Innehållsförteckning för Agency 2018 från NZ Marketing

Growing up, I went to a high school with nearly 2,000 students, which made for crowded paths as we walked from one class to another. Inevitably, we found better ways to get to where we wanted to go and, to the chagrin of the powers that be, we created our own tracks. Those paths, which are created by the footfall of humans or animals, are widely known as desire lines and, while some see them as evidence of an original design flaw, others see them as evidence of our innate ability to find the path of least resistance. After school I followed the predictable path of going to university and, upon finishing my degree, planned to return to complete postgraduate study and learn more about media. However, what I considered…

$1.048 billion Was spent by local agencies on major media in 2017. 28 publications Are set to be affected by Stuff’s decision to close or sell some of its community and rural newspapers. 51 percent Of urban consumer growth from 2015 to 2030 will come from the retiring and elderly market according to McKinsey Global Institute. One in five Connected consumers in New Zealand trust global brands according to Kantar TNS’ Connected Life research. 56 percent Is the amount consumers ages 25-29 have increased their spending in the last eight years according to Marketview. 90,000 Individually programmable LED lights have been used to light up Auckland’s Harbour Bridge in an effort by Vector to signal the city’s long-term movement towards a sustainable future. 40 percent Of the $95 million revenue…

1 Don’t clarify your objectives. Take any challenge to any good consultant and the first thing they’ll ask you is “why?” Not in a Simon Sinek, change the world, all you need is love kind of way. It’s a question of business objectives. Are you driving sales? Are you building your brand? Is it one of those ‘just gotta do it, slide it away with minimum fuss’ kind of jobs? If you’re clear about why you’re solving a problem you’ll get much better advice on how to go about it. 2 Don’t set a budget. “How much will it cost?” “Well, what’s your budget?” It’s a circular conversation that oozes lack of trust. But budget is essential. Most marketing is a numbers game of diminishing returns. The more you spend,…

As the old phrase goes, everyone has a story in them. And that’s where most of them should stay. But with media outlets still cutting back on editorial resource and the rise of new digital tools that have allowed brands to talk directly to consumers – or enlist the help of influencers to talk through them – and gain word of mouth/mouse it seems like a good time to be a PR agency. While clients have long had their own communications departments and continue to bring this function in-house, they still see the need for these specialist skills and the rise of social as a communications platform has also helped promote the sector’s storytelling abilities. Pead PR, one of the biggest PR agencies in the country, utilises its range of…

Insight Creative is a branding and design agency with over 40 years’ experience in developing and working with some of New Zealand’s best brands. They are a strategic creative agency, delivering big thinking and effective design - across both print and online mediums - that changes perceptions, drives behaviours and delivers results for their clients. insightcreative.co.nz STEVEN’S ADVICE To agencies on working better with clients • Take the time to learn the client’s business and their key challenges, opportunities and their strategy. These are the ‘why’ behind every brief and if you can deliver on these clients will always love you for it. • Invest in training your people on explaining their thinking using the client’s language. Give them skills and tools to connect creative ideas with how these will…

Conventional wisdom has a habit of changing over time and that’s certainly true when it comes to marketing. When it comes to media agencies, it has fluctuated between independent shops and full-service agency departments over the years. So what’s the best option for clients? And does independence from a creative agency make a difference? “There’s definitely a desire for creative and media to work closely together for a combined solution for the client,” says MBM’s Sean McCready. “I don’t think there’s a massive drive for physical integration as much as effective collaboration. Clients want simpler reporting lines as it can be hard work for them to manage competing agencies. If anything we are seeing media agencies take more of a lead in the communications process because we understand the audience…

Retail advertising has always been at the centre of the specialist versus generalist debate. Traditional retail, trade and below the line work has been shaped by the need to balance supporting both marketing and sales teams, and meeting the demands of constrained retail environments. Generalists and mainstream agencies have typically never shied away from retail clients and the revenue they offer. However, some have failed to understand the operational intricacies of retail and some have held retail in disregard as lacking the creativity and intellectual challenge of the great above the line persuasion game. In reality, most agencies handling retail work in New Zealand are neither exclusive specialists nor generalists. They tend to be somewhere inbetween, with a strength or two, but are open to any wider opportunities that are…

In the early 2000s, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell hooked up with three members of Rage Against the Machine to form the supergroup Audioslave. Former competitors brought their skills together to produce some sensational creative work. So could the same thing happen in advertising? Is there scope for the creation of a super agency in the local market? Imagine DDB and Colenso BBDO bosses Justin Mowday and Scott Coldham working alongside creative leads Damon Stapleton and Nick Worthington and backed by media strategy from PHD’s Louise Bond and Simon Bird, pitching for a major piece of global business, such as Nike, McDonald’s or even Apple. All those minds work within the Omnicom group, so there’s no reason why this couldn’t become a reality. Asked whether he would ever entertain the idea of…

I want you to imagine I am telling you the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In your head, run it through. Picture all the details, the twists and turns and the big ending. Right, now take the same story and tell it in half the time. Now halve the time again. And again. Eventually, your story would be something like: girl, bear and porridge. This process happens in advertising a lot these days. You only have to look at the vast majority of advertising to see this. There is a reduction of elements, which is why so much online advertising looks like 1950’s print ads. A visual, a headline, a payoff line. What this often leads to is information with no emotion. We know from the studies of…

When Sally-Ann Mullin took over Fashion Quarterlyas editor three years ago, the magazine was a strong, print-centric title that was in need of a re-think to reflect changing trends in an increasingly complicated market. “Fashion Quarterlywas, and still is, a New Zealand icon, a true heritage brand,” says Mullin. “We were still only putting out four seasonal issues a year, but we were aware of competition, the fact that digital was thriving, and we knew people were getting their fashion and lifestyle content in a myriad of different ways.” In order to compete in an increasingly digital-first climate, Bauer knew it had to double down on a premium digital fashion offering. “I came on board two and a half years ago as digital editor,” says Kelly McAuliffe, who had worked…

Media icon Derek Lindsay, former chair of the CAANZ Media Committee, was employed in 2017 as general manager at OMANZ (Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand) with the express brief of getting the ball rolling on the measurement front. With a couple of decades experience in leading roles as an industry business leader delivering profitable growth to both previously established and initial start-up businesses in the communication and media sector, it was hoped Lindsay could make some rapid progress in an area seen to be holding back the outdoor sector. Lindsay’s brief was to re-invigorate the OMANZ operation with a key focus of developing and introducing an industry audience measurement system in conjunction with the OMANZ members. In recent discussions with NZ Marketing, Lindsay says that as part of his…

BEN MORGAN DIGITAL DIRECTOR ACCENTURE INTERACTIVE NEW ZEALAND Are traditional agencies still match fit, when considering agency-client partnership models, ownership of strategy and consultancies? For the modern CMO, customer experience is at the core. Brands are seeking to connect the ‘big idea’ with the reality of experiences across digital and physical touch points. The result is less budget allocated to campaigns. The changing needs of brands has demanded a new model that sees consultancy, creative and technology converging – bringing together brand strategy, design, communications, customer experience and product development at scale. Accenture’s acquisition of creative agencies such as Karmarama and The Monkeys are driven by the need of this new, modern CMO, and it is proving a real differentiator. The ability to forge customer experience end-to-end better reflects…

WHERE IS THE AD SPEND COMING FROM? Nielsen’s top 20 advertising spenders for 2016 and 2017 shows it’s the supermarkets, telcos, department stores and, health and hygiene brands handing over the dollars in exchange for advertising. The past two years has seen the top spenders remain stable, while the amount spent has increased. In 2016, top spender Harvey Norman spent an estimated $75.798 million while in 2017, this increased to $77.787 million (Source: Nielsen Ad Intel ratecard). This reflects the record agency spend in 2017, with agencies spending $1.048 billion across major media in New Zealand according to Standard Media Index (SMI) data. DOES THE PUBLIC KNOW ADLAND? While media, marketing and advertising folk work hard to understand consumers, what do consumers know about the industry serving up the content?…

The specialist agency perceptions study was conducted by Tangible Media and TRA and we used data from 75 marketers and 93 from agency-side. This includes many of the country’s top marketers, who are responsible for a large proportion of the total spend on creative services and media. To choose the agencies, we compiled a list of the agencies we were hearing most about across a range of specialist disciplines and asked respondents a series of unprompted and prompted questions about them. It is increasingly difficult to split agencies into these divisions because there is so much crossover. But we based their positions on their most obvious skillset. The following pages showcase some of the highlights of the research. But there is more information about the strengths and weaknesses of specific…

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Youtube – the social media options are proliferating to the point where advertisers don’t know where to start. Promoting and building an audience in the social space can be difficult. And getting the tone of the content to feel organic is a difficult skill to master. Socialites CEO Wendy Thompson believes social tends to be right at the bottom of a generalist agency’s priorities. “Posting a TV brand ad on social media is not a social media strategy,” she comments. “So unless they partner with a specialist company who knows what is happening hourly, they’ll always be playing catch–up in the social and digital space.” Fuse is typical of this new breed of social agency, offering all elements of social, including social listening, social…

You can’t beat the real thing. And marketers who are keen to make an impression on potential customers in the real world – and perhaps get them spreading the word – have embraced the benefits of experiential marketing. “Clients are looking for much more strategic experiential solutions as it’s no longer a bolt on with whatever budget is left over after the traditional channels are planned out,” reports Meredith Cranmer, founder and managing director of Because ANZ. “Where some clients previously may have outsourced their experiential via their media or PR agency they tell us that this meant double handling and slowed up the process of bringing campaigns to market. Having the experiential specialist at the table in the strategic planning stage also means that clients feel the experiential is…

As the old joke goes, how many designers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: Does it have to be a light bulb?’ This sums up what the design mindset can bring to the creative process and despite there being a growing trend of generalist creative agencies playing in the design space – and clients increasingly bringing design functions in-house – it would appear that the serious clients who understand the importance of design – whether it’s for new packaging, a rebrand, a website, or a professional annual report – favour turning to the specialists for serious design solutions. Insight Creative is a creative thinking and design agency, but CEO Steven Giannoulis admits marketers taking a specialist or generalist approach seems to go in cycles and most…

The digital space has long been seen as a great opportunity for agencies. Historically, marketers have lacked understanding and cowboys roamed the electronic plains. That’s changing and good clients are now increasingly digitally literate and understand the importance of this area if they are to be successful. But there are still so many choices available – and so much snake oil still being sold. So where is a marketer to turn if they hope to keep up with – or, ideally, stay ahead – of the pack, whether it be for search marketing or a complex VR experience. As Steph Creasy, Digital Arts Network’s managing director, explains: “There has been a gradual maturing and understanding from clients on what the job is at hand and who has the most appropriate…

Shit in, shit out. It’s a crude phrase that can be applied to a number of business sectors and it’s also true when it comes to marketing. And at a time when data is deemed to be so crucial for business success, the companies that can wrangle it – and, importantly, use it to help guide the strategy – are still in demand, although digital tools have allowed clients to access much of that data themselves. Speaking to NZ Marketing, Andrew Lewis, managing director TRA, confirms that where once the issue was “we have no data, we don’t know what people want from us”, we now have a challenge more along the lines of “we have so much data coming in, we can’t understand what it is people want from…

A common criticism of having more than one client in a single vertical is that it might lead to clients expressing annoyance that they don’t have the best talent working on their accounts. This is certainly a valid argument, but it’s one that any client across an agency’s ledger could make. Why do some accounts get junior creatives and others get the best in the business? This isn’t a new problem and shouldn’t necessarily be used to invalidate the concept of agencies working across multiple clients in the same category. It’s also questionable whether the most decorated creative is necessarily the best fit for a client. As WPP’s Jenner points out, advertising is about people and this means it’s about putting together teams that can actually work together. If the…

Eight months ago, after a global search for a replacement CEO, FCB welcomed Dan Martin to the business. To welcome him from the UK, FCB’s ‘cultural ambassador’ Peter Vegas handed him an All Blacks jersey and a framed picture of FCB’s global chief executive Carter Murray. Bryan Crawford, who led the search to replace Brian van den Hurk, commented that “Dan’s body language would indicate this may take some getting used to!” But as we sit down to talk about his aspirations for the agency – and the broader New Zealand industry – his accessories show that he’s already embraced his new home: he’s wearing a pair of silver fern cufflinks, a gift from his eight-year-old son (who has quickly become a massive All Blacks fan). “I already see myself…

Chapter 1 COOKING WITH GAS Go behind the scenes of Nadia, to see how Bauer’s building a magazine around Nadia Lim, by aligning content with her character to and creating a new distribution model. Chapter 2 A COMPLETE 360 Wanting to compete in an increasingly digital-first climate, Fashion Quarterly created a fashion offering online. A welcome consequence, it found a younger audience and so, Miss FQwas born. Chapter 3 STYLE YOUR SPACE Take a look inside the partnership of homestyle and Citta to see how they created the ‘Style your Space’ campaign and demonstrable commercial success. It’s a lesson in why playing an active role in a campaign is a winning strategy. Chapter 4 A WINNING APPROACH Three award-winning editors tell us how the digital-age has transformed their roles and…

Putting a photo of your bedroom on social media is a revealing move, and that’s without it being peered at by hundreds of curious strangers and judged by some of the country’s top designers. But that’s exactly what homestylemagazine has got readers to do as part of the annual Style your Space campaign they created for Citta – the Auckland-based design store. Showcasing the campaign through the pages of the magazine, a custom website, social media and using Citta’s already well-established Instagram presence, Style your Space has run successful workshops, editorial spreads and competitions that have attracted high levels of engagement. The interactive multi-platform campaign, launched in 2015, received top marks for content marketing at last year’s Magazine Media Awards with the judges noting: “Ticks all of the boxes of…

GOLD: Travel / Leisure // GOLD: CRM Multi-Channel // GOLD: Excellence in Data Strategy // GOLD: Excellence in Strategy // GOLD: CRM & Data Management //SILVER: Direct Response (any media) // SILVER: Email Marketing In April 2017, the World Masters Games was held in Auckland for the first time. As the biggest multi-sport event in the world by participant numbers, the games are open to sports people of all abilities and the minimum age required to participate is typically 35 years. To be judged a success, more than 28,000 individual athletes, officials, supporters and volunteers from all over the world have to be persuaded to pay their own way to Auckland and compete in 28 different sporting disciplines over 10 days. This makes the marketing challenge complex, as the potential…

STOPPRESS COMMENTS The best of the bunch Lotto and DDB kicked off 2018 with a new iteration of the brand’s ‘Imagine’ platform, featuring a heartwarming heist. What first appears to be two armoured truck drivers stealing a load of cash—to the delight of one and disgust to another—becomes a tale of one friend surprising another with a lotto win. It brought a tear to StopPress’ eye and to its readers as well. Good work. Nice acting, well shot & some…. suspense, not seen that in a NZ TVC for a while. A great watch… LEIGHTON HOWL / THE POND It’s the best one yet. Brilliant story-telling, emotional, nicely made. JASON This is just brilliant. Gets me every time I see it. Thanks for showing us all how it can be…

It was April last year Martin Yeoman and Jamie Hitchcock announced their departure from Assignment Group to start their own agency The Enthusiasts. They’ve since gone on to pick up project work for Ti Ora tea from JDE (formerly Brew Group), 2degrees, 1Above and Al Brown’s Fresh Catch, and clients including 3 Wise Men and Goodman Fielder. Now as the pair sit down with NZ Marketing, they reflect on the year that’s been and how their history in the industry is carving their future. Going it alone JAMIE: Martin and I had been at Assignment for seven years which is a healthy amount of time at an agency, and I’ve come from my own agency [Josh & Jamie] which we sold to Assignment pretty early on. I wasn’t necessarily 100…

#1 SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS In a complex business environment, specialists offer peace of mind to marketers who are looking for expertise and quality work. But in a resource-constrained environment, there is a tension between getting access to those specialists and having to pay more for them. There are also logistic difficulties associated with specialists – especially when clients have to manage a number of different agencies and get them all to work together harmoniously. But, as the old phrase goes, if you think the professional is expensive, wait until you see the amateur. #2 FILLING THE SKILLS GAP Direct and digital are the agencies marketers say they will want more from in the future. This seems to correlate with the areas marketers are weakest in, or are having the most…

As advertising philosopher Jeremy Bullmore once observed: “Products are made and owned by companies. Brands, on the other hand, are made and owned by people… by the public… by consumers. A brand image belongs not to a brand – but to those who have knowledge of that brand.” But that image can be shaped through good design – and an understanding that brands exist everywhere customers interact with them. As such, brand strategy needs to start at the beginning and attempt to define the central story and purpose of a company. This is then matched to well-directed and well-defined design-led creative solutions and communications that will deliver business growth. Companies like Culture & Theory offer design-led creative solutions that usually rest on thinking from purpose-driven strategy, leading on to portfolio…

As PHD’s Simon Bird wrote in StopPress last year, there’s a marketing civil war going on; “a pretty constant battle in marketing between art and science, creative and big data, digital and traditional, mass and targeted, salience and optimised and emotion and information”. “Generalising a little, there’s basically a ‘pro digital side’ believing mass advertising is inefficient and full of wastage and that marketing today is all about right message/right place/right time or DM at scale. And an ‘anti-digital side’ believing digital advertising is guilty of spurious numbers and spurious models of marketing and is the online version of the tactical retail stuff from your letterbox that you put straight in the bin.” And while some clients, like P&G, have admitted they have targeted too much at the expense of…

Many agency suits, strategists and even creatives switch from agency to client side at some point in their career. Maybe it’s the ability to focus on one thing and do it well or the opportunity to call the shots on what gets done. Often, it’s just that greater sense of job stability and structure that corporate life appears to offer. When I started out as a marketer, the glamour and pace of the agency world really appealed. I envied them having the freedom to come up with clever ideas, every day working on cool and exciting projects, with the latest technology and hanging out in uber-creative environments. I, on the other hand, spent my life writing memos and business cases, analysing research and data, coordinating internal meetings and sign-offs while…

Just as power is nothing without control, technology is nothing without design. And as the boundaries between humanity and technology continue to blur, Wellington agency Chrometoaster sees itself as an interface between the two. Founded by industrial design and visual communications students from Wellington Design School 20 years ago, the multi-disciplinary agency took a human-centred, product-development style approach to digital, long before user experience was a thing. “We’re industrial designers for the digital age; we’ve been doing design and digital engineering since 1998,” says Turnbull. “We’re what happens when a design studio was created in parallel with the internet. We haven’t had to transform our business model to incorporate digital as many ad, marketing and communications agencies have. We haven’t crowbarred a technology-led IT software firm into the fluffy world…

Retainers have generally bought exclusivity in adland. But with many major clients (including BNZ and Kiwibank) no longer paying retainers, there’s a growing realisation that agencies might no longer expect this guaranteed income and clients can no longer expect complete monogamy. “My view is that retainers are a thing of the past,” says WPP's Jenner. “There’s a place for them, and if we get them, fine. But we should be building businesses on the assumption that everything will move to project-based work. Even if retainers do stay, they should be viewed as a bonus, not a fact.” But this isn’t necessarily a death knell for agencies. What a project entails varies from client to client. A particularly grunty project might last a few years, whereas others simply involve a single…

While the modern-day magazine editor continues to wield their influence on what appears in print, the role has changed vastly in recent times. Back in the good old days, publishers were happily floating down the ‘rivers of gold’. But the rise of digital has necessitated evolution and, increasingly, magazine publishers have been forced create a range of different of revenue streams aside from print advertising and subscriptions, whether that be events, sponsored content, ecommerce or video production. The latest Magazine 360 12-month print metrics show that while the print audience is relatively stable, the shift away from print has continued, with 72,000 readers departing overall. But that has coincided with the rise of online platforms and events for magazine brands, with an additional 15,845 unique website users per month, email…

Marijuana has been legalised or decriminalised in a number of countries and a whole heap of entrepreneurs and savvy marketers have jumped on the hashwagon and created vibrant businesses. In New Zealand, it may not be too long before the same thing happens, with those wacky-backy-loving liberals from Labour close to letting medical marijuana through in some form. From there, it’s a slippery, smoky slope to a free-market free-for-all (and, according to Family First, the inevitable downfall of society). Tapping into the rise of delivery services, the mobile being used as the remote control of life and the innate human desire to get wasted, here’s one brand that might exist in the future.…