Digital outdoor advertising again made its way into the media this week with the announcement that a gigantic billboard—the length of a football field and eight storeys tall—was about to be installed at New York City’s Times Square. The story was picked up by various mainstream publications across the world and once again served as a reminder of how hot digital screens are right now. Here in New Zealand, the adoption of digital screens has been slower, but APN Outdoor and Westpac recently added a few more glowing rectangles to Auckland.
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When StopPress recently asked players in the ondemand and subscription video on-demand (SVOD) market to share streaming stats on their top ten most popular shows, TVNZ was the only one that shared official numbers. And the reason for this is largely down to how successful the platform has been over the course of the last year. With an average of over five million streams per month, TVNZ has a great base to build on, and the broadcaster’s head of sales and marketing Jeremy O’Brien believes the service will offer more to both advertisers and viewers in 2015.
In the kitchens of L’éclair de Génie in Paris, creative brilliance is necessary, but is not by itself enough. Making the world’s best eclairs also requires careful planning, skilled judgement and a deep understanding of the medium. And the same is true of great ads, says Google’s Tony Keusgen.
To spare online shoppers the chore of scouring through scores of deals featuring massages, fairy lights and costume jewellery in the lead up to Christmas, GrabOne has launched the Giftinator, an online tool that allows users to narrow their searches to find gifts that match their interests. As New Zealand’s biggest daily deal providers, GrabOne publishes over 1,700 deals a week, which means that there might be more than 1,600 offers available on the site at any given time. And while choice is a good thing, it can be frustrating for time-pressed gift-buyers to scour through everything available to find what they want. By launching the Giftinator, GrabOne now enables customers to streamline their search for gifts in terms who the gift is for, the amount they’re willing to spend, and the age group and interests of the recipient. PLUS: we look at some of the risks that come with brands recommending items.
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.
Since Vine launched in January 2013 it’s fair to say the six-second video app has taken off. According to Vine, every month now more than 100 million people watch Vines across the web. Owned by Twitter, the social media platform boasts 1 billion views or ‘loops’ of videos every day, with the majority of users being teens. The largest age group on Vine is 18 – 20 year olds. But are Kiwi brands slower on the uptake than our global counterparts?
Spark is on a mission to win over the Kiwi masses by offering deals that match the changing habits of its audiences. This started with the telco giving its subscribers access to Spotify Premium, and it is now being continued with a new offer, dubbed Socialiser, that gives social media consumers one gig of free data per month to use via the Twitter and Facebook apps.
In the lead up to this year’s edition of McHappy Day—the signature fundraising event for the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC)—McDonald’s has launched a YouTube video that draws attention to the charitable work the organisation does to assist families who have children suffering from illnesses. The video features compilation of clips heart-wrenching clips of families living in on the Kiwi-based Ronald McDonald Houses.
At a launch event held last night at Auckland’s Snapdragon Bar, TSM NZ chief executive Rob Ellis unveiled a new mobile wallet brand, bringing fruition to a plan that was first announced over a year ago. As part of the launch, Ellis also said that the collaboration between the shareholders 2degrees, Spark, Vodafone, Paymark and banking partners ASB and BNZ would no longer be known as the TSM but rather as Semble. The main principle underpinning the Semble system is that it aims to remove the need for cards by facilitating a contactless payment system through the user’s mobile phone.
While Google messes about with a self-driving car, BMW is bringing the digital world to the driver in its newly released Connected Drive system. Already available in many parts of the globe, the onboard internet and SOS service comes standard with all new beemers in New Zealand, with optional subscriber services such as a 24/7 concierge phone service and a series of apps for integrating the car with your phone and home computer. But, um, why? Many of the features, such as GPS navigation, phone, internet and digital radio are available on all smart phones. So are AA, tow trucks and ambulances. So why not just bluetooth your brick and flick on the hands free?
Buying of ad inventory has traditionally been an esoteric art typified by Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and a continuous stream of back and forth communications. This approach created various touch points that collectively sapped the resources of media companies and slowed down the entire process. However, the emergence of programmatic buying has over the last few years expedited the process by centralising communications through innovative software solutions. One of the companies that has successfully provided such services across the Australasian market over the last few years is Adslot, but the company’s business director Stacey Perillo believes that programmatic buying in the digital space has not been quite as effective as it could’ve been. So, in an effort to streamline the process, the company has made some key changes to its offering.
Back in July another sugary treat was ushered onto Kiwi shelves, with the arrival of Sour Patch, a range of sour lollies that have been available in the US since the late 1970s. As with most candy brands, the marketing has been geared at younger consumers, and for this reason Sour Patch has partnered with creative agency Young & Shand, media agency Carat and PR agency Beat Communications to develop a digitally powered campaign that aims to appeal to Generation Z (those born in the mid or late 1990s).
The tendency of diners to take snapshots of their meals has become almost ritualistic in its frequency. It has become the pre-meal prayer of the digital age, an unwritten rule that no food will be touched until the formality of prerequisite photography has been completed. And although this does little more than annoy those who go to restaurants for food rather than photo shoots, one Auckland restaurant is experimenting with the concept in an effort to drive online engagement. As part of its birthday celebration, Miss Clawdy is offering (ends after Sep 28), every diner a free cupcake when they show proof of an Instagram post of its birthday cupcake (check out our other Miss Clawdy article).
References to the rapid growth of online and mobile ad spend in the industry have been so ubiquitous in recent months that they’ve become something of a media cliché. And with this growth in revenue has come an inevitable attempt on the part of online media owners to get a piece of this burgeoning pie. And nowhere is this more evident than in the online radio market, which, despite its relative infancy in the local market, is starting to catch the attention of Kiwi advertisers due to its resonance with the mobile-hungry youth market. So, given that there have been some interesting moves made by the major players, StopPress decided to take a look at what they’re doing to get in on the action.
The appetite for content marketing is growing rapidly, with much of it happening in the digital space. Many brands have invested in their own content marketing teams and platforms. Publishers like Fairfax, APN and Tangible Media all have their own content marketing teams working on both digital and print. And agencies of all stripes are also trying to make hay while the sun shines by filling up the variety of channels consumers now use. Now Brendan Jarvis and Ron Sneddon have joined the fray with Story, a standalone business that has a “laser-like focus” on digital content marketing.
Microsoft Surface New Zealand is jumping aboard the street art wagon, collaborating with FCB and renowned Kiwi street artists BMD to produce a bromance-y video showing the creative possibilities of the Surface Pro 3. The video kicks off a “purely social” campaign to be rolled out over the coming three months.
Following on from last week’s announcement that Yahoo had updated its website with features that allow for greater personalisation, MSN has now similarly given its homepage a facelift. And althought the website has not yet been officially released, Kiwis can catch a glimpse of the changes by visiting the preview site. StopPress takes a look at what the update will offer users and advertisers in the near future.
Since its launch only two years ago, Wellington-based tech start-up Showcase Workshop has grown quickly, picking up major Kiwi clients such as Spark, NZTE, Z Energy and The Warehouse, and now the company is expanding into Europe after winning a new client in Vodafone UK.
Following on from a global rollout at the end of last year, Yahoo New Zealand’s homepage too has relaunched in the new format, with personalised content for New Zealand users and sweet new functionality for advertisers.
Last night, at an event hosted at the Mental Health Foundation in Auckland, Google announced to 70 representatives from 50 Kiwi not-for-profit organisations that it will give eligible New Zealand charities and community organisations free access to advertising and technology worth $120,000 in each case per year.
Interactive advertising has just had its biggest quarter ever according to the latest IAB/PwC report – total spend in New Zealand was $142.37 million, the second quarter up 24 percent year-on-year.
As part of an experiment to gauge the utility and efficacy of the technology, Vanilla Brief Director Ben Slater has had an NFC-enabled RFID chip inserted into his left hand. PLUS: see what other tech-related project he is currently involved with.
After a competitive pitch, Dentsu Aegis-owned iProspect has won the digital media account for Bigpipe, a stripped down naked broadband offering that’s part of Spark Ventures. Plus: chief executive Rod Snodgrass on the thinking behind the Spark Ventures strategy.
As the greasing up kicks into high gear for the upcoming election, there are a range of digital tools being put to use, either to tempt youngsters out to vote, give guidance or join parties. Here are a few of them.
Back in the day, the Yellow Pages ruled. Business names were sometimes based on where they would end up in the book (that’s why there are so many accommodation options starting with A and the Krasilovky Brothers of New York took that to extremes with their long-running listing battle). But for many consumers the online realm is a much more efficient way of finding businesses and Google has taken its toll on the print-based directories and forced them to find new revenue streams. So why are there still so many online business directories in operation?
Big Pipe, Telecom Digital Ventures’ naked broadband offering, officially launched a few months back and, to draw attention to its offer, it recently asked its followers to have a bit of fun with its logo for the chance to win some loot. Here are some of the results.
Tango is moving away from being a full services agency creating brand campaigns to a marketing services company that will provide digital services to medium-sized businesses who want to grow. And managing director Boyd Wason says it’s more than just tinkering with a logo.
Bauer-owned Home magazine has updated its website, giving it a slick new online abode that’s more befitting of the stylish print publication.
A $700,000 investment by Japanese internet marketing company Opt is sparking quick growth there for Kiwi social media business Shuttlerock.
On Monday, APN Media launched TrueCommercial, a digital hub dedicated to commercial property and ‘businesses for sale’ listings. For the most part, the initiative serves as an online extension of the Herald’s Commercial Property section, which has until now been published twice a week. The section, which according to Nielsen has a readership of approximately 138,000 Kiwis, will now also be rebranded TrueCommercial from 6 August to give the offering uniformity across the print and digital channels. But how does it differ from the services already offered by Trade Me and RealEstate.co.nz. Updated with additional comments from TrueCommercial brand manager Maria Zolezzi.