Ever since Spark unveiled its new brand, it has worked hard to redefine itself as an innovative and nimble organisation capable of appealing to Kiwis across all demographics. And given that many within its target market are shifting their media consumption to the digital space, this has seen Spark follow the audience by releasing some major digital plays over the last year. And Kate Thomas, a senior communications manager at the telco, says this is only the start of the journey.
Browsing: Jason Paris
Over the past five years, chief executive Nicky Bell, the recently departed Antonio Navas, head of planning Murray Streets and many others have helped Saatchi & Saatchi regain some of its former glory after what they all admit was a fairly rough patch. It’s won some big accounts, it’s put a few big awards on the mantelpiece and it’s lured a few big names across its newly renovated offices on The Strand. But due to a reduction in client spend—particularly from Spark—and an evolution in the kind of work the agency is being asked to do, it has had to restructure the business.
Industry happenings at Spark, NZME, Dentsu Aegis, MediaWorks, Icebreaker, Pure SEO and Vega.
Changes at NZME, Bauer, TVNZ, Omnicom Media Group, bFM and The Breeze.
We asked some stalwarts a simple question. Here’s what Jason Paris, general manager of home, mobile and business at Spark, had to say.
For the first time in New Zealand, Spark and Spotify have teamed up to bring together #MyFestivalStory, which will provide those going to Rhythm & Vines or Rhythm & Alps with a personalised digital snapshot of their experience through RFID technology.
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.
Following its identity change on Friday, Spark released its first ad campaign over the weekend. Dubbed ‘never stop starting’ and created by Saatchi & Saatchi NZ, the campaign’s first 60-second TVC brings the imagery used in the teaser posters to life by featuring a protagonist walking toward and talking to the camera. As the ad progresses, the actor takes on a variety of different characters and speaks about the importance of starting anew.
27 years ago, Telecom was given its name. Today it’s officially giving itself a new one. As one of the country’s biggest ever rebrands rolls off the production line, we talk internal enthusiasm, teaser campaigns, customer sentiment, competitive responses and man-hole covers with Spark’s general manager of home, mobile and business Jason Paris and Spark Digital’s general manager services and solutions Jo Allison.
As Telecom poises to jettison its three-syllable moniker for the punchier Spark title, it’s worth looking at Vodafone’s 1998 rebrand that saw the company change its nationwide identity almost overnight, a move that is today considered by some as one of the best examples of rebranding in the nation’s history.
Telecom and Designworks unveiled Telecom’s new spark logo in 2009, and the move to fully rebrand as Spark—and change the orientation of the business from home phones and dumb pipes to a technology company and business enabler—has been out in the open for a few months. But now it actually has to make the change, and it’s taken the first, very symbolic step by removing the name from its HQ in Auckland.
Telecom has announced that it will emerge as Spark on 8 August. But the powers that be say the new name is just one aspect of the company’s transformation into “a confident, forward-looking technology company”. In an edited version of an article originally published in the May/June edition of NZ Marketing, Ben Fahy looks at the thinking behind one of the country’s biggest-ever—and most controversial—rebrands and the important role chief operating officer Jason Paris played in the process.
Just as the intertubes lit up with opinions when Telecom launched its spark logo back in 2009, so the intertubes are again abuzz with today’s news that Telecom was planning on changing its name change to Spark. Here’s what chief operating officer Jason Paris had to say about it.
Telecom has made some big changes this year—both internally and to its agency structure. And there’s time for another big one before Christmas, with general manager of brand, communications and digital Kellie Nathan set to depart in February after taking on the job of general manager of marketing at Pumpkin Patch.
There have been some massive changes inside Telecom recently, with chief executive Simon Moutter announcing a restructure that plans to axe between 930 to 1280 jobs by the middle of this year a few months back. And as a direct result of the decision to reduce the headcount, it has outsourced a few previously internal functions and appointed Clemenger Group-owned Touch/Cast.
Telecom wants New Zealanders to be savvier with their technology, starting with viewers of One News. The country’s largest telco is launching a series of new TV spots called Tech in a Sec, to help Kiwis figure out their damn-fangled devices.
Telecom has reorganised its agency partners and shifted its media business from Starcom to a newly-created, Omnicom-owned ‘integrated data-driven hub’ called Dynamo that will take care of all its media planning, media buying, direct marketing planning and analytics.
Steve Bayliss had the Midas marketing touch at Air New Zealand and he seems to have transferred it to his role as group general manager of marketing at Foodstuffs, with the Pak ‘n Save brand continuing its top form and New World getting a long overdue—and almost universally applauded—refresh.
Judging by the opinions we’ve heard from industry chinstrokers about Telecom and Saatchi & Saatchi’s new Tommy & Boris campaign, you’re either in the ‘awwwwww, turtles and a cute kid’ camp, or the ‘pfffff, turtles and a cute kid?’ camp. But who cares what they think, because the hoi polloi are quite taken with the new duo and it was voted the country’s favourite advertisement in August in an online Colmar Brunton poll of 1000 Kiwis.
The ‘new Telecom’ carries with it a fair bit of baggage, some of it well-deserved and based on its legacy, some of it based on misperceptions and a general lack of understanding about the oft-confusing telco realm. And in an effort to address some of those issues, Telecom has taken the fairly brave step of opening itself up to the masses and launching a new website called www.whytelecom.co.co.nz that’s part PR campaign, part customer service innovation and part public service announcement. And, in quintessential Telecom fashion, it’s gone heavy on the animals.
Telecom’s Tommy and Boris campaign has been going great guns but while the masses are busy fawning over Tommy and his cute turtle, elsewhere Telecom is busy rallying up young’uns in school to spread the word on the potential of ultra fast broadband (UFB). Its Amazing Ideas Search (AIS) was launched last month, inviting pupils across the country to consider what UFB will make possible in the future and what that future may look like.
We had a chat with Telecom’s chief marketing officer Jason Paris yesterday for a profile that will feature in the next edition of NZ Marketing magazine and he said one of the best things about the new Tommy and Boris work is the fact that everyone thinks it’s a brand campaign. That’s understandable, given the set-up ad is the only one that has been released so far. But it’s actually a retail platform that’s being used to promote different aspects of the Telecom business. And the first examples of that strategy were launched last night, with one spot focusing on ‘New Zealand’s best pre-paid pack’ and another classy number showing some of the lesser known benefits of broadband.
It would seem only those with a heart of stone could fail to be swayed by Telecom’s latest brand campaign starring excitable eight-year-old Tommy and his new turtle friend Boris. We reckon it’s one of the best ads of the year and it sees Telecom heading back to its heartland territory of connectivity and New Zealandness. Here’s what chief marketing officer Jason Paris had to say about the thinking behind the campaign—and the state of the company.
Around this time last year there was a glut of ‘manvertising’. And this year it seems as though cute kids are de rigueur, with Civil Defence, Z and Pink Batts all recently enlisting a few young’uns to tell their stories. Now Telecom can be added to that list, because it’s gone back to what it knows best with a great ode to connection featuring a lovable frontman Tommy and his ‘turtle of few words’ Boris.
Following in the footsteps of Jason Paris, who shifted from TVNZ to take up the role of MediaWorks TV chief executive, TVNZ’s director of sales and marketing Paul Maher has switched sides after almost two years to become the new chief executive of television at MediaWorks. But that’s not all he’ll have on his plate, because as well as leading TV3, TV3+1, FOUR and C4, he will also assume the responsibilities of the outgoing director of sales for MediaWorks TV, Linda Farrelly.
With shareholders voting overwhelmingly in favour of splitting Telecom in two at the annual general meeting recently, the fall out from the “Abstain for the Game” campaign and the appointment of new marketing boss Jason Paris, change is most definitely in the wind for Telecom at the moment. And it’s thought the first phase of that change is cranking into gear.
He’s been on gardening leave since his surprise resignation from the role of chief executive at MediaWorks TV in June. And now it’s been announced that Jason Paris will take over the role of chief marketing officer at Telecom, replacing the outgoing Keiren Cooney, who took a big media battering over the Abstain for the Game campaign and is set to take up the role of chief communications officer with the National Broadband Network company in Australia.
MediaWorks has announced that television chief executive Jason Paris, who has been in the role for just over a year after shifting across from TVNZ, has resigned.
The latest TV viewership figures for March are out and, amid the many regularly overused adjectives (primarily staggering, dramatic, massive and all-important), both warring parties are, as per usual, claiming victories, with TVNZ’s news audience increasing substantially and MediaWorks trumpeting a big rise in more lucrative eyeballs since the launch of FOUR. And while there’s always a bit of press release-based argy bargy when these numbers are set loose, it’s pistols at dawn when it comes to the morning news figures.
Three weeks into its run, 3 News: Firstline may be the network’s first morning show to find the yellow brick road. StopPress understands that earlier this week 3 News: Firstline ratings rested around the 18,000 mark compared to the approximate 140,000 boasted by TNVZ’s breakfast. While …