NZ media - Innovate or die

Ok, so it's not the most original headline and somewhat dramatic. But local media owner innovation is an issue for me that I'm feeling very strongly about.

As a media agency, we are engaged by our clients for a number of reasons but one of the key ones is cost efficient and effective media purchase across channels. It's the requirement - and in some cases these are tied to our income - for cost efficiency that drives the agency to negotiate hard on behalf of clients.

Invariably most campaigns do include an online display element, however we're now seeing more and more of the NZ based online media owners dropping CPM rates to match those offered by ad networks and international sites with much higer levels of inventory. Of course this is great for us and great for our clients - but how sustainable is this for the local online media market? With sub $5 CPM rates being touted about, even I can do a back of the envelope calculation to work out that the revenue is minimal.

Of course a site like Trade Me is an exception, and interestingly the smaller niche sites are innovating well - for example, Interest.co.nz and Snow.co.nz. This enables them to hold CPM's at a higher rate but the effectiveness (however it's defined) generally justifies these.

If this continues the NZ based media properties who don't innovate with their product and/or advertising propostion are destined for failure. Ad spends are moving faster than ever from local market offerings, because there's very little differentiation in the inventory between local and international players. In fact the international offering is stronger, with behavioural targeting well established and advanced targeting opportunities offered all the time.

So NZ sites - we want to invest with you. You have relevant local content and information which engages our audiences. But you need to start differentiating on something other than price parity. And whilst this may feel like a chicken and egg situation - you need to invest to get additional revenue - trust me when I say that our budgets are following the results and are going to those who can deliver. Being NZ based no longer guarantees you income.

And on to Global Domination

With media awards all completed and submitted it was time to head off to Ad Tech in Sydney for a bit of much needed inspiration.

Maybe it was just me, but if I didn't know better I'd think Ad Tech was a big old piece of branded content brought to you by Facebook. I can't tell you how many sessions Facebook was mentioned in, but I'm pretty sure it was all of them (except maybe the Channel Planning session - and those of you that were there know what I mean).

In typical conference style, unreferenced facts and figures were being thrown around like impressions on a network cpc buy:

• Facebook is now the #1 site in the US - bumping Google from the top position it has held since it took over from MySpace...
• In the UK, advertisers are now spending more on Facebook than they are on Google
• Australia is the social media capital of the world - 70% of the population are social networkers
• This year Facebook will buy Google...

Now that last one was a joke, Or was it. Stranger things have happened as anyone who has been in and around this industry for a few years knows. Who would have thought anyone could be bigger than Google? But for me it raises a few questions:

• How are all those UK advertisers managing to spend so much on Facebook?
• Does this mean Facebook is working hard to find more ways to let advertisers in? And if they do, will they suffer such a backlash from their community that it will cause them to move onto the next big thing (like MySpace users did)?
• What will that next big thing be?

Answers on the back of a postcard please.

Bing puts a sting in Google

Ok, that's a bit of an over the top headline. But hey, it's a week before Christmas and we've all been too busy to post for the past couple of months so the pressure is on to come up with a cracker to make up for the silence. Not sure that this delivers to that but it did crack me up when it appeared on a large screen to a group of clients a couple of days ago.

So - by default I use Google as my search engine, and balance it out with a preference for IE. (I know, I'm so common). However in the most recent IE update, Google was removed as a search engine from the IE search box.

I'm not sure why I thought that I should type the URL string for http://www.google.co.nz/ into the IE search box rather than the nav bar, but I did (and millions of other people do every day - as I said, I'm common) and here's what appeared:


In case you can't see this clearly....

Goodness gracious, really Bing? Couldn't you just have indexed the URL rather than the dodgy search? My technical knowledge with indexing doesn't stretch this far so if anyone can explain how this happened I'd love to know.

I'll also be more careful with what I search for in future.

iSnack 2.0

When Kraft announced the name of their new vegemite recipe it was widely met with derision. At first I joined in the jeering - the lowercase apple-esque i, the buzzword 2.0 – it’s brand name smacking of bandwagon jumping, of me-too, of being down with the kids. Big mistake Kraft, big mistake.

Or was it?

The more I think about it, the more I realise we are actually looking at a very clever (if somewhat cynical) marketing ploy. Would Kraft really choose such a ridiculous name from nearly 50,000 entries? Was there really nothing better? Or did Kraft know exactly what they were doing, choosing a name they knew would polarise (much like their love it or hate it spread)?

Why wouldn’t they have a public vote in the first instance? Because to maximise response, you have to get everyone interested & invested first. And now that there is a vote, you know that in order to vote there will be a data capture element, creating an instant eCRM database for Kraft. “We have been overwhelmed by the passion for Vegemite.” said Simon Talbot Kraft’s corporate affairs head for Australia and New Zealand as explanation for the change. Do you really believe Kraft were unaware of the passion for their iconic spread? Or were they using that passion to generate interest in their new spread? Thousands of the iSnack branded jar have already been delivered to supermarkets -after the announcement that they were back-tracking on the name change & opening it to a public vote- these will quickly become collectors’ items. Would there be such public interest in ‘Cream Cheese Vegemite’?

Kraft have taken what is essentially a small recipe change and used it to generate international PR, thousands of blog posts & even several You Tube videos (remember the old adage, all publicity is good publicity). The result is they have managed to launch a whole new brand, with almost no marketing support.

iSnack 2.0? Genius.

ABC plans to reduce ad time for new season programming

Just in from Ad Age...

ABC has opted to remove the first ad break from new programs including "Flash Forward," "Modern Family," "Eastwick" and others set to debut this week as part of the new 2009-2010 TV season, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times.....ABC execs said the ad-reduction idea is part of a larger plan to get viewers hooked on new shows at a time when they have a dizzying array of entertainment choices.

So reading between the lines, ABC believe that if they remove ads, their content becomes more engaging and appealing. Uh oh. What does this mean for their underlying business model?

Viral infection

By now I’m sure you’ve all been Kanye’d (and if you haven’t then check out this out: www.draftfcb.co.nz) and it got me thinking about viral campaigns and how often we get clients asking us to plan one for them.

‘Creating’ a great viral campaign is about as easy as planning to win Lotto. In fact, planning to win Lotto might even be easier – all you have to do is get the correct numbers together on one line in the right week.

Creating a great viral campaign has many more factors that need to align in order to get the desired result.

First, you need a good idea. Actually, you need a great idea which also has enough relevance and appeal to capture someone’s imagination. But not just anyone – it needs to be someone who has the time and inclination to forward it on to their friends. And you need to hope that ‘someone’ has an extensive list of friends who also have the time and inclination to forward it on to their extensive list of friends. And so on, and so on.

And finally you need to have a client who understands that a) you only get one shot at a viral campaign; b) the internet community may take your viral campaign and turn it into something completely different and not aligned with your brand and c) whether it ‘works’ or not is in the lap of the Gods. Oh and d) no, you cannot accurately measure results.

There have been some cracking viral campaigns – like this oldy-but-a-goody from 42below http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMxzKQFl7pw which evolved from an award winning radio ad. Or the Cadbury’s Gorilla TVC which over the last 2 years has been mashed up and remade thousands of times by people from all over the world: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cadbury+gorilla&search_type=&aq=f.

But I’m pretty sure that for every great viral campaign out there, there are thousands that never made it beyond the email address book of the account director at the creative agency.

Are celebrities bigger than God?

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I stumbled across this news headline on stuff -

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/2851918/Are-celebrities-bigger-than-religion

Unfortunately Firefox decided not to load the page so I didn't get to read it - which gave me a chance to ponder this on the way to work, and decided to find out how religion compared to celebrities in terms of online search volumes - the highest worldwide celebrity searches for the past 12 months were:

Britney Spears, Megan Fox (didn't she come out of nowhere!), Kim Kardashian and Angelina Jolie. So I decided to see how they all stacked up against searches for God - after all, he's kind of a celeb in his own right.

The results are obvious - God consistently maintained a high search volume throughout the past twelve months. And the country that has the highest index for searches? Eritrea, a country that is 50% Muslim and 48% Christian*.



*Sources: Google Insights for Search, Wikipedia