Despite grim times, and gloomy forecasts for the print industry, Paper Plus has just cause for celebration. The 100 percent New Zealand owned and operated group has gone from strength to strength over the last few years, in a pretty tough market, so how did it defeat the odds?
Browsing: Nielsen
There’s been a lot of chatter about the benefits of sponsorship and the threat of ambush marketing over the past few months. Some believed the All Blacks were a more valuable property to be associated with, others believed the Rugby World Cup was worth the sizable investment. So we were interested to see this Nielsen data showing which brands the hoi polloi perceived as sponsors of the event in June and then again in October.
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.
It’s taken a helluva long time, but the big news from Nielsen’s latest magazine readership data is that ACP’s Woman’s Day has finally taken over from New Zealand Woman’s Weekly (NZWW) as “the number one magazine in every way”, with higher readership and circulation figures than its long-standing arch-rival.
New Zealand’s passion for the RWC has already been shown through the massive TV ratings. And, not surprisingly, the major online publishers are also sitting pretty, with Nielsen Market Intelligence data showing the aggregate average daily unique browser numbers for all New Zealand websites in the sports category in September increasing by 58 percent to 332,837 compared to September 2010 (210,408) and 62 percent compared to March this year (205,688).
In terms of ‘must see TV’ the Rugby World Cup 2011 final was always going to be hard to beat.
The RWC semi-final was watched by 1.9 million viewers across the country, according to the official agency that monitors television ratings, AGB Nielsen. This means it took over as the number one TV event ever from the opening ceremony and All Blacks vs Tonga game, which lured 81 percent of all viewers.
It’s that time again, a time when publishers weep, gloat or possibly just say ‘meh’ and get on with it as the ABC circulation and Nielsen’s Magazine Comparatives Q2 2010 – Q2 2011 readership results are released. And while the market appears to have stabilised after a fairly rough period, there are some interesting, some might say counter-intuitive trends on display in the yearly comparisons, with some significant disparities between circulation and readership for some titles and publishers.
When Nielsen launched its pimped out Consumer & Media Insights (CMI) research tool back in April, publishers’ mouths started watering at the prospect of being able to prove New Zealanders who read magazines and newspapers actually spent more, thereby showing print was a good place for brands to be seen. And while the first instalment of the new readership offering had a few teething problems, its new fused data approach has revealed there is “a strong connection between high household expenditure and print media readership”.
The stock imagery on the release might show people laughing with magazines, but there probably aren’t too many smiles in the print industry after several unexpected fieldwork issues affected the quality of readership data for Nielsen’s newly pimped out Consumer and Media Insights readership survey.
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.
It looks as if the daily deal sites that seem to be seeping out from all over the place have made quite the impact on our online shopping habits, according to the latest Nielsen Online Retail Report. By the end of 2010, the number of New Zealanders aged 18+ making transactions online reached an all time high of nearly 1.5 million. This was an increase of over seven percent on 2009. According to the report, 46 percent of the adult population has made a purchase online, nearly double the number of six years ago.
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.
New Zealand Post launched its Genius segmentation tool last year and info-nerds everywhere fell into a deep swoon. Now, in an effort to offer enhanced levels of customer insight—and therefore more benefits to marketers—three new innovative enhancements have been added to the arsenal: Car Genius, Ethnicity Genius and a new segment level media profile component being used by Nielsen and Roy Morgan.
The New Zealand Press Association now has fewer mouths to feed after cancelling content contracts with some of the country’s larger media companies. And while those affected by the loss claim it will have limited impact on their news services, it does appear to be an acknowledgment from the print media sector that different mediums are now competing head-on for online traffic—and the advertising revenue that follows.
The launch of the iPad and the expected ‘tablet revolution’ has put some wind in the sails of publishers who have been beaten down by the internet. But as everyone goes gaga over the new technology, it’s easy to forget that good old-fashioned paper-based magazines are still putting up a very good fight, with the most obvious trend from Nielsen’s latest readership figures and Audit Bureau of Circulation numbers being that Kiwi consumers are still willing to pay for good-quality specialist magazines.
The Nielsen newspaper readership survey year on year comparative results are black and white and read all over: APN’s NZ Herald and the Herald on Sunday are the only newspapers that have improved their readerships nationally, and Sunday News, Dominion Post and Sunday Star-Times, all published by Fairfax, have each lost readership of 10 percent or more throughout the country.
It hasn’t been an avalanche this time round, but the usual dollop of press releases hit the desk today full of language reminiscent of The Property Press, with virtually every magazine claiming the publishing equivalent of “north facing sun-drenched decks” and “indoor/outdoor flow”. Still, purple prose aside, the latest readership numbers for the mags look pretty good for an industry that has taken a battering over the last couple of years. And this data will be welcome relief to those hoping the good news of three months ago was not an aberration.
With every new model released, mobile phones become less like mobile phones and more like computers. Data plans are slowly becoming more reasonable and, with Apple and Google already in on the action, mobile marketing is slated as one of the many next big things for the marcomms sector. As such, the demand for third-party metrics on mobile internet usage from advertisers and publishers in New Zealand is increasing, so Nielsen has responded to that demand with Mobile Market Intelligence (MI), something it claims is a world first in online audience measurement methodology.
…new PR accounts, the success of an ex-Telecom employee, an attempt to inspire some enthusiasm for the local body elections, New Zealand’s biggest free concert, digital braaaaiiinnnnns, the dynamic international retail market, MTV keepin’ on truckin’ (kind of), the country’s most popular tech websites and videos of tiny humans.
The Nielsen Company has been signed up for another five years as the preferred provider of research services for the print media industry. But all is not as it once was: Derek Lindsay, chairman of the snappily titled Print Media Industry Research Review Group (PMIRRG) and managing director at DraftFCB media calls the new deal a complete relaunch of the consumer insight and print readership research service in New Zealand and he believes the host of new innovations soon to be on offer will prove to be a bit of a fillip for New Zealand’s publishers.
BOHICA. Here’s your regular injection of marcomms miscellany, which includes quake-related media facts, tales of the hugely popular pop-up Wellington restaurant/experiential marketing ploy in Sydney, Auckland City Council’s new film initiatives, accolades for font gurus, new bubbles, silver foxes, over the shoulder boulder holders, bland pasta spokeswomen, signs and even databases.
The sixth biennial Market Research Effectiveness Awards were held at Auckland’s Hilton Hotel on Friday. And with not a pie chart, pocket protector or sellotaped pair of glasses in sight, the science boffins of the marketing world converged with their clients to prove just how effective good market research can be in driving business and marketing success.
If you were reading the papers over the weekend, you may have noticed a few column inches were devoted to illustrating how well the publication in front of you had done in the latest Nielsen Readership Survey. Whether the readership changes were statistically significant or not doesn’t seem to matter, because every quarter you can guarantee the big players will be focusing on the silver linings in the print media cloud.
The magazine industry will be feeling somewhat chuffed and maybe a little relieved because, despite predictions to the contrary, in many cases magazine readership and circulation have grown over the last year, according to Nielsen’s year on year comparative results.
Usually our bragging is completely unfounded and based entirely on lies. But not this time: Nielsen has shown that StopPress is still at the top of the table when it comes to the percentage of visitors who have used a mobile phone to access the internet for the month of July. And, by extension, it would seem that you tech-savvy information hounds obviously have your hands on the lentils/fingers on the pulse when it comes to mobile usage.
New technology has meant that consumers are engaging with media in ways that George Jetson would be proud of. Of course, given the feverish enthusiasm for the iPad, there’s already quite a bit of interesting data about it and while the consumers love it, publishers are also rightly excited about the revenue—and creative—possibilities offered by the new medium. So who’s buying two of Apple’s most popular devices, the iPad and the iPhone? Nielsen surveyed more than 64,000 mobile subscribers in the US to find out.
Come with us now as we tap into the unending desire for flagrant industry-related people watching.
Love it or loathe it, social media has become an extremely powerful communications force in recent times. And, according to Nielsen’s 2010 Social Media Report, its marketing star continues to rise in New Zealand as users start interacting more with brands online and rely on their social networks to guide purchasing decisions.
Television ratings, much like the make up of sausages, are a fairly mysterious realm for those outside the marcomms industry, and, after asking around a bit, it seems they’re also a fairly mysterious realm for many within it.