Table of contents for Media 2019 in NZ Marketing

Welcome to our 2019 Media Issue of NZ Marketing and let me kick it off by saying my god, this year is the year of media. I don’t just say that with my journalism hat on either, I say that as an outsider, a consumer. Local news media is following in the footsteps of international companies with paywalls, while our government is leading the way with the Christchurch Call, and regardless of which side you are on, there’s a lot to think about. Like the industry’s Up-and-Comers featured on the next page, I got into journalism to tell stories and hopefully make a difference in doing so. Nearly four years on, this hasn’t changed, but alongside this has come the knowledge of, and appreciation for, what it takes to support…

$3.4 billion is what Infratil and a Canadian investment firm paid for Vodafone NZ. 3.62 million New Zealanders (10+) tuned into commercial and non-commercial radio each week according to the first GfK Radio of the year $5 a week is what it will cost you to get behind the New Zealand Herald’s paywall. 8 was Colenso BBDO’s rank in the 2019 WARC Creative 100. 11 pencils were won by New Zealand agencies at the 2019 D&AD Awards, including one yellow. $5.5 million net loss after tax was reported in MediaWorks’ FY 2018 results, which sees it move closer to profitability. 8 was PHD Auckland’s rank in the 2019 WARC Media 100. 10 candles is how many 2degrees blew out for its birthday this year. $1 billion is how much a…

What kind of content are male readers in New Zealand after in 2019? As reflected in our content mix which includes articles about technology, business success, style, travel, health, fitness and cars, New Zealand men want to stay informed about a wide range of things. Overall though, it seems that no matter the area of interest people are becoming more and more considerate of purpose and how they impact the world. It seems M2 was ahead of the game in New Zealand in terms of paywalls. When was the paywall introduced and why did M2 take such a bold step at that time? Most of us at M2 have a personal passion for digital and we have experimented a lot along the way. We were very early onto iPad and…

Newstalk ZB has recently seen a large growth in audience. Why is radio so important as a source of news and analysis? Newstalk ZB is the number one commercial station in New Zealand. It’s immediate in a way that no other news source can be. Our ability to cover events locally and internationally is unsurpassed. We can be talking to the country’s top newsmakers one moment – then straight to our audience for their reaction. How does Newstalk ZB continue to remain in the top of New Zealanders’ minds? By remaining true to our commitment to our listeners to deliver strong opinion and inspiring, entertaining and informative news and sports content delivered by New Zealand’s leading personalities. What have been the station’s highlights over the past year? Newstalk ZB remained…

How long has the paywall been in the pipeline? The concept of a paywall had been discussed for quite a few years. At New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), we committed to investing in building the business case and defining the operating model for NZ Herald Premium in FY2017. When the board signed off the final business case last year we began work in earnest to build the platform and get NZ Herald Premium launched. You announced that you hoped to secure 10,000 paid digital subscribers in the first year. Where did this goal come from? We researched digital subscriptions services that have been launched overseas. Studying how the likes of the Washington Post, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal converted digital platform users into digital subscribers gave…

As chief executive Kevin Kenrick reflects on his past seven years at TVNZ, he says due to viewer behaviour and technology having changed massively, so has the network. “What advertisers need has changed too…you can’t stand still in a moving market.” Kenrick says TVNZ has been fortunate in that it has been able to build some momentum, so it feels like it is really starting to power ahead in new directions. Explaining that innovations like TVNZ OnDemand haven’t been an overnight success as new vetntures can take many years to get traction, he says it is now reaping the benefits of many years-worth of build-up and effort. Managing the migration that’s occurring in terms of viewer behaviour is one of the biggest challenges at present for TVNZ. It would be…

The 15 March Christchurch terror attack was a complex, chaotic and unprecedented situation that evolved quickly as facts of the horrific event came to light. Local media organisations NZ Marketing spoke to – MediaWorks, TVNZ, Stuff and NZME – pulled advertising from its platforms once they knew what was unfolding. TVNZ commercial director Paul Maher says there was a constant dialogue between the chief executive, head of news and current affairs, senior teams, news team, the commercial team and content team during the attack. “The whole business was engaged in what was the best way to represent the events that were happening and what was the best thing for advertisers in this situation,” Maher says. “In a commercial sense we work very closely with the agencies and the advertisers to…

Media agencies have always played a key role in helping clients navigate the communication landscape. But these days the paradox of too much choice can be overwhelming, meaning the independent voice of media agencies has never been more important. It’s easy to become consumed by the latest ‘hot topic’, with these becoming more frequent. Part of our role is to help clients step back and consider these relative to their business and objectives. Take viewability for example… if brand salience is enough to deliver to a certain objective, does it matter if only the logo is available at first glance vs an entire ad? Data is unlocking a lot of opportunities but the holy grail of data leading creativity is still a while off. We’ve still got a way to…

1 ‘Experimental’ – you have no content strategy and publish sporadically. 2 ‘Tactical’ – a small team produces content but is light on measures. 3 ‘Operational’ – content is mapped to a customer journey and the content is amplified. 4 ‘Amplified’ – a combination of owned, earned and paid media that contributes to brand revenue. 5 ‘Differentiated’ – content is integral to a frictionless customer journey and provides new streams of revenue.…

While our feelings about these experiences can be strong, sometimes even transformative, we seldom think about how they occured, and what the process was to create them. Sometimes it’s just more fun for all of us to believe that magic really happens rather than analyse the journey! Most extraordinary experiences, however, are the outcome of a very deliberate process. That’s something that’s familiar to many of us from the digital world — experience design (or XD). Experience design is defined by Wikipedia as “the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, omnichannel journeys, and environments with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience and culturally relevant solutions.” So while we think of this as being digital, the principles apply equally to live events. Moments of magic At…

Last year the Marketing Association put together a group of CMOs from the top 40 revenue ranking businesses in New Zealand. The aim of which was to identify the most significant challenges facing businesses and then create an agenda to drive change for good. Four areas of concern emerged from the initial meeting with one of these being marketing talent, more specifically how to find, develop and keep great marketing talent. The group also raised the issue of the impact on fundamental marketing skills due to increased demands for digital specialisation, as well as the need to build greater commercial acumen in marketers. More recently, this group met again to work on improving the marketing talent issue. To kick start the conversation for this session we flew in an international…

Businesses can’t simply decide to transform one day, then jump straight changing for change’s sake. It’s essential to plan the transformation carefully and understand the barriers and opportunities that could arise. Equally, some research suggests businesses that take too much time to plan and don’t focus on their future business model will be twice as slow on their transformation journey than others that are more agile, open to trialling and testing tangible pieces. See chart below. Here are six core considerations to think about when embarking on a customer experience transformation journey: 1 Mindset and culture Keeping the same old mindset will result in the same old results. Businesses may need to radically alter the prevailing mindset to move the needle. One effective ways to do this is to seek…

Authenticity of a brand is crucial as it drives customer loyalty. Achieving this is a challenge which many businesses are struggling with in this digitally disrupted era. Last year in our Brand Alpha study the MA and Principals identified that many big traditional brands have been losing authenticity in their category as new fresh thinking brands change the rules of engagement. The study used four quadrants to understand a brand’s authenticity of which two measure the power in the mind of a brand’s Vitality and Virtue, with the other two measuring the power in the market through Visibility and Value. In this year’s edition of the Brand Alpha, we have again looked at 55 brands’ authenticity. In addition to this, we have also reviewed how new upstart brands are performing…

What’s the idea behind Ground Breaking podcast? Ground Breaking Podcast is focused on talking with entrepreneurs and leaders making an impact on the next generation of business. My guests share the stories behind the businesses they are building, what’s worked, what hasn’t and how they are figuring things out. I started the podcast because I did not know a lot about running my own business, I was struggling to find the information to help me, in a format that was easy for me to understand. I watched some YouTube videos but the content was all for older people. I like talking to people and dad suggested I give podcasting a go. 28 episodes later I’m now in season two and I’ve met some amazing people across New Zealand, Australia and…

Jordyn Rudd Television producer/reporter TVNZ How did you get into TV? What sparked your interest in getting into the industry? I’ve always loved news and writing so there was never a plan B when I was going to university – Communications was it. Back at intermediate we did a Newspaper Day, where the teacher turned our classroom into a newsroom and fed us information throughout the day to put together a story. I remember that day so vividly and knew from then it was an industry I wanted to be in. I did a Bachelor of Communications at AUT, majoring in journalism and minoring in TV. While I was studying I started writing stories for 1 News online, which led onto a producing opportunity at Breakfast. How did you go…

On its balanced roster When I started at Curious, about a year and a half ago, Matt Noonan [founder and executive producer] mentioned to me that it would be really rad if we could just look at evening out our roster. There are some amazing women out there and I really want to be representing them but, that entire process does take quite a long time. My response to that was, obviously, ‘I’m really down and I really want to do that’. My biggest consideration around the roster, is to make sure that we’re not signing a whole lot of people or a whole lot of women that just tick a box and don’t necessarily sit within our style. We sign directors who want to direct commercial, so one of…

TVNZ 1 is home to all the programmes in Nielsen’s Top 10 what keeps Kiwis coming back? TVNZ 1 is the home of local content. We’re proud more than half of our line up consists of local shows and talent. New Zealanders want to see their own stories in their own voices. They’re able to do this on 1, whether it’s Hyundai Country Calendar, our Sunday Theatre season, The Casketeers or 1 News At 6pm every night. What is the secret to TVNZ 1’s success? Our ambition is to tell stories that no other channel can. We’re looking for authentic and compelling stories that resonate with contemporary New Zealand audiences. We can’t please everybody all the time, but we absolutely do put viewers first. They’re our priority and we want…

The last decade has seen seismic developments in telecommunications and the pace of change is only accelerating. Just think, it was only six years back in 2013 that New Zealand ushered in the 4G era. At the time, Vodafone told consumers that the 4G network was “a major milestone for New Zealand”. Well, if you thought that was groundbreaking, 2019 promises to be a barrel of monkeys by comparison, as 5G networks roll out all over the world. We’ll soon see data downloaded at rates that make our current 4G networks seem positively sloth-like. And it wasn’t long ago that 4G did the same thing to the now-virtually prehistoric 3G networks. Here’s a practical example of what I’m talking about. Imagine you want to download a new release like Avengers:…

“WILL 2019 BE THE YEAR WHEN AGENCIES FINALLY GET IT?” wrote Cory Treffilette, chief marketing officer at Voicera, last year. “Agencies still charge too much for undifferentiated services, are not competitive with in-sourcing and contractor resources, and are not expanding to offer more defensible service lines that could provide them with better growth in the future”. In saying this, he called out media agencies in particular because the commodification of their buying and trading services means anyone can buy media and reach a targeted audience. His solution for media agencies: think like a consultant and offer smarts. “Large consulting companies focus on strategy and technology. So too should agencies.” That idea of competing with consultancies is also raised when putting the scope on New Zealand’s media agency market. When Simon…

COMMENTS The best of the bunch Following New Zealand Herald’s paywall going live, Deborah Pead, founder and chief executive of Pead PR, shared her thoughts with StopPress, saying the reality of news is, it comes with a price. Titled ‘The free-press must remain free… and that’s why we should pay for it’, the piece discussed the importance of credible and trusted news, and how the paywall represents a path forward for great journalism. She also pointed out that media relations pros will have to lift their game knowing the honour of landing coverage behind the wall. “Those who pay for quality content will be the ones who are most motivated to engage with it – a win for journalists, publishers, clients, PR people and readers themselves. We must never be…

The idea was to develop a space that showcased Mercury’s ‘energy made wonderful’ brand proposition to excite staff and encourage visitors to come in off the street and engage with the brand. For Insight Creative Managing Director Steven Giannoulis, the finished product is a cumulation of eight months of work – and his whole team’s input. “Generally, we put a specific team on a project but for this one we opened the brief up to the whole company. We collectively came up with hundreds of ideas, so everyone had a bit of ownership in the finished product.” The unifying idea was ‘inspiring people to imagine’, and the Insight team followed three key themes in deciding on specific exhibits and creating the overall experience: CREATE A SENSE OF JOY – educational…

When and where did your TV career start? At TVNZ in November 2002 as presenter of Te Karere. How has the way New Zealanders embrace te reo Maori changed during your time at TVNZ? Luckily, many strong champions of te reo Māori worked hard to ensure the ongoing survival of the language, and what we’ve seen in recent years really is a tribute to the foundation those people created. As the value of te reo Māori has become more recognised, so has the usage and interest in this very special way of expressing our place in the world. Why do you think the resurgence of the Maori is happening now? The last five years have felt like a new chapter of wider engagement with te reo Māori, media has played…

“WE ARE GENUINE ABOUT WANTING TO ENGAGE PEOPLE WHO MAY NOT HAVE HAD A RELATIONSHIP WITH RNZ IN THE PAST. WE NEED TO DO A BETTER JOB AT CONTINUING TO BUILD ON WHAT WE’RE DOING AT RNZ NATIONAL AS WELL AS DO NEW AND DIFFERENT THINGS TO REACH OTHER AUDIENCES.” According to head of audience strategy Stephen Smith, the innovations launched so far are merely the foothills of RNZ’s plan to diversify and innovate. But while commercial media companies can rely on advertising to shout about new launches and reach growth audiences – RNZ has to be creative about building a rapport with New Zealanders. The key driver for change has been RNZ’s mission to develop a lifelong relationship with the people of New Zealand. While some Kiwis have been…

Slater’s previous life was as a lawyer, working as an in-house legal advisor, and more latterly within the business affairs of media and sports companies – skills she thinks have been hugely beneficial in the changing media landscape. She says having a legal background really helped, as was having a sports media background which was “much more about being platform agnostic, about having the agility to deliver a piece of content in multiple, different ways.” The TVNZ content rights strategy has been quite the journey, but Slater says it’s been intentional. “It all started from us going from 30 days’ catch-up, to a full ‘in-season stack’ as we called it – having the content available from the first episode until the last episode of a show, then we lengthened that…

The numbers speak for themselves. For Kiwi consumers, print remains a trusted and preferred source of information – one that’s authentic and memorable. And yet, while there are many marketers who understand this and efit from this powerful medium, many do not. Often, particularly among bigger brands and in some agencies, the power and potency of print as an advertising medium is questioned (and sometimes completely disregarded). Those same newspaper titles, which so reliably draw consumers’ attention, account for a mere fraction of total media spend invested on behalf of national brands by their media advisors. While these attitudes towards print are common, they are by no means universal – and print media still counts some of the world’s brightest and most highly respected creative minds among its biggest supporters.…

The New Zealand media environment has seen more change and attempted partnerships in the last 24 months then we’ve experienced in the last decade. Joint ventures, M&A and working agreements that would have been unheard of a few years ago are now becoming commonplace. All with a view to create long term sustainable revenue growth for their respective media brands. Examples like Spark partnering with TVNZ to deliver the Rugby World Cup across their subscriber, on-demand and free-to-air assets demonstrates real collaborative thinking. It mitigates a lot of risk and allows two compelling media and platform companies to deliver a customer experience that will be the litmus test for how we will subscribe, pay for, and consume live sport in the future. TVNZ and Spark don’t have a long history…

IS TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING GIVING WAY TO A DIFFERENT, MORE AUTHENTIC FORM OF BRAND COMMUNICATION? With an explosion of channels, audience attention has splintered, and people are bombarded by brand messages. Hence the rise of content marketing. Marketers have realised people are demanding something valuable in return for their attention and time, whether that’s a well-researched answer to a search query or an inspiring video story. While there is undeniably still a place for great culture-defining creative, even if you’re now more likely to see that ad on your mobile than a TV screen, it’s getting harder and harder for marketers to reach consumers. Content marketing has been incredibly successful for brands as diverse as GE and Red Bull, and it’s now very much an established part of the marketing mix.…

What do you think will be dead in five years? (products, companies, trends etc.) It’s quite confronting being forced to think five years in the future let alone what might not even be around in that time. A quick glimpse into the future is both exciting and terrifying all at once. I think the biggest things that will suffer/improve will be physical items – some we take for granted yet take up a lot of valuable resource and energy to create. Here’s my take on the top three things that will be dead in five years. Hardware – PCs, consoles, tablets, phones, HMD as we know it will be gone. Rather, we’ll have dummy devices that stream content which will all be in the cloud and we’ll replace some of…

MANDATORIES FOR ENGAGEMENT Physically at ease Culturally at ease See & hear with ease Message agent ease TERRITORIES OF INFLUENCE Emotional reward Intellectual reward Social reward Introspective reward INFLUENCE ENABLERS Wow factor Aligned theming Surprise factor Interaction & participation Personal stories Talkability TARGET OUTCOMES Engagement Participation Consideration Adoption Sustained recall Advocacy UNIFYING IDEA Communicates the purpose of the experience. Engages, excites and informs all aspects of design and touch points. UNO LOCO…

Part 1 of a 2-part series In 2018 the Marketing Association brought together a group of marketing leaders from some of NZ’s biggest companies and brands to discuss issues facing our marketing industry. Despite different sectors, team structures, and marketing strategies, these 40 marketeers share several challenges - perhaps the most urgent being the perceived lack of well-rounded and skilled marketing talent. There was consensus on three core concerns: ■ the increasing difficulty in finding, developing and keeping the best marketing talent; ■ the increase of specialisation in marketing roles (especially in digital), leading to a deficiency of generalist marketing skills; ■ also, the lack of complete marketing competence (core capabilities, technical competencies, and behavioural attributes) and, in particular, the lack of commercial acumen of many mid and senior-level marketers.…

The presenters discussed how to stay relevant in an era where content is being consumed in greater volume than ever before. The overarching theme; Put users at the heart of your content marketing strategy. In order to do this, brands are finding innovative ways to allow users themselves to guide the content they produce. Here’s how today’s marketers position users at the centre of their content. 1 Find out who your audience is If you’re not directing your content at the right people, it won’t work. Lisa Fedyszyn and Jonathan McMahon, a creative duo from Ogilvy, discussed their success creating New Zealand’s viral police recruitment video. Prior to their contribution, police videos were relatively dry and primarily featured white men. Lisa and Jonathan made it their mission to identify, recognise,…

You know what it’s like, you lose your phone in a taxi, you break your favourite wine glass and you wait in trepidation for the third misfortune to happen and get the sequence over with. It was a similar, but far more impactful sequence that befell the New Zealand marketing world this year and has left us without the skill, drive and impact of three great contributors to our industry. People who were pioneering the art of data-driven marketing long before many of you were born! David Geary died in February this year. He ran a small print company in the 60s and 70s when he realized that computers were going to change our world. So, he transformed his business and became one of the first data service and fulfilment…