Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 79 2024 i NZ Marketing

DRIVING REVENUE IN A RECESSION When the chips are down and costs are up, what should marketers do? John Buckley, Stuff’s Director of Digital Revenue and Strategy and veteran digital agency expert, has five steps for brands navigating New Zealand’s cost of living crisis. It is the marketer’s eternal challenge: a recession has been called, consumers grow more vigilant about what they spend and the brands they choose, and marketing budgets are scaled back. Recession marketing is in, and price sensitivity is everywhere. But you can drive revenue in a recession and the clever will brand-build now while others will suffer from short-termism in teh long run. There are, however, a few tricks and strategies to successfully navigating such a challenging time. So, what can you do? 1. Get your data…

While New Zealand and Australia share many cultural references, one thing they don’t share is what they look for in an ad. This year, Aussies were asked what their favourite adverts are, and the results on either side of the Tasman reveal some fascinating insights, says TRA. Where Kiwis prefer ongong stories about familiar characters – ASB’s Ben and Amy, ANZ’s Sharma family – Australians like those focused on branded storytelling and situational humour, as in Cadbury’s generosity theme and Toyota’s take on a messy divorce. In Australia, ads resonated because the brand was strongly linked to the creative idea, says TRA Australia’s Alex Forrester. “KFC’s ‘Look on the Fried Side of Life’ is a textbook example, a perfect combination of great human insight and brand truth… that sometimes we…

We used to think it was simple: advertise your brand, wait for the phone to ring. If it didn’t, you just needed to tell your story better, to a bigger audience. “Spray and pay” – spend more money and more people will buy it. Sure, there were focus groups, consumer panels and (if you were really high-tech) test subjects wired up to EEG caps, but when the internet came along the data collection began in earnest. It became possible to measure web traffic, click-through and bounce rates. Cookies told us what people were searching for and made it even easier to gather information. Data, data, everywhere. An ocean of it, a torrent, a tsunami. “Looking at data at its most raw form can be overwhelming,” says Clara Ng, Client Solutions…

Video has a visceral, immersive quality that engages and connects far beyond the written word. As a medium it combines visuals and sound – tapping into our strongest senses. Moving images and sound grab attention, invite engagement and create an emotional response – empathy, trust and memorability. Video makes an impression that lasts. In a video narrative we can read an expression and follow emotional cues and action even without understanding a word, making it a powerful tool for communicating across cultures and languages. We can observe real people and experiences – creating trust and relatability. Humans are hardwired for story and video can weave narratives that capture attention and create emotional impact. BRANDS AND VIDEO: A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP Consumers increasingly use video as an integral part of their journey…

The world looks very different to how it did in 1997, when Hot Mustard, this country’s first specialist rural marketing agency, was founded by Paul Bell and Nickie Miles. New Zealand has undergone its own immense changes in that time, and few parts of our economy have experienced more ups and downs than our rural sector. The pace of change is only increasing, not just for farmers but also in tech, marketing and media, and Hot Mustard is adapting its offering in response to the evolving needs of marketers. A key component in this evolution is Group Account Director Natalie Allen, who rejoined Hot Mustard last year after first working for the agency nearly 20 years ago. “It was my first job after graduating from Otago University,” she says. “Nickie…

Stakeholder engagement can be the trickiest part of a branding project. The challenge is branding is subjective: what one person loves, another might hate. It becomes a balancing act where you need to get buy-in, ensure everyone feels included while deciding which feedback to take on board and which to ignore. But with clear communication, well-defined goals, and a bit of planning, you can keep everyone on the same page. Remember – you’re the expert It’s easy to lose sight of that with all the questions and differing opinions, but you were hired for your expertise. People look to you for direction, leadership, and a clear point of view. They expect you to listen to their feedback and explain why some things work and others don’t. But you’re not on…

If you saw the TV show Mr Bates vs The Post Office, you will know about the British Post Office scandal. The inquiry into this debacle shone a revealing light on the IT failures that led to more than 900 Post Office branch managers being bankrupted and wrongly prosecuted for fraud. But the harshest beam fell on the toxic culture of the upper management team that ran the Post Office. The inquiry showed how the chief executive and many of her senior management team ignored information that contradicted their views – and then lied to cover their malfeasance. Those lies stretched all the way from Mr Bates’ village Post Office to the Houses of Parliament. The inquiry makes for fascinating viewing, as good as any literal car-crash TV. When asked…

When asked what a media planner’s job looks like day-to-day, Grace Chittock simply says, “We do a lot.” Tucked away in a little room in Spark Foundry’s Auckland-based office, she manages media campaigns from the planning stages to booking in and finally implementing the ads – all while keeping a long line of stakeholders in the loop. It’s clear Chittock likes to be busy. And boy, is she busy. From taking care of clients such as Westpac to holding breakfast events for Breast Cancer Foundation NZ, it’s all in a day’s work. As if that wasn’t enough, earlier in 2024, Chittock was appointed Deputy Chair at First Five Rungs, a Comms Council initiative to support people in their first five years in the industry. She says this position is her…

In a conference room overlooking the Auckland city skyline sit four of the top dogs at DDB Group Aotearoa, one of the country’s most highly acclaimed advertising agencies. You’d think it might be intimidating. But Group CEO Priya Patel, Chief Strategy Officer Rupert Price, Group Chief Creative Officer Matty Burton, and Chief Creative Officer Gary Steele are a fun bunch. All are expats and have been in New Zealand for five to 10 years. Only Patel, who was MD at DDB Australia from 2018-21, had worked elsewhere in the company’s global network before. So what brought them here? Their answers share a common thread: the creative work being produced in Aotearoa was enviable for a small and geographically isolated country. Our reputation for No. 8 wire ingenuity might result in…

The Curious AF bottle store, in Auckland’s Grey Lynn, is true to its name. Tucked away on the corner of Crummer Road and less than 500 metres from the nearest Glengarry Wines, it is everything a bottle shop is not. Colourfully packaged drinks, an assortment of dried flowers and other delicate decorations beam down on passerbys from a vast window display. Inside, I’m met by Curious AF founder Lisa King and office dog Noodle. Before we sit down to talk the details of AF’s major US deal, King takes me through a tasting – there are AF’s OG canned mocktails such as grapefruit magarita and apero spritz topped with a slice of dried orange. Plus newer products: sparkling rose, which smells distinctly like wine, and sparkling sake, delicate and flavoured…

THE RISE, FALL AND RISE AGAIN OF FUNNY ADS In the early to mid 2000s, comedy was king in advertising. The iconic Old Spice commercial was launched in 2010 and NZ’s very own Ghost Chips ad was released the next year. What followed was an age of purpose-led advertising. Brands finally put money behind their values and started talking about some very important topics. But as more brands jumped on the bandwagon, it began to feel a little… insincere. On top of that, humans’ capacity to care is not infinite. With more brands demanding attention for their cause, viewers became fatigued and tuned out the noise. Ever since the Collins dictionary picked ‘permacrisis’ as its word of the year in 2022, people have been craving relief from the seriousness of…

Hong Kong is a vibrant hub of outdoor advertising, providing the ideal setting to celebrate the best in the business. Upon arrival, our billsticking crew took to the streets, with assorted poem posters from Aotearoa’s finest: Isla Huia, Ben Brown, and Janet Frame. Along the way, we discovered dim sum restaurant Tim Ho Wan – known globally for its mouth-watering barbecue pork buns and as an affordable Michelin dining experience. Naturally, we stopped to indulge. While there are some similarities, out-of-home in Hong Kong looks vastly different to that in New Zealand. Hong Kong billboards adorn the tops of skyscrapers and the digital ones are brand-heavy, displaying a single animated message. As we discovered from a friendly record shop proprietor, billposters operate outside the law, taking over any empty space.…

People might look at Plato today and only see the largest full-service agency in the South Island. Based in Christchurch, it’s easy to assume they’re proverbial city slickers. But this business was co-founded by country kids who simply had big ambitions. John Plato grew up in the rural town of Leeston while Lisa Plato hails from Alexandra. John was working as a diesel mechanic and Lisa was putting her marketing qualification to use at Ravensdown when the couple met in their early 20s and decided they wanted to launch their own business. So Plato was founded and of course they started out with what they knew best – the agriculture sector. Over the first three years of business, 80% of Plato’s clients were in agribusiness, a sector they still serve…

In Red, White and Brass, Tongan rugby superfan Maka will stop at nothing to see his team play the opening match against France at the 2011 Rugby World Cup… Including starting his own brass brand to perform at the international tournament, with only four weeks to spare. Naturally, a comedy of errors ensues, laughs ATC Marketing Director Joanna O’Connor. Red, White and Brass is a stage adaptation of a 2023 film by the same name. It’s based on true events and is one of the eight plays to be performed by Auckland Theatre Company in 2024. O’Connor highlights it for how every aspect – from adaptation to the casting to the marketing – embodies ATC’s goal, set by artistic director and CEO, Jonathan Bielski. “That we are not the theatre…

A key skill of the PR practitioner in 2024 is the ability to keep pace with an industry moving at lightning speed. “If your head is not around it, you’ll get left behind,” says Heather Claycomb, Director of Waikato-based communications agency HMC, and Chair of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ). When Claycomb set up HMC 20 years ago from her home in Hamilton, she only needed her brain, a computer, a tiny little Nokia and a love of telling stories. While the necessary equipment hasn’t changed significantly since then, the technological capabilities and the number of ways to reach people certainly has. “I recently hired two new people and I had to think about what software products do they need to know? It’s a tech-savvy job, there’s…

The latest results are in and New Zealanders have spoken. What’s the secret to securing a spot in the top five? Resident New Zealand ad expert Carl Sarney, Head of Strategy at TRA, weighs in on what makes the top ads so memorable. A WINNING FORMULA In survey after survey, one of the stand-out favourite ad components uniting the top favourite ads is creative commitment. Creative commitment is an effectiveness strategy identified by James Hurman and Peter Field. It outlines three crucial commitments brands can make to embed their campaigns more deeply in the public’s consciousness. The first crucial commitment is sticking to a recognisable creative platform over the long term – such as characters or consistent use of brand codes. The second is media spend: brands need a sufficient share…

In today’s media landscape, the ‘Attention Economy’ has become a pivotal concept in advertising and marketing. As brands vie for customers’ fleeting attention, attracting and retaining focus is a critical challenge. Here we look at the dynamics of the attention economy, exploring why captivating and holding audience interest is paramount in a competitive brand ecosystem and why innovative strategies and new data-driven insights are essential. Data-driven marketing stretches far beyond first-party data strategies. The major gains are in ensuring the media plans and channel mix we choose – and the creative we make for those channels – are optimised for attention. Magnetic analysed advertising across every major category for advertisers spending over $1m per year in New Zealand (720 of them according to Nielsen) – to gauge whether fit-for-purpose, fit-for-platform…

What do You’ve Been Scammed by Nigel Latta, Stan, Mind over Money and the Patrick Gower: On Booze, Vaping and Weed series have in common? They were all high-rating shows made by Ruckus. Spearheaded by producer Arwen O’Connor and director Mitchell Hawkes, Ruckus emerged from the pair’s many years of work in the TV industry. O’Connor and Hawkes met while working on the iconic weekly 90s Kiwi youth show IceTV. And after working with Nigel Latta on Nigel Blows Stuff Up, the three of them formed their own production company in 2017. “With all of our collective experience, we decided it was time to set up Ruckus to make editorial content that could be either commercially funded or funded by NZ On Air,” says O’Connor. The team’s expertise shines through…

Kiwi telco 2degrees wants Aotearoa to see women’s rugby differently – literally and figuratively. Fuelled by its mission of “fighting for fair”, it simultaneously championed women’s rugby and challenged traditional sports broadcasting when it live streamed the Super Rugby Aupiki final on TikTok in April. “We wanted to bring greater visibility and awareness to the teams and players… as a result we put women at the centre of something fun and exciting,” says Anna Gorman, 2degrees Sponsorship & Events Manager. The telco has been sponsor of Super Rugby Aupiki, the professional women’s rugby competition played across Aotearoa, since its inaugural season in March 2022. Knowing Aupiki doesn’t get as much coverage and support as the men’s competition, 2degrees was driven to champion the wāhine putting in the hard yards on…

6.30am, that’s when I tune in to the radio. It is usually on my drive to the gym when I listen to Mai FM’s ‘Mai Morning Crew’. Lewis Tennant, AUT lecturer and host of the Verbal Highs podcast, describes it perfectly: radio continues to be popular because it is “habitual, easy to access and have on everywhere”. Listening to the Mai Morning Crew is part of my daily routine. And while the station changes, most of Aotearoa’s population share the same habit. Alistair Jamison, CEO of the Radio Broadcasters Association (RBA), says New Zealanders’ radio listening figures over the past few years have been “boringly stable”. Every quarter, the RBA releases the independent Gfk survey, which gauges what’s happening in radioland. Results consistently show 74 to 75% of Kiwis listen…

If you just look at the raw numbers, it would seem the country that gave the world the electric fence and Fred Dagg isn’t rural at all. New Zealand is one of the most urbanised nations in the world: our three biggest cites (Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) account for half our population of 5.2 million people, while only one in seven New Zealanders (14%) live rurally. Just 2-3% are farmers or their families. That’s why, with a few notable exceptions (such as Country Calendar and ad breaks during the rugby), our mainstream media doesn’t have a huge rural focus. But our rural sector is crucial to the economy. New Zealand’s food and fibre sector export earnings hit a record $56 billion in 2023, projected to reach $62 billion by 2027.…

John Miles is reminiscing. The Marketing Association turns the big 5-0 this year and he’s been taking a walk down memory lane. Marketing Campaign Lane, that is. From Crunchie’s “Great Train Robbery” mini movie in the 70s to Tina from Turners’ catchphrase in the 2020s – with everything from Air New Zealand’s Middle-earth safety videos and BASF’s “Dear John” song playing crisply on cassette in between – the past five decades have seen some terrific campaigns, says Miles. He should know. The Marketing Association CEO has been whittling down a list of great TV ads, posters, jingles, characters and slogans from that time period. Not just for his own entertainment (though it’s been a fun exercise, he says, with a wide grin), but so the public can vote on their…

Florida is Trump country – not exactly where you’d expect to discover a dose of hope. Yet, at the North American Social Marketing Conference in May, I found just that. The conference is a yearly hub where social marketers converge to share insights, network and fuel each other’s efforts to drive meaningful change. Representing VML New Zealand, I presented two of our campaigns: ‘Stick it to Hep C’ and ‘Tatau Tātou: All of Us Count’ alongside our Health New Zealand client, Brooke Cheeseright. The experience was a treasure trove of insights for social marketers in Aotearoa. Here, I share some of them with you. COLLABORATION IS KEY TO TACKLING THE WORLD’S BIG ISSUES Amid the chaos of today’s societal challenges, unity emerged as a key theme. We need to harness…

NZ Marketing: Tell us a little about The Agency 88 and the work you’re doing. Stu Rutherford: The Agency 88 is a local specialist marketing and communications agency helping brands connect with growing Asian communities in both New Zealand and Australia. We deliver a range of services including campaign work, social content for the likes of WeChat, translation services, plus we also carry out Asian community research projects. NZM: Are we seeing more marketers recognising the growing Asian audiences in New Zealand? SR: The short answer is yes. However, diversified marketing efforts in this space remain relatively underdeveloped and there is plenty of work still to do. That said, it does feel like we are reaching some kind of tipping point. I do think – as more businesses examine our ethnic make-up…