One of the key themes at last week’s Ad:Tech conference was that mobile is the new digital and New Zealand is behind the rest of the world in following consumers there. And Pandora’s Melanie Reece says it’s time marketers closed the gap.
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Yesterday, we reported that FCB was the only Kiwi agency shortlisted in the Mobile category for its ‘Food Photos Save Lives’ campaign for UNICEF. Well, the good news for the agency didn’t end there, because it was announced overnight that the campaign had picked up a silver gong at the coveted festival. PLUS: see which Brazilian campaign won the grand prix.
There are a number of factors that have come together to help shape the key digital trends for the year ahead, says Theresa Clifford. The move to the Cloud over the past three years has revolutionised technology, mobile has become the new platform of choice and the introduction of social media channels has brought with it the need for multi-channel engagement strategies. And, to paraphrase Charles Darwin, it is not the smartest or cleverest that will survive in this digital age, it will be those organisations that are most open to change.
Findings from InMobi’s Mobile Insights Report Q3 show Apple remains the dominant force in the New Zealand market, with 42 percent of total impressions, a nine percent increase from last quarter. But there are also positive signs for Android, climbing five percent to take 34 percent of the total market share. PLUS: infographic action.
54 percent of Kiwi online shoppers now own a smartphone, according to PwC. And thanks to the search engines in their pockets they are likely to know things about your market before you do. This should put the mobile customer experience near the top of the to-do list for many companies and the MA’s September Brainy Breakfast, which, for the first time in several years will also be held in Wellington, focuses on five key mobile experience trends that will help get you up with the play.
Independent mobile advertising network InMobi has released its latest New Zealand Mobile Insights Report, showing Apple’s iOS platform has overtaken Android for the first time and a 78 percent increase in tablet impressions on the InMobi network over the past three months.
Using your phone as a payment device is something that’s been talked about for years but rapidly increasing smartphone uptake means it is now starting to come to fruition in New Zealand. ASB and TSB have recently come out with updated mobile payment technology, and plenty of other companies like Swipe HQ, Google and MasterCard have their own iterations hoping to render the wallet an anachronism. Now ANZ has upped its activity in this space as well with a Facebook campaign by Tequila\ that aims to drive new registrations for its goMoney iPhone app.
The buzz about mobility just keeps getting louder but many clients are still working out what the rapid uptake of the technology means for their business and how they can use it to their advantage. So out-of-home media company Eye is aiming to make things a bit easier for them and get their content onto consumers’ phones with the new technology-agnostic Amplify platform, “the world’s largest mobile enabled digital out-of-home network”.
Depending on how you look at it, second screening is either breathing new life into live broadcasts and showing TV is about shared experiences, or offering proof that viewers aren’t really paying full attention to what’s on the box. Either way, it’s proving fairly popular in New Zealand, with a new survey of 482 smartphone users released by IABNZ and 3DI showing that 63 percent of them are simultaneously using their smartphones and watching TV.
Smartphone penetration is now thought to be around 30 percent in New Zealand, and that number is increasing rapidly. So Countdown has jumped on the mobile bandwagon and upped the ante in terms of customer experience by launching what it’s calling a New Zealand-first iPhone app that features a digital shopping list and barcode scanning technology, as well as the ability to check prices, find recipe ingredients, collect loyalty points and shop online.
The Commerce Commission’s 2011 telecommunications annual monitoring report shows competition among telcos is heating up—and consumers, who doubled their consumption of mobile data since last year, are getting better and more diverse deals as a result.
First they gave the All Blacks a sausage and now Brandspank has brought a new meaning to the term digital marketing with a campaign to launch Sky’s new Android mobile app.
TSB has a stellar record when it comes to customer service and customer satisfaction, and it is, as its advertising says, New Zealand’s most recommended bank. And its latest innovation aims to enhance the banking experience even further with an impressive—and significant—new mobile banking app called {my}bank that was more than one year in the planning, comes complete with Bump technology and employed the branding and design services of Special Group.
Mobile advertising in New Zealand is very much in its infancy. But, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s new global mobile anthology, which provides insights into different countries’ experiences with mobile media, it has enormous potential for growth and with the significant increase in smartphone penetration in recent years to around 30 percent of all handsets and the increase in mobile internet usage, the local IAB office is predicting more media dollars being spent on this channel in the near future.
Aegis recently announced its official arrival on the local scene after the merging of Carat and Mitchells. And now it’s announced the local launch of bespoke consumer study, the Consumer Connection System (CCS), which provides insights into how consumers choose and use media in an effort to better connect them with brands.
After launching in January, giving away a new car to one person who signed up and doing a fair bit of promotion through MediaWorks’ channels, over 43,000 smartphone users have downloaded the Pluk app, which claims to offer an added level of interaction between brands and consumers and was developed by local company Foxtrot Media. And, after the first Pluk-enabled TV commercials went live this week, Foxtrot’s managing director Boyd Wason is fairly chuffed with the initial results—and so, he says, are the first clients Holden, InsureMe, Subway and Roadshow.
Although mobile research is sometimes considered the new kid on the research block, it has actually been available to researchers for a decade. In fact, the first SMS mobile survey was conducted by Ipsos twelve years ago. Despite this, development of the methodology has been very slow across the industry and even today mobile surveys account for less than 1.5 percent of global industry revenue. However, mobile research is ready to become a key tool in researchers’ (and thus marketers’) toolkits, with the industry predicting mobile surveys via SMS, mobile internet and mobile applications will be the biggest areas for potential growth this decade. So understanding the opportunities and developing the right techniques is the recipe for success.
Following in the footsteps of Facebook Deals, Groupon Now and other large deal-providers offering location-specific discounts in real-time, GrabOne has launched its version in New Zealand, Instant. And, on the same day, Flossie.com has also relaunched itself as “a quiet-time appointment channel for the hair and beauty industry” in an effort to tap into the burgeoning deal-hunting consumer movement.
Mobile devices are basically seen as a necessity these days and, like a dog without its bone, there’s almost nothing more depressing than seeing a modern human try to function without its phone. For marketers, these devices offer some very exciting creative possibilities, and MediaWorks has jumped on the ‘social TV’ bandwagon and released what it believes is a world-first smartphone app called Pluk that uses audio recognition technology to deliver content from the TV straight to the user’s phone.
As far as first world problems go, searching for a scoop of hokey pokey on the summer roadtrip and discovering the store you stop at doesn’t do cones is right up there. It just doesn’t feel right if it’s not dripping down your arm and smothered all over your face. Thankfully, Tip Top and Colenso are attempting to remedy this with the new Scoop app, which gives ice-cream fiends the coordinates of their closest roller.
The latest numbers for newspapers have just been released and, according to Nielsen, readership levels for all dailies via print decreased ‘significantly’, as they did for the country’s biggest newspaper, The New Zealand Herald. But there were plenty of positives, with some readership increases, circulation remaining fairly static for most papers and massive rises in the online and mobile realms taking up some of print’s slack.
An app to book a hotel room at super short notice. You’d think someone would have thought of that already. But you’d be wrong. As it turns out, 21-year-old AUT marketing graduate Veronica Nobbs is trying to cash in on this gap in the market with Get a Room, a mobile app that offers punters hotel rooms at the cheapest rates when they’re booking at the last minute from their mobile.
With a big pitch on the go and some unwanted attention from the Commerce Commission and the ASA for misleading and irresponsible advertising, Vodafone’s been in the news a bit recently. But it’s got something slightly more positive to shout about now: an augmented reality (AR) application to celebrate its sponsorship of the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.
There are currently thousands of tourists gallivanting around New Zealand, and many of them are freedom camping. Mostly, that’s a positive thing. But in some cases it leads to the inevitable negative stories about disrespectful visitors leaving a trail of filth behind them. Over the past 18 months, a team of mobile gurus has been trying to remedy this by plugging the information gap that currently exists with a free location-based app called Campermate that offers information about nearby rubbish bins, campgrounds, toilets and other amenities. And two of them are trying to get visitors to download it by heading on the ‘2-egg roadtrip’ and bribing them with free food.
Snapr, a Kiwi-conceived free photo sharing and geo-tagging app has made a bit of name for itself after being given some cash by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, endorsed by Microsoft and used to show the glamour shots during New Zealand Fashion Week. Now it’s added a dose of the digital marketing term du jour—gamification—to the recipe with a photo sharing game called Capture the Flag that’s captured the attention of some major Kiwi brands.
When it comes to making successful branded apps, there are generally two rules: either make it useful or give it some novelty value. And, if possible, combine elements of both. And Heineken and &some have done just that with a new smartphone app that shows locals and visitors where to find official RWC bars, as well as their mates, their rivals, a taxi home and, if they’re lucky, even some tickets to the final.
Auckland mobile marketing company POCKETvouchers has a bit of a spring in its step after signing deals with global payment processor ePay and local daily deal site GrabOne recently. And chief executive Todd Wackrow says the new partnerships have streamlined the voucher process for marketers and allow the business to expand into other markets.
The attraction of lower prices, convenience and broader product ranges is swelling the ranks of Kiwi consumers choosing to shop online, both locally and on international websites. And, according to a report on the Australian and New Zealand online shopping market published by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Frost & Sullivan, almost half of the New Zealand population will do just that in 2011, with each shopper spending an average of almost $1,400.
If there is one ‘new wave’ trend engaging retailers and businesses at the moment, it’s the burgeoning pool of knowledge, insight and digital tools that shoppers are now drawing on to shop smarter and save more. And while it’s often claimed New Zealand is 12 to 18 months behind global trends, it was staggering to learn at the recent eTail Conference in Palm Springs that retailers in the USA have more like a three to five year lead on their Kiwi counterparts.
You may still have to pay for the sandwich, but Subway’s latest Subcard App, which it says is the first national loyalty card available on mobile in New Zealand, means you can now do it without opening your wallet.