With viewability rates as low as 40 percent on supposedly trustworthy local sites, rampant ad fraud costing marketers billions and ads being served alongside objectionable content, Damien Venuto looks at digital advertising’s reputation issues – and why it isn’t always living up to the promise it arrived with.
NZME has entered the recruitment market with a new digital platform, YUDU, that connects industries with both active and passive candidates.
Global brands are struggling to win the trust of connected New Zealanders, according to research from Kantar TNS.
With Kiwis now spending around half of their media consumption time online, Mosh shares its advice for local businesses on Facebook.
Last night, TVNZ and its agency and production partners gathered at Auckland’s Shed 10 to cut the ribbon on a new season line up. But as much as it was a celebration of what’s to come, it was a chance for the broadcaster to recognise all it’s achieved in the past year in its push to connect with more Zealanders than ever in more places than ever before.
As the New Yorker’s editor David Remnick recently said, readers don’t want dumber, cheaper versions of legacy media. So how are magazines embracing new channels, creating new revenue streams, developing new products, working creatively with advertisers and generally showing an elasticity in their view of what media is, all while keeping their souls in tact? Jihee Junn looks at some of the best local examples.
While magazines were once just a regular dose of escapism, entertainment or inspiration in printed form, the rise of the internet and the need for new sources of revenue has meant publishers are connecting with their audiences in a range of different ways. Erin McKenzie takes a look at how some of the local players – and the Magazine Publishers Association – are embracing that shift.
Buying content is easy. But getting viewers to tune in so you can make money from it is a whole other channel. We chat to TVNZ’s Jeff Latch and Andrew Shaw about how they’re planning to address the latter part of this equation.
After 18 months of having its comment section switched on, RNZ has announced it will no longer allow comments on its website and it will phase out the capability on its site by the end of the week, instead encouraging comments on its social media channels, we chat to RNZ’s Megan Whelan about why it made the decision and what it means for its audience. PLUS: how technology might improve comment sections in the future, and Fairfax’s approach to its comment sections.
Google has confirmed that New Zealand country manager Tony Keusgen has been replaced by Stephanie Davis.
TVNZ is looking to offer advertisers a means by which to reach male audiences through a new free-to-air TV channel. We chat to the broadcaster’s chief executive Kevin Kenrick about why it’s made this move.
It’s no secret that 2015 has been punctuated by some horrific moments, with the Nepal Earthquake, the Paris attacks, the refugee crisis and the Charleston Shooting standing out as some of the more harrowing examples. But interspersed alongside these events, there were also many positive moments that saw people celebrate and express their creativity online. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter look back at the moments that defined the year.
The rise of “wellness” products and services such as cold-pressed juice bars, raw and paleo eateries, boutique yoga studios and alternative therapies has brought with it a specific vocabulary. Some of these wellness words sound like science; some, especially those coming from Deepak Chopra, have the ring of religon, and quite a few are so divorced from meaning that they’re uncategorisable. After overdosing on YouTube philosophical debates one night, Australian web developer Seb Pearce wrote some code to randomly generate New Age copy at the push of a button.
While showers can be vicious killers, water on the neck can also create moments of clarity, so it’s generally worth the risk. And last night as I sat in the corner of the shower weeping, scrubbing myself down after another day spent working in trade media, I started thinking about Rachel Glucina—and, more generally, the folly of big media trying to get down with the internet kids.
A few months back Vodafone launched a campaign aimed at teaching parents how to keep their kids safe online. But sometimes you need more than a parent’s guidance. You need technology. And Torch, a special router for parents that claims to stop kids from accessing dodgy content and imposes limits on the amount of time they spend online, created an ad that shows how innocent search terms are not always so innocent.
Industry happenings at Hourigan International, Spark, MediaWorks, Finch and Federation.
Industry happenings at NZ Herald, IAB NZ, Cuisine magazine, TRA, Group M, Hunch and Hypermedia.
In conjunction with News Works, the Up Country series talks with some of New Zealand’s top regional newspaper editors about the performance of their titles in print and online, the role local news plays in regional communities, where they see the industry going and why advertisers should stick with them. First up, Barry Stewart, the newly appointed editor of the Otago Daily Times.
As part of its new season launch, TVNZ announced the impending introduction of a short-form platform called OnDemand Shorts, which will be housed with the overarching TVNZ OnDemand offering and feature three- to five-minute video clips. And the broadcaster’s looking to collaborate with advertisers to fill the new platform with content.
We’ve all had it. You’re having a nice relaxing evening at home after a busy day, and then you hear it. The dreaded door knock. You think, ‘But I’m not expecting anyone’. Then you open the door to see someone standing there, smiling nervously, clipboard in hand before they start awkwardly or over-enthusiastically bumbling through their speech on how you should switch internet provider, switch power company or switch religion. As you stare at them trying to look earnest, nodding and lapping up a healthy dose of second-hand apprehension and embarrassment you think to yourself, why must doorknockers exist? Power company Energy Online, which has vowed not to have doorknockers, has released an ad showing the most ideal doorknocking scenario.
A few months back, Radio New Zealand embarked on a bit of a public/private partnership and put its content on NZME’s iHeartRadio platform (before also snuggling up with MSN). Radio Rhema followed suit. And the National Business Review, which moved into online radio in February and added a personalised ondemand option in March, is the latest to add its name to the list.
The online numbers—both in terms of usage and revenue—keep going up. But that’s being driven by the addition of devices, not the addition of people, says Nielsen’s Tony Boyte. And it’s important to understand how those people behave and what content they consume.
Online media is largely fuelled by advertising revenue. And many believe this inherently parasitic relationship is inspiring a race to the bottom as publishers seek clicks and scale above all else. But the NBR is going the other way and focusing on growing subscriber revenue. And, as part of that strategy, it is getting set to remove all but one of the ads from its homepage.
The local industry is currently a little obsessed with conflating different foods together to create a delectable (and some very questionable) hybrids. We’ve had Whittaker’s chocolate milk, Cadbury’s Vegemite atrocity and St Pierre’s sushiwi. Internationally, brands are also dabbling in the art of fusion, but now DC Shoes has taken it beyond cuisine to create a new hybrid sport by combining surfing and motocross. In a new video commissioned by the brand, motocross daredevil Robbie Maddison is shown riding a customised motorcycle across the surface of the Pacific Ocean, before dropping in on a wave (undoubtedly annoying the surfers waiting in the lineup).
Zane Furtado, the programmatic director at Acquire Online, recently put his skills to good use by bidding on the phrase ‘Best programmatic specialist in New Zealand’ and then serving an ad with his personal details attached.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
There’s a new marketplace on the block, which believes in the sentiment “sharing is caring” and it’s called Ourthings. A rental website which encourages communities and businesses to share wealth between them by renting out their goods.
A recent Reuters report of 20,000 people in 12 countries shows the way we digitally source news is continuing to evolve globally, with main findings being an increased use of Smartphones, a decreased use of desktops, a higher number of people looking to social media for news, and digital-born brands rivalling traditional players in domestic markets, sometimes beating them internationally.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s annual State of the Internet presentation has become required reading for those interested in how the online era is affecting human behaviour—and so business, transport, security, healthcare, education, communication, regulation and pretty much everything else. And the 2015 version once again condenses the major tech-inspired trends in one handy slide deck.