Browsing: Google

News
Online advertising hits high water mark, but challenges loom
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Interactive ad revenue figures have been steadily heading upwards over the past few years in New Zealand and in the latest round of figures, the sector hit its highest ever level, with total advertising spend in Q3, 2012 of $94 million, an increase of three percent from the last quarter and an increase of five percent year-on-year. But, as you’d expect in such a rapidly developing industry, there are still a few issues to contend with, including a fall in display advertising, the use of ad blocking software and discussions around the appropriate methodology for collecting revenue data.

News
Localist ditches print, hitches wagon to mobile recommendation engine
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When Localist launched as an Auckland-only print directory, plenty of questions were raised about the rationale behind the creation of a new product that went head to head with a dominant player in what many saw as a dying industry. 18 months on and it’s still here and, confounding the sceptics, it’s still growing. But as of next week Localist will be very different and 100 percent digital.

News
Local tech company Gopher burrows into Google
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While Google’s AdWords scheme has taken plenty of wind out of the sails of print media—and traditional directory services—here and around the world, one thing Google lacks is the sales force on the ground to sell to the small to medium enterprises that make up such a big chunk of the economy. So, to remedy that, it partners up with resellers and New Zealand-based tech company Gopher has become the third local company alongside Yellow and Localist to be named as a Google AdWords premier SME partner.

News
Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney’s virtual meritocracy
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Keen to get your foot in the door at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney? As any young creative knows, one of the biggest challenges is cracking that door open. But aspiring creatives can now go inside the Sydney branch after it claimed to be the first agency in the world to team up with Google to create Saatchi Street View.

News
Crimson landslide! Thing X! Red Bull’s Rube Goldberg! Mind bender! Smell the fart! Clicks! Motorbikes! Dogs! Shots! Water! Debt! E-joy!
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Bodyform’s brilliant video response; at last, an honest corporate video; as if Red Bull Stratos wasn’t enough, the brand has to show off some more; inside Old Spice; Drambuie’s been sampling a little too much of its own product; some top class ‘what’s that smell?’ acting from Mr Pitt; Microsoft focuses on the clicks; human motorbikes; honestly, who wears an apricot shirt? New Zealand stars in the latest—and awesome—GoPro promo; who needs screens when you’ve got H²O; why the world is in debt; good GIF grief; Romney’s tax plan; and inside Google’s data centres (and its Easter eggs).

News
Rise of the white coats: Google’s Tony Keusgen on New Zealand’s digital shortcomings and the importance of combining math and magic
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While New Zealand’s international awards hauls have earned it a reputation as a hotbed of advertising creativity, Google’s New Zealand country manager Tony Keusgen believes we’ve got a lot of work to do when it comes to digital marketing and he is on a mision to get Kiwi marketers using data to inform their decisions. So how important is search? How can YouTube being harnessed? And are Kiwi marketers prepared for the brewing mobile storm?

News
Missing greatness! Food babies! Value! Britain! Goog! Sexy lollies! Death! Underground Korean hip-hop! Down under! Vocal locals! Other things!
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We can’t all be great, what could be the next logical brand extension of MasterChef, shopping like you’ve never seen it, the great David Mitchell on the not so great British public, Amstel’s nicely told tale of the tape, another stunner from the Goog, lollies are sexy, the best death scene ever, a song so addictive it is “certain to penetrate the foundations of modern philosophy”, Telstra’s Olympics promo, a man of many talents, turns out advertising is like S&M, novel greeting cards, the rather comical faces of Olympic diving, all you ever wanted to know about beards, a very bad idea, celebrating the sports Brits are good at, and something for those who love bacon to death.

News
Domain rush dominated by .Google and .Amazon
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New domains including .app, .blog, .cloud, foo, .lol, .mail and .sucks could soon be part of the fabric of the internet. And today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the governing body of the domain name system, opened up about the nearly 2,000 applications it received for new domain extensions.

News
Google remakes classic ads with modern twist
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This year, digital advertising turns 18, and it’s come a long way since the blinking banner ads of the early web. Google is a huge part of that today, of course, so it’s not surprising that the company has taken it upon itself to remix four iconic ad campaigns from the 1960s and 70s from Alka-Seltzer, Avis, Coca-Cola and Volvo.

Opinion
Is Google+ the Facebook killer?—UPDATED
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Hopefully. After one week of playing with it, I’m impressed. The ease of keeping your profile secure from certain people and being able to easily see exactly what information is displayed to who, as well as the addition of “Hang outs” and a few other features is great.

News
The gospel according to Cannes: the world’s 25 best TV ads?
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Despite continuing media fragmentation and the rise of digital, TV remains the undoubted glamourpuss of advertising. And the boffins on the Film jury at Cannes, an awards ceremony widely regarded as the gold standard for the creative industries, chose what they deemed to be the best TV ads in the world recently. So here they are, in all their glory. 

News
Tech the halls with deals and folly
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In this issue of Michael Carney’s Marketing Week, Apple’s iCloud and the apparent quest to create online gated communities, Groupon quickly ensconces itself on New Zealand’s e-commerce scene, what Australia’s daily deal code of conduct says about the maturing of this new commercial phenomenon, Google’s attempt at sharing and a cautionary tourism tale New Zealand would be wise to take heed of. 

Opinion
Google’s Karen Stocks: online video is about ‘popular’, not ‘premium’
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Winter is on the way and I find myself wondering about the media community’s craze with ‘premium content’ online. Industry executives are constantly debating the rate at which TV ad dollars will move to the web, but when it comes down to it, the advertising budgets can’t move in significant ways until the marketing and media communities fully understand and get what people are actually watching online. 

News
TV3 and Stuff remove paid search listings
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As a trade publication, there’s not much more we can add to the comprehensive media coverage of the earthquake being offered by New Zealand’s television, radio and print/online media outfits (Vicki Anderson’s take on events is particularly vivid). Obviously, industry issues are the least of everybody’s concerns when there have been so many fatalities in Christchurch and our families, friends and colleagues are going through utter hell, so first and foremost the thoughts of everyone here—and the thoughts of the industry as a whole—are with our embattled countryfolk. But the fact that TV3 and Stuff bid for Google search terms around the earthquake does raise some interesting ethical issues, particularly when the practice is frowned upon overseas. Judging by the comments on the story, some felt it was reprehensible, some felt it was kosher because the information was relevant and some even felt we were giving favourable treatment to TVNZ and nzherald.co.nz. But as of this morning, Tower was the only remaining advertiser on Google search and Stuff and TV3 had removed their paid listings, which seems to be an acknowledgment from the companies or their media agencies that doing so in the first place was bad form.

News
Acceptable or reprehensible? TV3 and Stuff buy Christchurch earthquake search terms
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When it comes to increasing eyeballs, natural disasters are, rather perversely, usually good news for media owners. But where does the line get drawn? Is it acceptable for TV3 and Stuff to bid for search terms around the Christchurch earthquake? When TVNZ has committed to commercial free broadcasts from 6pm through to 12pm tomorrow and promised to make good on any campaigns impacted by the event and Google has set up a people finder (although it also benefits from the search purchasing), it seems awfully cynical to try and benefit from the disaster. As one media insider says, “this is not a time to increase traffic through to a website through paid means”.

News
The digital decade: Google AdWords blows out ten candles
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It’s the world’s biggest and fastest auction, it handles more micro-payments than all of the world’s stock exchanges and it was deemed fairly risky when it was launched almost exactly ten years ago, both by those responsible for coming up with it and by others. So bow down and give praise to (or, if you’re in the newspaper business, swear at) the game changing advertising system known as AdWords, a system built by a team of Google engineers and salespeople who bet big on a few core insights and won. 

Opinion
Spectacles, testicles, mobile wallet, watch
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In this helping of Michael Carney’s Marketing Week: The sudden importance of mobile wallets What’s a Facebook Fan really worth? Google’s answer to publishers’ love affair with the iPad 10 ways to improve loyalty programmes Digital Funding from NZ On Air Outrageous Fortune, American-style

Opinion
Radio changes stations and social media goes pro
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In this installment of Michael Carney’s Marketing Week: What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Big corporates to social media: ‘Hey, you can actually make us money’. So how can New Zealand businesses tap into it? Virtually possible: eWestfield on the cards. Rupert Murdoch begins his paid content experiment in earnest as the timesonline.co.uk closes its doors. Close enough is not good enough when it comes to advertising, as one Christchurch car yard recently found out. Google plans its next assault. This time, music.

Opinion
McDonald’s turns on the gaydar
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This week on Wammo, Pound and Mash, fast food gets political in France; Australian cuckolds up in arms after an Ashley Madison ad gets banned; Hi-Tec ignores the laws of physics and tricks the gullible by inventing a fictional sport; and Google gets a slap in the face with a fish from one of its competitors. 

News
All hail the Goog for it is wise and all-knowing
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In news that you probably already knew, online intelligence outfit Experian Hitwise has released figures that show Google is the dominant search engine in New Zealand. But, with its recent moves to increase the focus on national search domain identity, the local arm. Google.co.nz, is on the up and is now receiving over 86 per cent of all New Zealand searches.

Opinion
E-soothsayer peers into crystal ball, sees tech future
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This week I had the pleasure of doing a repeat performance at the Marketing Association’s network of executive marketers event. Last year I gave my take on some of the things I thought were about to be big in the technology space (it’s interesting to look back on one’s predictions). And the task was just as daunting the second time around. How do you pick out just a few interesting trends from the plethora of new things available? Well, I just turned to what’s being talked about, not just things we’re on about at the moment, but things we can see a good body of evidence for internationally.

Opinion
Whinge 2.0: now available on Google
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In this week’s edition of eBuzz from the Media Counsel: The arrival of real-time Google search means whatever the twittering classes are saying about you or your company now has the potential to make it on to the front page.

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