Browsing: Media

News
Inspiration for breakfast: Sam Morgan helps launch pimped out Idealog (with pics)
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New cover, courtesy of DDB

Idealog was first launched six years ago and it has won best business magazine at the Magazine Awards every year since. Even so, when you’re putting out a mag focused on innovation, there’s always room for improvement, so co-founder and publisher Vincent Heeringa, ex-editor and digital boffin Matt Cooney (the NBR’s Hazel Phillips takes over in mid July), the Image Centre team and DDB, which was responsible for the cover concept and the small ad campaign, gave the old girl a good going over. The latest issue features new sections, a new lay-out, new writers and a soon-to-be-relaunched daily business news service and tablet offering, all filtered through the sieve of innovation and ideas. And to celebrate the transformation, Idealog invited Sam Morgan to speak about some of his business ventures and the importance of media that inspires New Zealanders to try turning their ideas into income.

 

News
Post-Qantas, Film and TV awards live happily ever AFTA
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They used to be called the Qantas Film and Television Awards, but after Qantas grounded all its flights (metaphorically speaking) last year for this and the Media Awards, the name of the screen industry’s night of nights has now been changed to the Aotearoa Film & Television Awards (AFTAs) and Aviso Design has created a new logo that ThinkTV chief executive Rick Friesen says better reflects the nature of the awards.

News
Woman’s Weekly gets a spruce up, but exclusive deals issue casts a pall
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It’s been a fairly interesting period for the ladies mags recently. The old battle between ACP’s Woman’s Day and NZ Magazine’s Woman’s Weekly was spiced up considerably after a few big editorial switcheroos and a hearty debate about the pros and cons of brands signing exclusive deals with publishers. Now there’s even more excitement, with Woman’s Weekly undergoing its biggest change in more than a decade. 

News
New Idea hunts for new editor as McLarin swaps gossip for good
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The weekly gossip mags haven’t had too much to celebrate recently in terms of readership. But there’s been no shortage of excitement in the rather fluid editorial ranks, with Sido Kitchin and Fiona Fraser moving from APN’s Women’s Weekly to ACP’s Woman’s Day and Sarah Stuart being brought in to replace Kitchin. Now there’s been another big shift, with Hayley McLarin deciding to step down as editor of New Idea magazine after six years at the helm for a role as communications director at CureKids. 

News
Corporate Cabs gets glossy with new in-car magazine
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Most airlines produce complimentary inflight magazines. It’s a captive audience of bored, high-value readers and this perfect publishing storm means Air New Zealand’s Kia Ora is one of the country’s most expensive magazines to advertise in. Now the same idea is being employed on the ground, with premium cab company Corporate Cabs releasing its own glossy ‘in-car’ magazine called ME, ‘your guide to a luxury lifestyle’.

News
DraftFCB gets quality, OMD gets quantity and precarious stage claims two victims at CAANZ Media Awards
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There were 730 media folk in their gladrags, a couple of unfortunate but highly comical stage mishaps, some well-received self-deprecating humour from Martin Devlin, some cheeky on-stage planking hijinks and a large sumo wrestler dishing out gongs—quite literally—at the CAANZ Media Awards last night at the Langham in Auckland. And it was DraftFCB Media and OMD that left with the biggest smiles. 

News
APN nabs ‘Grand Slam’ at Canon Media Awards
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A galaxy of industry stars gathered at Sky City on Friday night as the country’s most important and highly sought after print media accolades were dished out at the Canon Media Awards. And there were a few sore heads among the APNers on Saturday morning after they walked out with what they’re calling the ‘Grand Slam’: best website, newspaper of the year, best daily newspaper and best weekly paper.  

News
Media folk take over Auckland as Adshel Rally makes a welcome return
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It’s not every day you get to test yourself on a Segway, wax your bum crack, jump off the Sky Tower, drive maniacally around Auckland searching for bus shelters, dress up as an inmate outside a prison, almost run over one of your co-workers, ride a mechanical bull and do tequila shots at 3pm. But that’s basically what around 80 industry folk had to do last Thursday as part of the Adshel Rally. And, as you can probably see in these pictures, they appeared to love every minute of it. 

News
Ecostore and Special Group inspire warm parental fuzzies with personalised mag campaign
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Sadly, it’s something of a rarity to see examples of creativity in the world of print, especially when compared to the raft of nifty online gimmicks spewing forth. But ecostore, Special Group, Naked, Salt Interactive and ACP appear to be onto a winner with what they believe is a first: a mass-personalisation campaign that allows parents to make their child into a cover star on Little Treasures magazine.

News
UPDATED – Groove Guide calls for last drinks?
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More music media closures? Maybe not. After announcing yesterday that Groove Guide is producing its last issue, it appears several life lines have been tossed towards Tangible Media.

Publisher Vincent Heeringa is tightlipped about who and what and where.

“The announcement has flushed out a number of potential partners and …

News
TVNZ’s U exceeds expectations after posting big numbers—UPDATED
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Given the slightly difficult period youth-oriented media seems to be going through at the moment, with MTV packing up the local office, a few well-established magazines folding and MediaWorks deciding to grey up its demographics on TV3 and FOUR, there were questions about whether the decision to launch a youth-focused commercial channel called U to replace TVNZ6 was wise. Well, the first cumulative Nielsen numbers are in and TVNZ are stoked with the results, with 1,392,400 viewers—or 34 percent of Kiwis—tuning in to the new channel at some point in the four weeks ending Saturday May 14. 

News
Online ad spend feels effects of economic malaise, but continues on upward trajectory
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The IAB and its main protagonists have become quite accustomed to putting out press releases trumpeting rising online ad spend over the past few years. And, despite an expected decrease for the first quarter of 2011 in comparison to Q4 2010 as a result of the earthquake and generally unfavourable economic conditions, the worm is still heading swiftly upwards, with a 20 percent year-on-year increase and a total haul of $68 million, up from $26 million in Q1 2007. 

News
TVNZ’s cash cow gets even fatter as MasterChef ups eyeballs for season two
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It’s a funny old world. While tens of thousands of New Zealanders got overly excited about KFC’s Double Down late last week (if you want a real heart stopper of a meal, check this one out), over half a million Kiwis also tuned in to see two amateur cooks creating the exact opposite of that for the final of MasterChef. We’ve already talked about how much of a commercial juggernaut the show is for TVNZ and its owners, both because of its heavy commercial slant during the show and the ad dollars able to be raked in during the breaks, and with improved ratings numbers on the first season, that looks set to continue

News
The exclusive deals battleground heats up as publishers face off—UPDATED
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Clients signing exclusive deals with media owners is an issue we’ve been hearing about a lot recently. And it seems to have come to a head, with ACP fronting up to the Commerce Commission to defend the practice and rumours abounding of editors not attending product launches and threatening to pull editorial endorsements for companies that have signed exclusive deals with competing publishers. 

News
Herald puts pedal to marketing metal to push new motoring lift-out
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The automotive industry has had a rough time of it recently and there’s been a consolidation of automotive media in the local market, but the New Zealand Herald is obviously confident things are looking up, because it’s taken a fairly bold step and launched a comprehensive new motoring lift-out called Driven and backed it up with a big launch campaign. 

News
Lights, camera, Val Morgan movie showcase
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Last year’s domestic box office haul of $177 million was the highest ever. Cinema ad spend also increased by $2 million in 2010. And there are plenty more big blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides (3D), The Hangover Part 2, Green Lantern (3D), Cars 2 (3D) and Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (3D) set to lure the punters—and advertisers—to the movies this year. If you want to get a taste of what’s on offer, Val Morgan is extending an invite to a special cinema presentation featuring films being released from July to December, followed by some relevant trailers and the best examples of local and global 3D cinema advertising for some inspiration.

News
TVNZ ends up with egg on its face after embarrassing 60 Minutes ratings blunder
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TVNZ and MediaWorks are always competitive, as the rather confrontational comparative promo TV3 ran after the Japanese earthquake showed very clearly. But this was taken to a new level on Sunday when TVNZ sent out a press release saying 60 Minutes had “lost almost half its audience since March and almost 300,000 viewers per week since February”. Embarrassingly, the figures TVNZ used were wrong and, understandably, MediaWorks is none too pleased.

News
Listener website gets long-overdue overhaul, sticks with free content model
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APN has been focusing on upping the Herald’s game in the digital and mobile space of late, and it’s done a very good job, with a well-received and award-winning iPad App and mobile site and more on the way soon. As a result of this focus, some brands in its stable have been left behind in this regard and The Listener is a prime example of that. Well, now the website has been completely redesigned by the in-house team to bring it into the modern media era. But the advertiser-funded strategy remains—for the moment, at least. 

News
Outdoor on the up—and well before the Cup
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The Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand has released its Q1 revenue results, and the OOH sector has got out of the 2011 blocks pretty well, with gross media revenue for the industry increasing 7.1 percent ($970,000) on the same quarter last year for a total of $14.6 million.  

News
Latest radio survey shows everyone’s a winner—including radio
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The first Radio Industry Research Committee radio survey of 2011 has been released, with the Edge, Newstalk ZB and The Rock all claiming various number one station status. But, take away all the press release trickery and competitive gamesmanship and the the radio industry as a whole will be feeling pretty chuffed with a 5.1 percent increase in the number of humans tuning in to commercial radio since the last survey.

News
Nielsen launches ‘Rolls Royce of measurement systems’, publishers smack lips with excitement—UPDATED
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It was announced in September last year that Nielsen had been chosen as the preferred research supplier for the print/publishing industry until 2016 after a big global hunt for the best contender was undertaken by the snappily titled Print Media Industry Research Review Group. At the time, chairman Derek Lindsay said Nielsen’s newly pimped out Consumer and Media Insights (CMI) package would provide a big fillip for the publishing industry because it drilled down so much deeper into the data. And at the launch of the ‘new Nielsen’ yesterday, it became apparent how this “360 degree view of the media consumer” would benefit marketers, agencies and media owners. 

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. 

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