including New Zealand) said that data plays an important role in supporting their respective efforts. And 92 percent said they expect data to contribute even more substantially to their advertising and marketing efforts over the coming years.
A battle is raging between online advertisers and those who don’t want to be followed on the Web, and New Zealand news websites are harbouring a surprising amount of trackers. Journalists and privacy experts have recently been pointing the finger at news websites as some of the worst offenders when it comes to collecting people’s data without any formal disclosure. Much of this is happening through online ‘trackers’, hidden pieces of code in websites that track how a user clicks, or even hovers, on a site.
Immediately after the results were published, both sides of the network divide sent out media releases that seemed to use hyperbolic phrasing in lieu of punctuation and cherry-picked at the positive results served up by the survey. But it didn’t end there. Once the radio survey was covered by the media, the networks turned their attention to promoting the results not only to the public, but also to the media agencies and clients that are likely to advertise on radio. We take a look at how MediaWorks and NZME are celebrating their wins through advertising.
This week, data specialists Nielsen and Roy Morgan both unveiled new data segmentation approaches that will see the insights they provide take on a more granular form. And in a rather uncharacteristically quirky move, both organisations have given their respective strategies somewhat interesting monikers.
Marketers have more access to information and research about their customers than ever before. And more than ever they’re relying on it (and only it) to make decisions. But that’s risky, says Todd McLeay.
Former Wall Street security analyst, venture capitalist and all-round data genius Mary Meeker recently published her 2014 internet trends presentation on the KPCB website. Comprising 164 slides of dense data, the voluminous analysis of the industry provides an interesting cross-section of the major trends taking shape this year.
Kiwi companies investing in big data need to ask themselves some tough questions, says Greg Doone.
A data-driven marketing approach is becoming an ever more obvious business need. But tackling the challenge in your own organisation can seem daunting. Ubiquity’s Nathalie Morris shows us how to get started.
In an increasingly connected world, it’s not just about big data. It’s about big, useful, responsibly-collected data that can be used to make customers’ lives easier. And brands that don’t start earning their data will eventually lose out to those that do, says Christopher Dawson.
For the past week, Contagion’s Tom Bates has been hangin’ with the geeks and soaking up the knowledge at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. And while he was there he caught up with a few expat Kiwis doing big things. First up, Sarah Robb O’Hagan.
Contagion’s Tom Bates headed to the #ArtCopyCode session with Google’s marketers at SXSW. So here are some practical examples of how they help brands bring data and insight to life in today’s digital world.
More detailed Census information is being released at the end of March. Critchlow’s Tim Ryan shows you how to harness its power.
Telecom is catering for growing data use as Kiwis report live from big summer events and hotspots. And they find uploads and downloads are growing in parallel, with faster networks allowing the trade of richer content.
Kiwis are using internet plans with bigger data caps and better connection quality, with a high fibre diet and the mobile web driving growth in online. That’s according to Statistics New Zealand, which says more than three quarters of broadband connections now have data caps of 20GB or more.
Radio streaming service Pandora may be a music company, but it’s also a business built on data.
At the heart of that data is the Music Genome Project. Twelve years in the making, it’s a big part of how the company decides how it will serve up your next song.
It’s not ‘Big Data’ you should be worried about, says Dave Mansfield. It’s ‘Bad Data’.
Kim Dotcom’s cloud locker service Mega came under sustained cyber attack yesterday, which affected the New Zealand-based cloud company’s services for about 2.5 hours.
From data marketing to numerical storytelling, the legal considerations related to ‘cloud’ data, semantic search technologies and population dynamics, the various permutations of data are changing the digital game. Dennis Kibirev digests the MA’s Smarter Data event.
Back in the day, as those with a bit of length to the tooth might tell you, gold dust could be found in advertising in general as it was something of a mystery to those paying the bills. Then marketers went to school and eventually figured it out, which seemed to spell the end of going to lunch at 12 and not coming back. Digital and data are where much of the gold dust seems to be these days, as evidenced by the types of acquisitions international holding companies are making and the types of agencies that are growing rapidly. And in New Zealand, where there’s a bit of a digital skill shortage, expertise in this field is especially sought after, so indie agency Affinity ID is understandably stoked to have secured the services of Greg Doone, a Kiwi who has worked in the digital industry for over 15 years and has returned home from the UK to take up the role of general manager – discovery and development.
If knowledge is power, Lillian Grace wants to put a sword in every New Zealander’s hand using collaborative data and infographics through Wiki New Zealand.
Whereas previously data analytics was confined to the laboratories of marketing research agencies, it is now becoming as commonplace in a marketing department’s arsenal of weapons as A/B testing and the now-ubiquitous brand blog. And a trio of New Zealand’s leading corporate marketers from BNZ, Farmers and Telecom shared their recent experiences of turning data interrogation into a competitive advantage at this year’s last DAN Dialogue event.
One fairly accurate definition of a brand is the sum of all conversations it has with its customers, from the advertising to the call centre and everything in between. And Chemistry, a new agency launched by Joseph Silk from Silk Communications, Andrew Mitchell from Magnet Customer Attraction and Mike Larmer, formerly head of marketing at Mercury Energy and before that managing director of Whybin\TBWA’s direct and digital arm Tequila, thinks there’s a gap in the landscape for an agency that understands the confluence of creativity and technology and can help clients take customer experience marketing to the next level.
Following a story in the Herald over the weekend about increased competition leading to a drop in broadband prices and increases in data allowances, new player Flip, a business in the CallPlus group of companies, and its agency Sugar&Partners decided to take the opportunity to link itself with the news and promote its offer of free* broadband with an ad in yesterday’s Herald.
In response to an article in yesterday’s Herald based around the fact that New Zealanders have little idea about how their personal information is collected and sold by ‘data brokers’, the Marketing Association’s chief executive Sue McCarty outlines the ways the local marketing community is balancing the protection of consumers’ rights with the right of marketers to add to their business’s success.
PHDiQ’s Brendan Hewitt was one of two winners in Yahoo! New Zealand’s inaugural Digital Stars programme. And this opinion piece on the future of the digital realm earned him a trip to Ad:Tech in Sydney next year.
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.
“And the winner is… no one.” That was the result for the top prize at this year’s Nexus Awards after the judges scratched their data-weary heads and decided New Zealand’s best data work wasn’t good enough to justify the big prize. There was lots of talk about standards to maintain and excellence required and all the rest of it. But the bottom line is: we went backwards. We all got together to celebrate the best data thinking of 2011 and our standout result was “please try harder”.
DraftFCB was told it had won the Vodafone account on Friday afternoon. And as if that wasn’t enough good news for one day, it also won the Grand Prix at the RSVP and Nexus Awards that night for the Electricity Authority’s What’s My Number? campaign.