Danushka Abeysuriya is a geek-turned- adept-businessman, whose smartphone video game development company Rush Digital, founded in 2010, now has 20 staff, turned over more than $1 million in 2013, and has clients across in Europe, the US and Australia. This is the story behind the success.
For the third year running, Tourism New Zealand has reworked its ‘more magic every day’ campaign in a bid to attract Aussie skiers across the ditch for a winter holiday. The latest iteration of the ongoing campaign by Whybin\TBWA Sydney sees the Kiwi tourism body partner with Air New Zealand, Flight Centre, Instagram and the ski industry in New Zealand to drive holiday visitor numbers. And while Tourism New Zealand has previously collaborated with the other parties, this marks the first time that the organisation has partnered with Instagram to promote New Zealand through paid imagery and video content. PLUS: StopPress chats to Tourism New Zealand director of marketing Andrew Fraser about the organisation’s digital strategy.
Despite the rapid progression and expansion of all that is digital, with even five-year-olds owning iPads these days, television still remains the most dominant form of video consumption in New Zealand, according to a New Zealand multi-screen report issued by Nielsen. And, even more surprising, is that report shows television isn’t only the most popular video-viewing platform, but that its use is also increasing.
What is looking at our inbox and phone hundreds of times a day doing to our heads and, importantly, what does this ‘hyperstimulation’ mean for attention spans, cognition and brand recall? Saatchi & Saatchi senior digital strategist Ian Hulme found out at a SXSW session run by Hey Human called ‘Neuroplasticity and Tech – Why brands have to change’.
Fairfax has actively been tweaking its strategy to facilitate better digital storytelling. This has included a recent update of its content management system, training journalists on how to film video on their smartphones, investing in an experiential and events unit, running digital marketing campaigns, and purchasing stakes in Neighbourly and Pricemaker. Now, off the back of yesterday’s ASA report showing that newspaper ad spend had dropped year on year by $25 million, Fairfax has announced a series of changes that will introduce more digital-centric approach to its news service. And these changes include news of the proposed de-establishment of seven editors’ jobs and the introduction of 12 other senior positions.
Last year, the WWF and the Zoological Society of London released a report saying that Earth had lost half its wildlife in the past 40 years. It was a harrowing statistic and there are many more creatures in a perilous state. So, Species in Pieces, a very clever online interactive exhibition, aims to raise awareness about 30 of them.
Buzzfeed got a group of people together and made a video of them sampling chocolate from five different countries. The aim was that the participants had to guess the chocolate’s origin according to the taste. And yes, you’d be pleased to know, Pineapple Lumps got a well-deserved mention.
Contagion’s Tom Bates pinpoints some of the early key trends emerging at the event.
Consumers don’t make a distinction between digital and traditional when it comes to marketing content, says Paul Catmur. So why should the industry?
Active in the Kiwi market since 2011, ditial marketing software provider Kenshoo recently announced the launch of a mobile display channel service in partnership with AppNexus, a company that facilitates more than 16 billion ad buys through real-time bidding every day. And following on from this, the company has also brought together all its software under a single platform called Infinity Suite.
NZME’s flagship lifestyle brand Viva comes as a separate magazine inside the Herald. And now it also comes as a separate website, viva.co.nz.
According to Spark Home, Mobile and Business chief executive Chris Quin, fewer than 40 percent of small businesses have a website. And of those that do, only a quarter have a website that’s mobile responsive. So, in an effort to remedy this problem, Spark has released new promotion that offers business customers 24 months’ access to a Putti mobile-responsive website.
oOh! media has further embraced the digital age by expanding its network of retail digital assets across New Zealand after securing long-term contracts with key shopping centres. Updated with some thoughts from oOh! Media chief executive Brendon Cook.
Advertising agency netplus is sharing the love with its clients—past, present and future—by resurrecting the cultural phenomenon that was the mix tape. The agency embarked on a Valentine’s mission to cosy up to its clients by launching a website called ‘mixplus’, a digital interface where clients the agency loves, clients its lost and clients it wants can select different mix tapes after which the appropriate ’80s tunes (sourced via SoundCloud) sing out from the computer.
The IAB has just released its latest quarterly update and it shows another sizeable rise in digital ad spend in New Zealand. Standard Media Index (SMI), which calculates ad spending trends based on the data from media agencies, also shows a steady rise. And its breakdown of the category shows the key growth areas in digital.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau of New Zealand (IABNZ) has released the Q4 figures for 2014 and, somewhat unsurprisingly, the results again showed growth in the channel. In Q4, advertising revenue in the digital channel reached $168 million, marking a 32 percent increase from the figure posted a year ago, bringing the full-year total to $589 million. And while there was good news across the board, this wasn’t the case for display advertising, which slipped from the figures posted in 2013.
Kiwi-owned travel management company Orbit Corporate travel has launched a new mobile app, which aims to alleviate the stress of business travel, enabling travellers to save time and have secure access to all itinerary details with real-time notifications of any changes to booking.
Mat Yurow, the associate director, audience development, at The New York Times, wrote a great piece on Medium recently about the publishing industry’s “iTunes moment”. And it could be argued that TV is having an iTunes moment of its own as viewers are increasingly able to consume the shows (or, increasingly, the sports) they’re interested in on their own terms, online, and without the need for a channel brand or an all-you-can-eat subscription. TVNZ is embracing that change with its soon-to-be-updated Ondemand platform. And we had a preview to see what’s instore.
In a world where teenagers and adults alike seem to be checking their mobile devices every few minutes (or seconds), ignoring your compelling conversation to scroll aimlessly down their Facebook newsfeeds, uploading selfies to Instagram or sending the odd Tweet, it comes as no surprise that social media sites are an excellent platform for advertising. And a few big brands in New Zealand have now started using image and video-sharing mobile app Snapchat as a marketing tool. Here’s what Spark, Vodafone, ASB, Skinny Mobile and a few others have been up to.
Last year, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) exhibited its interest in digital technology with the production of the Force Fit app, which provided a very modern solution to the growing problem of unfitness among young people. But the NZDF doesn’t only dabble in digital technology for the purposes of marketing. The military organisation also sees it as integral to the sovereignty and safety of New Zealand. So, given the changing landscape, StopPress recently chatted to a spokesperson at the National Cyber Policy Office about the government’s approach to digital security.
Tom Uglow works on the periphery of the advertising industry, bringing ideas that exist only in the imagination into the real world. Based at the Google offices in Sydney, he has already lent his creative touch to innovative projects such as The Cube, and he says there’s much more to come.
Taking the beep test is something of a rite of passage for many young Kiwis. And Heart Kids and Method have put a modern, cricket-based spin on it in an effort to raise awareness of the charity.
MYOB’s chief technology officer Simon Raik-Allen has in his publication, Future of Business Report – New Zealand 2040, speculated on what the future will look like—and, apparently, there are quite a few surprise on the horizon.
Arran Birchenough, the country manager for Getty Images in New Zealand, shares some insights on how brands can find that stock image sweet spot that lies somewhere between the generic and the overly contrived.
Conventional knowledge will tell you that the Super Bowl involves an esoteric American game in which an egg-shaped ball is thrown around for a ridiculously long period of time. But everyone in the advertising industry knows that this isn’t what it’s about. It’s actually about the ads.
In an increasingly digital, ephemeral world, tangibility still has power. And MEA Mobile’s photo printing app Printicular is profiting from that. PLUS: Other companies bringing online and offline closer together.
From sophisticated computers and apps in our pockets or purses to beautiful display canvasses in the street, shopping malls, airports, universities and even convenience stores and bus stops, all connected via the cloud, Aerva’s Sanjay Manandhar says the digital planets are set to align this year.
Where do creative types find their inspiration? New research by Adobe shows it’s increasingly in the online realm. PLUS: the creative skills deemed to be most in-demand in 2015.
Every year around this time, banks attempt to grease up the young’uns heading off to expand/erode their minds at University. But banks are rarely at the top of the priorities list at this stage of life and erecting a makeshift tent and handing out branded pens at a festival or over Orientation Week just doesn’t cut it anymore. So ASB is running a Snapchat campaign called Snap Scholarships—replete with the obligatory prizes—to try and lure them in.
To succeed in the digital world, you need to focus on what the audience wants as well as what your business needs. And editors straddle that line well, says Mark Glenn.