Carat New Zealand Blog - New Zealand's Largest Independent Media Agency

Digital Media Planning - Insights & Opinions

2011-06-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

Below is a really interesting article on digital media planning, with 10 slideshows providing insights and opinions on how to successfully plan digital media.

10 presentations to help you become a digital planning genius

Re-post of the article posted18 April by Jake Hird (original article here)

What makes a good online media planner?

Planning an online PR campaign doesn’t necessarily require the same skills as a paid search one, or developing a social media strategy may not need the same proficiencies as that of an email one.

However, I’m beginning to think that lateralisation is of major importance. Without becoming too technical, this is the concept of the functions between the left and right hemispheres of the brain: The left side is associated with analysis and logic, the right with creativity and context.

Using both sides of the brain is a major element to successful digital planning, especially given that there is a growing importance to understand how best to influence and engage users, whilst simultaneously being calculating and analytical.

That’s not to say either/or doesn’t have a place – I’m conscious that both the objectives and channels used have a bearing on this – but from a general perspective, the best of both will likely be more beneficial.

Below, I’ve dug out some thought-provoking presentations which I think help to support my current wobbly line of thinking around this. They’re also great in helping to isolate and understand any planning or strategic activity, from objective through to execution.

I’m sure this might kick off a decent debate, so I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, if you have any.

Account Planning in Digital Age

What is media planning?

The brief in the post digital age

Why planners and creatives should become best friends

Planning Needs Some Planning

Seven Deadly Sins

AdAge Digital 2010 6 Foundations of Great Digital Creative

The Birth Of A Grand Strategist By Waqar Riaz

The future of advertising, a conversation

Digital Media Planning 2010

Learn, consolidate, grow

2011-05-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

Organisations have forever struggled with growing pains and issues associated with rapid change. Changes in structure, culture and responsibilities can lead to difficulties in developing consistency and understanding organisational culture and processes, and can often result in problems with delivering a consistent product or service. To reduce the issues associated with rapid growth, a pragmatic approach that relies heavily on planning is recommended.

Parallels can be drawn with the rise and rise of digital media and the explosion in ways businesses can connect with their customers. A recent article from eMarketer notes that while small businesses are broadening their approach across more multiple digital marketing platforms, there is also an increasing dissatisfaction at the performance of these channels.

"Website, email and search were rated most effective for customer acquisition, but even these had dropped since the prior year."

However eMarketer asserts that this is likely due to the inexperience of using new channels as well as a lack of resource to properly manage them.

The solution then, it seems, it to take a pragmatic approach to these new digital channels, based on thorough planning, a solid basis for decisions and a measured approach to assessing performance.

At Carat, we take this approach when planning digital activities for our clients. Rather than jump headlong into tactics that have no long term direction, we thoroughly assess our clients' customers to understand their behaviour and motivations, understand what success for their business looks like and formulate a solution that addresses their issues and allows us to understand what is successful and what requires further thought.

The result - a consistent approach across channels relevant to the audience, that we know will deliver a solution that matches the business objectives.

While the temptation is rush and embrace every new technology as it emerges, sometimes stepping back and considering the reasons behind it can make for a much better result.

Nokia & Microsoft Partnership

2011-02-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

“Today in London, these two companies announced plans for a broad strategic partnership that combines the respective strengths of the companies and builds a new global mobile ecosystem.

The partnership increases their scale, which will result in significant benefits for consumers, developers, mobile operators and businesses around the world.

While the specific details of the deal are being worked out, here’s a quick summary of what they are working towards:

• Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as its primary smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

• Nokia will help drive and define the future of Windows Phone. Nokia will contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

• Nokia and Microsoft will closely collaborate on development, joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

• Bing will power Nokia’s search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing’s next generation search capabilities. Microsoft adCenter will provide search advertising services on Nokia’s line of devices and services.

• Nokia Maps will be a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services. For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience.”

Read more here

The Rise of Online Adspend

2010-10-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

“The boom in online video, social and ‘performance’ marketing contributed to the 10% increase in online advertising spend during the first half of 2010, which saw UK marketers invest £1,968.6 million, lifting the medium to a record market share of 24.3%.
The return to double-digit growth for the internet mirrors the general recovery of the entire advertising industry, with total UK expenditure increasing 6.3% to £8.1 billion between January and June 2010.”

Read more here

New research from Aegis Media & Microsoft Advertising

2010-10-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

“The global recession has affected the way consumers are shopping. More than ever they are looking for value and as a consequence, they are making further decisions and spending extra time shopping – with Asians leading the way. This was among the key findings in the Global Retail Index, a new study commissioned by Microsoft Advertising and Aegis Media, and undertaken independently by London-based Essential Research.
The study, arguably the most comprehensive retail research of its kind since the global recession, zeroed in on four key retail sectors – groceries, apparel, home electronics, and fast food. It polled 19,000 shoppers across 17 countries in the USA, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Additionally, ethnographic studies were conducted in six markets representing these regions.

Most of the respondents (94 – 96%) across all four regions admitted that they were impacted by the recession. The study showed that this has consequently given rise to ‘value seeking’ shopping behavior, with consumers going to great lengths to find better value buys. Rather than taking a traditional approach when purchasing, post-recession value seekers are now looking for additional information from a variety of sources before they buy. And the main source for their research is the Internet.”

Read more here

Twitter Launches Redesign

2010-09-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

Twitter has always been about getting a lot in a little. The constraint of 140 characters drives conciseness and lets you quickly discover and share what's happening. Yet, they've learned something since starting Twitter—life doesn't always fit into 140 characters or less.

Today, they are introducing a new, re-engineered Twitter.com that provides an easier, faster, and richer experience.

On the site, you’ll see the familiar timeline, yet underneath each Tweet is a handful of information, deeper context and even embedded media. Simply click on an individual Tweet and a details pane slides out on the right and reveals this content.

You can find out more about the enhancements on this information page. Here are some highlights:

•New design. The site has a cleaner timeline and a rich details pane that instantly adds more impact to individual Tweets while still maintaining the simplicity of the timeline. And, experience infinite scroll -- you no longer have to click “more” to view additional Tweets.

•Media. Now, it’s easy to see embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with Flickr, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, and YouTube.

•Related content. When you click a Tweet, the details pane shows additional information related to the author or subject. Depending on the Tweet’s content, you may see: replies, other Tweets by that user, a map of where a geotagged Tweet was sent from, and more.

•Mini profiles. Click a username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

These changes will roll out as a preview over the next several weeks starting with a very small percentage of registered accounts tonight. During the preview, you'll be able to switch back and forth so you have time to grow accustomed to the way things work. Eventually, everyone will have the updated version of Twitter.com.

Read more here

The Smartphone Invasion

2010-08-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

“Last quarter it was reported on some pretty stellar growth numbers for Android in the global smartphone marketplace. Back then, Google's OS had a 9.6 percent slice of the pie, but today that's ballooned to a robust 17.2 percent, meaning that in terms of end-user sales over the last three months, Android has nearly matched RIM's BlackBerry sales. That's quite the feat when you consider that a year ago the latter was shifting ten times more units than the former. This extraordinary growth rate has narrowed down Symbian's lead at the top, in spite of Nokia's favorite OS actually shipping on more phones this year, while the big loser of the quarter has to be Windows Mobile, which contracted both in terms of market share and actual shipments.”

Read more here

TVNZ Heartland Exceeds Expectations

2010-08-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

"TVNZ Heartland, New Zealand’s newest TV channel and first with 100% Kiwi content, has exceeded expectations with 21 percent of New Zealanders tuning into the channel since launch.

TVNZ launched TVNZ Heartland on the SKY pay TV platform on 1 June and in the past four weeks 834,400 New Zealanders have watched the channel.

Eric Kearley, TVNZ’s Head of Digital Channels and Digital Media, is delighted with the success of TVNZ’s first venture into pay TV.

“TVNZ Heartland is only 10 weeks old and is already drawing in one in five New Zealanders. That’s a fantastic result. It just highlights the fact that New Zealanders love local shows.”

Kearley believes that TVNZ Heartland is a reservoir of New Zealand television gold and something we can all be proud of.

“We’re delighted that we can celebrate the fantastic work of the New Zealand production industry by bringing New Zealanders the TV shows that they’ve grown up with, as well as more recent dramas and factual programming.

“The channel wouldn’t be possible without the support of our sponsors – Toyota, Mitre 10, The National Bank, Foodstuffs and our most recent addition Fonterra. It’s a channel that they can be proud to associate their iconic brands with.”
TVNZ Heartland is TVNZ’s fifth channel and demonstrates the evolution of TVNZ’s strategy of Inspiring New Zealanders on Every Screen.

“Launching a pay TV channel is a key step in our strategy to be New Zealand’s leading multi-platform media company, delivering excellent environments and audiences for advertisers, and quality content for New Zealand viewers.”

The launch of TVNZ Heartland is one of the strongest channel launches in the past five years.

TVNZ Heartland is found on SKY channel 017."

CARAT NEW ZEALAND HAS PARTNERED WITH JB HI-FI

2010-07-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Auckland, 22 July 2010: Carat New Zealand has partnered with audio/visual giant JB Hi-Fi without a formal pitch. Billings for the account are $1.5million.

Carat will handle the offline media buying, with digital being added to Carat’s responsibility at a future date.

Ryf Quail, General Manager of Carat New Zealand said, “We are excited to be working with a high growth client such as JB Hi-Fi. Carat’s focus of driving commercial advantage in media provided a great platform for us to improve their approach to buying media in this market and significantly improve JB Hi-Fi’s return on investment.”

Strong vs Weak Ties

2010-07-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

"Recently a presentation from the research lead for Google’s social team, Paul Adams, has been spreading around the web. The presentation provides deeper insight into Google’s existing concept of “social” and could help us further understand what the company believes is weaknesses in Facebook’s armor as they prepared to launch a “Facebook killer“. There were a number of themes that were consistent throughout the presentation, all of which we’ve included below.

The overall theme of the presentation was consistent: we have multiple groups and within those groups there are individuals who we have strong ties with and many more who we have weak ties with. There are also even temporary ties, like the person at the restaurant who served you food last night. While getting the system right on this is extremely difficult, the strong vs. weak ties is something that Facebook has yet to enable users to control.

Instead, the strength of relationships on Facebook is determined algorithmically: the more we interact (and/or view) a person on the site, the more likely they’ll show up in our news feed. So far the only way Facebook has been able to empower users to control access to information is through friends lists, a feature that even Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged is for “advanced” users of the site."

Read more here

The World Cup breaks Internet traffic level records

2010-06-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

“World Cup fever pushed the Internet to a new record on Friday, according to measurements from Akamai.

Traffic to news sites globally started a steady climb about 6 a.m. Eastern time and peaked six hours later at noon, reaching nearly 12.1 million visitors per minute.

The traffic dipped going into the afternoon but stayed well above normal. The figures suggest that the Internet was most active during the Mexico-South Africa game and stayed heavy through the France-Uruguay game.

The day's traffic far exceeded the previous record of 8.5 million visitors per minute, which was set when Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election in 2008.”

The article from CNET avaliable at this link

And go the All Whites!!

Introducing Promoted Tweets

2010-06-20T16:26:00.000-07:00

“Since April, Twitter users have grown accustomed to Twitter’s first ad revenue play: Promoted Tweets. Today, the second phase of that strategy is starting to be tested: Promoted Trending Topics. The first such topic? Toy Story 3, promoted by Disney/Pixar.As you can see in the right hand toolbar of Twitter.com, at the bottom of the Trending Topics area there is now an 11th topic, “Toy Story 3.” Next to it is a big yellow box letting you know that it’s a promoted Trending Topic. Just as with Promoted Tweets, the functionality for these Promoted Trending Topics is the same as the regular Trending Topics — clicking on it takes you to a search results page to see what people are saying about Toy Story 3.

“As we have always said, we plan to test different advertising and promotional models in these early stages of our monetization efforts for both user and brand value. As part of this effort, we are testing trends clearly marked as “promoted” for an undefined period of time,” a Twitter representative tells us.”

See the original article here

What’s a fan worth?

2010-06-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

“Social media is becoming widely adopted by businesses of all sizes, yet one of the biggest struggles has been calculating the ROI of these campaigns. In response to this struggle, Syncapse, a global leader in digital consulting and measurement with a focus on social media, has released a report that dives deep into the data.

As part of their study, Syncapse surveyed 4,000 fans of twenty of the top brands on Facebook. The brands included Nokia, BlackBerry, Victoria’s Secret, Adidas, Nike, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Xbox, Axe, Playstation and McDonald’s. The focus group was asked why they were fans of those brands and about their past and future purchasing behavior. Syncapse then used these responses to estimate the monetary value of each fan over time. Below are the key findings of the report:

The average value of a Facebook Fan is $136.38.

Facebook Fans are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using a specific brand.

68% of Facebook Fans indicate that they are highly likely to recommend a product they are a fan of to their friends.

81% of Facebook Fans report feelings a connection/empathy with the brand

It is important to note that the results also showed how the value of a fan can vary widely based on the fan’s participation.”

See here for the original article and for a copy of the full report click here

BP buys search terms

2010-06-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

As BP continues to try to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the energy giant is also dealing with a public relations nightmare.

That's why the company is snapping up search phrases like "oil spill" and "oil spill claims" on Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500). The strategy, says a company spokeswoman, aims to "assist those who are most impacted and help them find the right forms and the right people quickly and effectively."

For instance, when a user searches "oil spill" on Google or Yahoo, there are millions of results -- but the first link on both search engines is a sponsored ad that leads to BP's "Gulf of Mexico response" page that provides resources and information about the spill.”

For more info see here

Apple shows off redesigned iPhone

2010-06-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

“The revamped gadget has a stainless steel case, two cameras, improved display and is 24% thinner than the most recent version.

Apple boss Steve Jobs said the redesign was the "biggest leap" it had taken since the launch of the first iPhone.

But analysts said the phone's popularity could be dented by Apple's strict control over what owners can do with their gadget.

The gadget was revealed during the keynote speech at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.”

See more here

adidas runbase opens in Tokyo

2010-06-08T16:16:00.001-07:00

JAP – "Sportswear giant Adidas is meeting the demand for high-technology running equipment and consumer interaction by opening a completely new concept store. Runners can drop into the ‘base’ before work, rent one of the 248 lockers provided, borrow cutting edge Adidas equipment shoes and clothing, and then hit the streets. Adidas Runbase also features 16 shower cubicles, so Tokyoites can freshen up after their run before heading to work".

For more info, click here

13% of American internet users bought virtual goods last year

2010-06-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

“According to the study, 13% of the overall population surveyed reported that they had bought virtual goods in the last 12 months, with the mean of digital good purchase up 14% from $87 in 2009 to $99 in 2010. The median of digital goods purchase is $50 in 2010, a 67% improvement from $30 in 2009. In terms of the heaviest concentration of digital goods buyers, iPhone owners took over the #1 spot, moving from 28% of iPhone owners in 2009 to 43% in 2010. Virtual worlds came in second place with 41% of regular visitors having bought a digital good. Of weekly handheld and mobile gamers, 33% and 32%, respectively, bought digital goods. Overall, more than one-fifth (21%) of those who bought digital goods said they plan to spend more in the next 12 months. Among ways to purchase digital goods, 16% of digital goods buyers say they have used Facebook Credits.”

To find out more click here

The World Cup could be the most watched event in TV history

2010-06-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

“You wouldn’t have thought many people would have watched Togo vs South Korea at the World Cup of 2006. These were unglamorous teams, meeting in the first round. Nonetheless, the game’s average live global TV audience was 109m viewers. That was more than saw last year’s Super Bowl of American football, or Champions League final, or probably any non-sporting TV programme. And the 109m doesn’t include hordes who watched outside their homes, in bars or on big screens.

Next month’s tournament could be the most watched media event in history, competing only with the Beijing Olympics, says Kevin Alavy, director at Initiative, futures sport + entertainment, a research agency.

Mr Alavy gave me some insight into some of the data he has gathered on world cups. The agency has collected reliable TV data from 55 countries, as opposed to the inflated figures trumpeted by the sports events themselves. Initiative’s numbers capture something of the World Cup’s uniqueness.”

To find out more click here

nzherald.co.nz and Nokia – a dynamic new partnership

2010-05-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

nzherald.co.nz has launched an exciting new section in partnership with Nokia – nzherald.co.nz/play.

The section draws in existing nzherald.co.nz content and displays it in a new dynamic way. The content changes every day, and encourages interaction by enlarging images on mouse-over. Nokia's branding follows the reader through their Play experience.

Advertising Director, Donna O’Keeffe says, “Nokia were looking for an environment that was all about people's passion; things they love to do when they aren't stuck in the office. So we created Play. From mountain biking to fine wines, to music, there is something for everyone. It was a new step for us, sorting our content by psychographics rather than sections.”

nzherald.co.nz has worked closely with Nokia’s agency, Carat NZ, to deliver a powerful new platform through which Nokia can engage with their target market, and highlight how Nokia can enhance their already playful lives.

Ryf Quail, General Manager, Carat says, “Our focus for Nokia was to do something beyond what our competitors were thinking. Something out of the box that gave them a commercial edge and, if you are marketing smart phones, that had to be online.”

A mix of standard and bespoke ads are currently running as well as a co-branded marketing campaign to promote the new section. O’Keeffe adds, “There is still a lot to come with this partnership. The foundation is there though, and our readers love it.”

Facebook changes the privacy controls

2010-05-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

“The number one thing we've heard is that there just needs to be a simpler way to control your information. We've always offered a lot of controls, but if you find them too hard to use then you won't feel like you have control. Unless you feel in control, then you won't be comfortable sharing and our service will be less useful for you. We agree we need to improve this.

Today we're starting to roll out some changes that will make all of these controls a lot simpler. We've focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications.”

To find out more visit here

Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' Video - Spot The Product Placement

2010-03-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

"The video for Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s new track 'Telephone' is full of crazy fashion, action, murder, and … product placement. And just as Gaga kills again in the video, it seems that she is a repeat offender with slipping brands into her videos too. We counted nine separate products - no wonder the video's so long, it had to be, to cram in all those plugs. We've listed them all below. Have we missed any?

Heartbeats earphones
Virgin Mobile
Diet Coke
HP Envy ‘Beats Limited Editon’ laptop from Monster
Plenty Of Fish dating site
Chevrolet
Polaroid
Wonderbread
Miracle Whip

Read more here"

Time Spent 'Socialising' Up 82%

2010-02-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

“According to The Nielsen Company, global [U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy] consumers spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year when users were spending just over three hours on social networking sites. In addition, the overall traffic to social networking sites has grown over the last three years.Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67% of global social media users visited the site during the month. Time on site for Facebook has also been on the rise, with global users spending nearly six hours per month on the site.”

Read more here

PMIRRG Press Release - Readership Measurement Shortlist

2009-12-16T18:35:00.000-08:00

The print media industry has announced the four research agencies shortlisted to provide New Zealand readership services (including consumer insights and media engagement) for the $1 billion per annum print industry.

The following four research agencies were shortlisted after presenting their credentials to the Print Media Industry Research Review Group Incorporated (PMIRRG)

The short-listed agencies in alphabetical order are:
1. Nielsen
2. Research International
3. Roy Morgan
4. Synovate

The call for expressions of interest was answered by 11 companies from New Zealand and around the world.

“The review panel was greatly pleased with the high calibre of submissions and accompanying presentations. It is refreshing to see that the research community shares the vision that New Zealand needs a world class measurement metric,” said Derek Lindsay, PMIRRG chairman.

The four short-listed agencies have been issued with the full RFP document including a submission deadline of the end of March 2010.

PMIRRG - which represents members of the newspaper and magazine publishers’ associations and Communication Agencies Association of New Zealand - was formed in late 2007 with the specific objective of evaluating the needs of the New Zealand print media and communication industry for readership research.

Over the last 2 years it has carried out an extensive review on international best practice in media research, innovation and the use of technology.

By initiating the tender process the PMIRRG is seeking to future proof the readership measurement system providing the flexibility to adapt as technology continues to evolve and provide relevant audience data in a more complex and dynamic media landscape.

Carat/Isobar = Network of the Year

2009-12-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

“Carat/Isobar was named Network of the Year, with the Aegis agencies racking up the highest score aggregated over selected categories. Carat’s Shanghai office also picked up the award for North Asia Office of the Year, while Seth Grossman, Carat’s managing director for Eastern China and national head of strategy for Carat Shanghai, was named Account/Business Development Person of the Year.”

Read more here

10 Trends for 2010

2009-12-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

Dan Calladine gives us his 10 key trends for next year…

1. Mobile The most interesting technological developments are likely to come in mobile services and applications. Penetration of the mobile web (3G) is rising, currently standing at 15% of all phone users globally (Ovum and Morgan Stanley), and the number of devices that are capable of offering a rich web experience is ballooning. By the end of next year, it will be relatively hard to buy a mobile phone without a sophisticated operating system, just as it
became hard to buy a non camera phone about 7 years ago.

If the average contract length is 18 months, then 2/3 of mobile users will be replacing their handsets next year, and many will be trading up to smartphones (phones with advanced features like email, web browsing, and the ability to edit documents). The market for apps will continue to grow, with the iPhone app store likely to hit 3 billion downloads before Christmas, and (maybe) 8 billion by the end of 2010. But there will be strong competition from Android (a slew of new phones expected in early 2010), Nokia (through Symbian and Maemo), and Blackberry. App developers will develop apps for all platforms.

2. Cloud computing is essentially the storage of information and resources in cyberspace rather than on an actual computer. Webmail is cloud computing – essentially you can access it from any computer or advanced phone anywhere in the world, as long as you have internet access.

The cloud also allows the simultaneous use of multiple devices – a laptop sometimes, a mobile at other times, and so on. Similarly software and music don’t need to be owned – they can just be accessed when needed. Spotify and MySpace Music are classic cloud examples – you don’t need to have the music downloaded to a device when you can access it whenever you want.

Google Wave is also an example of the cloud in action – documents and apps can live in a place to be accessed by multiple users. (Google Wave will make sense in 2010, by the way. Once it integrates with Gmail – ‘Do you want to turn this conversation into a Cloud?’ and YouTube ‘Do you want to watch this video with a friend?’ it will become much less baffling.)

3. Augmented Reality puts a virtual layer on top of a real world view. It’s can be a bit of a gimmick in desktop computing (turn on your webcam to see a mini movie), but in mobile apps it can be used to show local landmarks or utlities on top of a standard map or panoramic view, as seen through the phone’s
camera. Once these start to proliferate, maybe with voucher codes integrated, smartphones will suddenly have a whole new appeal.

4. Mobile payments In Japan, e-commerce giant Rakuten made 16% of all revenues from mobile sales in 2008, a number that has been steadily climbing from 4% in 2004. In the west, a few success stories like iPhone apps from companies like ebay and Pizza Hut show that mobile commerce is likely to be big business here too. And there’s more – the idea of using a mobile phone as a virtual wallet, or being able to ‘text’ money to friends seems likely to gain traction next year.

5. Asian influence will rise. Already China is the largest single online country, and the ability to create urls with Asian character sets will spur the web still further. The lack of common languages and keyboards will start to become less relevant with the rise of picture based search, such as Google Goggles, where you just need to take a picture of an object to find out about it.

Asian sites could well start to focus on the west, with search engine Baidu possibly Launching in the west, and messenger site QQ showing the rest of the world how to monetise through virtual goods.

6. Video 2010 sees YouTube celebrating its 5th birthday, with a global reach of nearly 40% of all internet users each month. 2010 could also be the year that it expands its offering into full length films, TV shows and sports events, either for rental or pay per view. It has worked hard over the past two years to secure professionally made content, and successfully screened back catalogue films mainly in the US, and concerts globally. It even screened the Olympics in 2008 in countries where the IOC had not sold the official rights. World Cup 2010 – will we be watching live games or even official highlights packages on
YouTube? The BBC’s iPlayer and Hulu could also grow beyond their national boundaries in 2010, but so far expansion has been slower than thought. YouTube could now be the most likely global video channel for long-form video.

7. Twitter will see huge growth, but a new type of user is emerging – one that treats it as one-to-many SMS and MMS. A year ago most of the people I knew
who were on twitter also had a blog. These days many new twitter users are refugees from other services like MySpace. Particularly in the US many twitter users seem to give their address as a MySpace page, and tread twitter as a comms network for their circle of friends. While a few months ago it was reckoned that young people don’t tweet, it seems that young people are increasingly getting into it. Twitter itself will stay as the core service, but extra functionality
to simplify it and make it more usable will come, like the list feature introduced recently. The money will start to come in too,although not through conventional ad placement or even search ads.

8. Measurement and understanding is key to communications – the ability to see how a campaign has worked, and understand why – and 2010 will see major advances in the measurement of social media effectiveness and mash ups in measurement between different media. Agencies are learning to see in the new climate, and getting more sophisticated in how they measure campaign effectiveness. Clients are also getting more open about sharing results of initiatives (where they are successful, clearly…). Expect to see examples of campaigns across all media measured in terms of revenues but also engagement, and combinations of the two.

9. Fun The digital world will be more fun. As people’s usage increases the web is seen as a mainstream entertainment channel, as demonstrated by the rise of video sites, social networks, and online gaming. More blogs will start aggregating random things, like cake decoration gone wrong, strange photos from yesteryear, or bizarre homemade items.

Similarly services like Foursquare will grow in popularity, due to their game-playing nature. Foursquare is a mobile service that asks you to report in whenever you visit a local place of interest – the person who checks in most often becomes the ‘Mayor’ – adding a fun twist to something that could have been dull. The number and complexity of stunts will also increase. In 2009, we’ve seen flashmobs, pop up shops and even events like the creation of a giant punch bowl for Courvoisier (”so big you can row in it”). Everyone likes these – there are bound to be more of them.

10. Rejectors
Finally, let’s not get carried away with our future visions. A lot of people do not yet live digitally. They don’t download music, much less download films or TV illegally. They aren’t on twitter or Foursquare, and didn’t apply for an invite to Wave. In fact in the UK, according to research commissioned by the Government’s Digital Inclusion Team, over 15% of the poulation have never used the internet. There are a lot of people who are very happy with mobile phones that will make calls and send texts, and not do much else. They don’t have a PVR, blu-ray or HDTV. These people will remain a very important
group, and mustn’t be ignored. Most of the ideas I’ve written about here are moving from the early adopters to the mainstream, but there will always be people who lag behind, and are happy to. The huge sales of Susan Boyle’s album on CD show that there are lots of people who don’t download (in the US only 6% of first week sales were through iTunes).

In essence we need to understand the future, but be aware that a lot of people are still living in the present.

Susan Boyles 'Dream' - First Week Sales

2009-12-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

“Her record label, Columbia, said Wednesday that 'Dream' has moved a whopping 3 million copies around the world in its opening week.
Also amazing is the way people purchased the album. Although digital sales have grown for years - with iTunes being the main beneficiary - consumers headed back to the record store for Boyle's debut.

Columbia chairman Steve Barnett told the New York Times that only about 39,000 of Ms. Boyle's total in the United States were sold through iTunes. Consumers could also purchase the album on shopping network QVC. "The reason that this record really did what it did," Mr. Barnett told the Times, "was that people wanted to get it and own it, to feel like they're a part of it."”

Read more here

Happy 30th Birthday Mobile Phones!!!

2009-12-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

“It was December 1, 1979, and Japan's national monopoly telecoms operator/carrier, NTT, launched the world's first mobile telecoms service commercially, with a fully functional network covering the 23 districts of Tokyo to start with, and by 1984 would offer national coverage across all of Japan. No, this was not the famous phone by Dr Martin Cooper of Motorola who is so frequently, but mistakenly credited for starting this industry. The early phones were carphones. The first service was purely a 'rental' service, which had a 2,000 dollar sign-up fee (remember those?) in the form of a deposit; plus a monthly fee of 300 dollars (ie 3,600 dollars per year, ouch..). And voice minutes cost 10 cents per every 6 seconds ie one dollar per minute. These new mobile phones were seen by all experts and analysts including management at NTT as only a niche product for the wealthy and powerful. But that was the starting point.”

Read more here

Nokia's Ovi Store - The First 5 Months

2009-11-29T20:04:00.000-08:00

“2009 has sure gone by quickly and being mid-November, 2010 is rapidly approaching. For those of you who are mobile developers or are following the various mobile application stores available in market I thought I would give another update regarding Ovi Store and where we are since we launched about 5 months ago. The following stats are from 26 May through 31 October:

Available on over 100 different Nokia devices (60+ Symbian S60 devices)

Active users from over 180 countries

Developers from 65 countries are distributing content

8 countries today have local content, local language support and mobile billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy, Russia. By the end of Q1 2010 there will be more than 20 countries.

Top 10 Ovi Store Markets by performance in alphabetic order: Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia & UK

In almost all of the top 10 Ovi Store countries, 5800 XpressMusic and N97 are the #1 and #2 devices for Ovi Store activity and consumer engagement

On average, each registered user has downloaded at least 8 items from Ovi Store

In October, the number of content items downloaded was over 70% higher than in Sept.”

Read more here

New Moon's Record Breaking Success Predicted (last week) by Online Trailer Views

2009-11-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

“After months of building anticipation and expectations, Twilight Saga: New Moon will sink its teeth into box offices this weekend with the highest view count of any film this year. The vampire romance grew by 9% this week to reach nearly 20 million views. This is nearly twice the views of the first installment in the series, which scored 10.1 million views the week of its release. This also tops view counts for this year's blockbusters. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen generated 5.9 million views the week of its release and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince conjured up 7.3 million. New Moon has also set a record for the Top 10 Online Film Trailers Chart: it's the first film to maintain first place for every chart appearance. Impressive!”

Read more here.

Esquire Magazine Launch an Augmented Reality Edition

2009-11-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

“Esquire magazine has embedded special markers on certain pages of the magazine including the front cover. By downloading a piece of software and utilizing the webcam on your PC you can access this additional content. All you have to do is hold the marker up to your camera and it will bring up new content using the software you installed. This may just be a short video clip starring the person on the page or it may include some interaction. For example, the front cover has multiple videos to watch depending on how you tilt the page. Another page sees someone change clothes as you rotate the page.”

Read more here on The New York Observer.

New Research on Social Media Use

2009-11-15T17:14:00.000-08:00

“This year we changed tack and focused our efforts on understanding how digital is changing the way that consumers interact with brands.

What did we find out? Experience matters. A lot. So much so that experiences are becoming the new advertising or marketing. And these experiences are having an inordinate amount of impact on how consumers perceive a brand and ultimately purchase products. Moreover, we also found that consumers are actively engaged with brands across the entire digital spectrum. Consumers may be in control but so are brands which are so deeply embedded in the culture that consumers can’t imagine not making them a part of their world — on Facebook, Twitter or even their own blogs.”

Read more here.

Radio Survey T2 Commentary

2009-11-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

The twice yearly radio audience measurement surveys are now out. Perhaps the most widely discussed issue in radio audience research, not just in New Zealand, but around the world, is the reliability of the ‘hard copy’ diary. Emerging technologies such as personal people meters and ‘quite smart’ phones are still being talked about but the hard copy diary remains. As of late 2006, paper diaries remain the currency in all major radio markets including the U.S, U.K and Australia.

Basically - each survey is required to collect a minimum sample of 12,000 radio listeners. A diary is pre-printed with all known radio stations within a listed region, with the twenty four hours of each day divided into quarter hours. Diaries are placed, in person, in randomly selected households (excluding those who work in radio) with anyone over 10 years of age who is willing to record their radio listening for a week. Over the week the respondent is requested to indicate the radio station listened to for each period of 8 minutes or more or each quarter hour.

The topline results* this round are below. Should you wish to know results for your particular demographic please contact your media planner:

Initial Top Line Results: National

Overall a stable survey result for radio with Time Spent Listening (TSL) and Cume audiences remaining consistent within the last 12mths with National radio delivering 2.21 million listeners per week.
Interesting to note was that TSL has also increased in a somewhat fickle demographic known as the ‘iPod generation’ (All People 18-34), up 20mins to 17hr 37mins per week.

National Breakfast

The top ranked station is Newstalk ZB* – although Classic Hits and Radio Live have both increased their Breakfast Station Share significantly.
Newstalk ZB also maintains its status as the most listened to breakfast show in New Zealand (All People 10+ Cume Audience).

Auckland

Newstalk ZB remains the Number 1 station in Auckland*.
Interestingly “Other”** came in at no.2 indicating just how fragmented the Auckland market is.
Huge growth for Mai FM in this market - becoming the highest All People 18-34 Cume Audience 70,400. The Rock is still the Number 1 Youth brand (All People 18-34).

Wellington

A positive survey for the Wellington market - more people are listening longer.
The battle for Number 1 Station in Wellington remained tight, with ZM just managing to hang on to the No. 1 spot from The Breeze No.2 and Newstalk No.3.
The Breeze more than doubled its Station Share against All People 18-34, moving it into third place within this competitive demographic.
Strong growth for The Rock, which increased both Station Share and Cume Audience against all 4 of the main demographic groups.

Initial Top Line Results: Christchurch

Newstalk ZB is now the Number 1 Station in Christchurch*, the Rock is Number 2, followed by More FM.
Against All People 18-34 The Rock continues to dominate followed by The Edge then More FM and ZM
More FM reclaimed its Number 1 position against All People 25-54

Now the survey results are out the various radio stations will be singing their praises and many rightly so. Your Carat media planner are the impartial experts in this area and are always on hand to analyse the results and make full recommendations to best meet your business needs and specific target markets.

*Based on All People 10+share, Mon –Sun 6am–12mn unless specified otherwise
** “Other” defined as all other non surveyed stations in the Auckland market

Thanks to Joleen Salisbury - Client Service Manager, Carat Wellington

The Demographics of Social Media Users

2009-11-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

"Over the course of the year, there have been countless reports - some more substantial than others - but all with the same message: Generation Y is just not interested in Twitter. The reports generally cited members of this demographic as saying Twitter was "pointless" and "narcissistic."

Apparently, that's beginning to change. Well, maybe not their perception of Twitter, but certainly their use of it. Today, Twitter is now the second-youngest of the top four social networking sites. Its median age is 31. MySpace's is 26, LinkedIn is 39, and, as noted above, Facebook is 33."

Read more here.

The latest National Readership Survey is out!

2009-11-01T19:55:00.000-08:00

The latest National Readership Survey conducted by Nielsen was officially released last Friday. There were some obvious winners and unfortunately plenty of losers. One thing was certain, the results offered compelling insights into how our consumers were behaving.

Be my guest.
Entertaining guests from home are becoming more frequent where long lunches and fancy dinners are now merely treats on the side. As pockets tighten so does our food palette. On the bright side, our strive to rekindle the joys of cooking is eminent with foodie titles experiencing pivotal growth. Titles such as Cuisine is up by 4% and the Healthy Food Guide with a staggering increase of 14% year on year.

DIY is in our blood.
It’s what Kiwi’s do in their spare time. Whether it’s extending the deck or cultivating the vege gardens, weekends are always brimming with projects and round trips to your local. Hence it’s no surprise that the DIY & gardening genres are undergoing a well earned readership increase. NZ Gardener was up by 20% in readers while Your Home & Garden held strong with a 8.9% rise.

We’re being picky.
Gone are the days when POS stands caught every shoppers attention, to be honest it still does – it just needs to work three times as hard. We’re choosing our weekly gossip fixes wisely, we can no longer splurge like we use to. If Bradgelina isn’t adopting another kid or Tom making Katie cry, then we don’t care. It’s these harsh realities that we’re seeing the women’s weeklies taking the hardest hit with Woman’s Day and NZ Woman’s Weekly dropping 11% respectively and New Idea down by 9.5%. Even the TV Guide is showing worst for wear dropping 17% in readers.

Supporting our Communities.
Overall, community newspapers are standing strong and delivering on local content. These free publications are receiving well deserved respect with an average growth of 2%. Specific regions of interest are Wellington with an average of 5% increase and Christchurch with a healthy average increase of 8%. Auckland and Hamilton remain steady. The national paper Sunday Star Times lost significant numbers in Auckland and Dunedin by 10% and 33% respectively however gaining ground in all other regions. Overall Sunday readership in Auckland has declined by 9% - could well be the DIY projects!

Other key trends emerging:

Techy titles such as PC World and NetGuide have suffered a hard blow (15% and 23% drop respectively), this would reflect our reliance to research over the net rather than via hardcover.

Either NZ couples are opting for a longer engagement, not getting married or it’s all about hand me downs – whatever the scenario, wedding mags are not relishing in growth. NZ Weddings is down by 16% whilst Bride & Groom has fallen by 9%.

So what can we take out of this? Well having a clear understanding of these dynamics and insights can really help define the way we work with our clients & publishers. It’s about collaboration to amplify these trends and make it work in our favour.

Pauline So, Client Service Manager - Carat New Zealand

Google’s Eric Schmidt on the web in 5 years time

2009-11-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Key Points from this Article:

“Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.

Today's teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years - they jump from app to app to app seamlessly.

Five years is a factor of ten in Moore's Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.

Within five years there will be broadband well above 100MB in performance - and distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away.”

Google on their own development:

“We're starting to make signifigant money off of Youtube", content will move towards more video.

Real time information is just as valuable as all the other information, we want it included in our search results.

There are many companies beyond Twitter and Facebook doing real time.

We can index real-time info now - but how do we rank it?

It's because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. Learning how to rank that "is the great challenge of the age." Schmidt believes Google can solve that problem.”

Online advertising is now 15 years old

2009-11-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

“Four of our then-clients placed ad banners as part of that first campaign, MCI, Volvo, Club Med and 1-800-Collect. (The other two advertisers were AT&T and Zima.) Keep in mind, this was 1994; the first graphical web browser, Mosaic, was less than a year old (soon to be replaced by Netscape Explorer), and Web access? Purely dial-up, 24.4kps if you were lucky, meaning these ads took a while to load. The online U.S. population? Two million, if that.

These "original six" were the first brands to take a leap of faith and place advertising in the unchartered "cyberspace" territory. But several didn't know they were taking it until after the fact. Corporate America was still largely unfamiliar with the graphical web, so we didn't even try to sell the concept. We decided to commit agency media and development dollars to place client banner ads on HotWired without clients' prior consent or knowledge. The way he saw it was if they liked it, they would be happy to pay us and if not, that was OK too; but at least the agency would get a running start at exploring this new exciting medium that was on course to change all of our (professional) lives.”

Read more here.

PMIRRG Announces Print Readership Tender

2009-10-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

After being put on hold earlier this year, due to the economic downturn, The Print Media Industry Research Review Group Incorporated (PMIRRG) has announced that it is seeking research companies to tender for New Zealand Print Media Readership measurement. The period of the contract will be for a minimum of 5 years and will include consumer insights and media engagement research.

The process to get to tender has been a long one. Over the last 18 months PMIRRG, who encompass representation from advertising agencies and magazine and newspaper publishers; has been investigating international best practice into media research, innovations and technology and likely changes to customer needs over the next 5 to 10 years.

Official print readership research is currently conducted by Nielsen Media Research. 12,000 people are interviewed, face to face, on a quarterly annual rolling basis. Readership is measured via masthead recognition.

Alternative readership research is provided by Roy Morgan. Morgan use a combination of phone interviews and leave behind questionnaires to gather information, because, as the second player and in a market the size of New Zealand, the cost of conducting face to face interviews is prohibitive for them. Unlike Australia, where Roy Morgan use both recency (cover shot of most recent issue) and through the book (content within the publication) to gather information, locally readership data is gathered via a list of the researched publications being read to the respondent.

By way of a brief history lesson, Nielsen has long held the readership contract in this market. Questions about methodology Nielsen use to collect readership data were originally raised when Morgan came into the market offering an alternative approach (that being used currently in Australia, where they own the readership currency).

More recently, the changing face of media consumption, most notably in the digital space means that a key requirement is to future-proof research and adapt as required. This is an issue specifically for newspapers, who have embraced on-line publishing formats as a way of attracting younger readers whilst traditional newsprint circulations crumble. Publishers will seek to keep up with their consumers evolving needs, so the potential for unknown alternative formats, for example “electronic paper” or versions of Amazon’s Kindle, to launch in New Zealand will also need to be allowed for.

While Nielsen and Roy Morgan are the two main contenders in this market, so would seem to be the front runners, Barry Williamson, Consultant (non-voting) to PMIRRG, believes up to 7 companies, both local and international are likely to tender, in line with recent Australian experience.

Ultimately, current readership measurement has issues. It lacks dynamicism, there have been ongoing questions surrounding both Nielsen's and Morgan's methodology and it is not reflective of large scale moves by mainstream publishers into digital formats. Quarterly reporting means that there is a significant delay between research completion and availability to the advertising market. There is no allowance for daily variances in readership with newspapers, and an inability to determine the real impact of significant events or appealing cover images to readership. The flow on means print media is planned on the basis of averages, without the confidence of, for example, daily television ratings. This makes it difficult to ascertain advertising success.

Expressions of interest are required by the 13th November. The tender process will progress from there. Carat welcome this review, and look with interest to the outcome.

For further details, see the PMIRRG press release, or contact your Carat representative.

Update on TVNZ Commission Changes

2009-10-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

In my previous comment on this matter dated 1 October 2009 I noted that TVNZ had not formally made any announcement about a corresponding drop in rates to match the advised drop in media commission from 2011. In my absense on leave last week TVNZ did formally send a letter to agencies announcing that they would be making a drop in media rates that would neutralise the effect.

In theory this should provide comfort to advertisers that the cost effect of the commission reduction should now not be an issue. However having, in my time at TVNZ as Sales Director for a number of years, had responsiblity to deliver many a ratecard to the market I know that in practice it is possible to manage the pricing across the ratecard to drive small improvements in yield without too much visibility. We would expect TVNZ to plan subtle management of 2011 pricing strategy to achieve a small improvement in yield and gain some advantage from the commission reduction. It would not be to the extent of an overt "hold" of the benefit of the full reduction in commission.

So what does this mean? As 2011 ratecard comes to market evaluation of TVNZ's TV audience versus rate position will need to be interrogated extremely closely to look for any evidence of disproportionate increase in audience CPT's relative to audience and market demand trends.

At the end of the day we work in a demand driven market and whatever TVNZ does with its ratecard will be subject to what the market can bear. If the result of TVNZ's reduced commission sees ratecard pricing that delivers CPT increases that do not reflect its audience performance and demand in the market for its product they will struggle to secure any advantage by taking this action.

In the interim Carat's approach, as we work with clients business requirements, will be to investigate opportunities very closely with those media companies that have not at this stage indicated a reduction in commission. Where appropriate we will make recommendations that may see a shift in media investment in their favour. Ultimately of course performance objectives must take precadent and we would not recommend driving investment away from TVNZ if it is going to hurt the performance of client schedules.

There will also be a need, where appropriate, to discuss moving to fee based structures as an alternative to straight commission linked structures. As we enter 2010 agencies and clients throughout New Zealand will be engaging in such dialogue as a result of TVNZ's move.

Ultimately however we are confident in protecting best value for our clients through smart analysis, negotiation and trading regardless of TVNZ's move and will work in clients best interests as this progresses.

TV3/C4 2010 Programme Launch

2009-10-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

TVWorks launched its 2010 programming line-up on Wednesday morning to a full house of media planners and buyers. Kelly Martin, TVWorks Head of Programming noted that this was the first time TV3 and C4 new season programming had been launched together, reflecting the new integrated approach the network is taking across the board with these channels.

The tone of the presentation was set by hosts, John Campbell and Dai Henwood, with Campbell particularly talking up network strength in local content production. An interesting angle, given the lack of local focus in a show reel. To be fair, many of the shows are returning (W hat’s Really in Our Food, 7 Days, Pulp Sport, Outrageous Fortune, etc) so are well known by media types, but the lack of attention paid to Bro'Town creators, Oscar Kightly and David Fane's, new show Radiradirah, was surprising.

Instead the focus of both Kelly Martin’s synopsis and the reel itself was on new and returning international series and movies, kicking off with C4 content.

C4 is evolving from music channel, to be re-defined as a “general entertainment channel with a special youth focus”, targeting 15 to 39 year olds. The programming mix has grown to include drama (24, 90210) alongside established comedy (South Park, 30 Rock) and music programming (Select Live). Of particular note is the shift of high rating sci-fi drama, Heroes, from TV3 to C4, signaling TVWorks intent to grow C4 into a serious contender. On the other hand, Heroes disappointing ratings in the US could have moved it to second tier status, and so off TV3’s peak schedule.

C4 New Season Winners:

The Cleveland Show – The Family Guy spin off (cartoon) has been renewed for 2 full seasons in the US and has been rating favourably there.

Sons of Anarchy – Season two launched on Fox (US) in September, and has been reaching record numbers of men 18-49.

C4 New Season Losers:

Melrose Place – The much hyped remake, starring Ashlee Simpson, is failing to deliver Stateside. May not make it to season 2.

Parks and Recreation – Despite having the same producers as The Office, this mockumentary comedy series is rating poorly in the US.

Kelly Martin’s key message for TV3 was consistency. Their goal is to offer strong programming throughout the year, rather than frontloading programming into the first 8 months (a pointed reference to her TVNZ counterpart perhaps?). The foundation of this year’s schedule is in returning shows. The CSI franchise is still going strong, alongside House, News and Current Affairs, The Simpsons, Underbelly and the local content outlined above. Enough content to ensure less reliance on movies and untested new series.

Tv3 have been clever enough to secure two of the best new shows from the States in NCIS: Los Angeles (starring Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J) and Modern Family, described by one media commentator as “the biggest new hit of the season” and a “bona fide hit” respectively.

TV3 New Season Winners:

Modern Family – Renewed for a second season

NCIS Los Angeles – Renewed for a second season

The Good Wife – Starring Julianna Marguiles and Chris Noth, this has been rating well and has been renewed for a second season in the States.

Glee – Is expected to gain Emmy attention.

TV3 New Season Losers:

Three Rivers – “the cancellation clock is ticking” (Mediaweek)

Trauma – despite good ratings for NZ actor Cliff Curtis, this show has not been a ratings star.

Overall, it was fairly much as we would expect. A high number of well established local and international shows, underpinned by a few new ones. Generally a low risk strategy, although one would question how long people will want to watch CSI and House. Additionally, the TV3/ C4 integrated programming approach is still to be well established and so is yet to be fully proven, although initial signs are good.

The first of the new season will launch before Christmas, with Glee likely to be the first cab off the rank in the America’s Next Top Model slot.

To view the show reel, and for more information on these shows, go to http://mediaworkstv.co.nz/, or contact Carat New Zealand for advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

Next Generation Media Quarterly - October 2009

2009-10-18T14:42:00.001-07:00

Check out this presentation put together by Dan Calladine, Head of Media Futures - Isobar UK. The information is based on the last three months and what you need to know the world of media moving forward:

Next Generation Media Quarterly - October 2009

View more documents from Dan Calladine.

Google's Share of Global Internet Traffic

2009-10-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

“Five years ago, Internet traffic was, for the most part, managed by tier 1 providers like AT&T, Verizon, Level 3 Communications, and Global Crossing, all of which connected to thousands of tier 2 networks and regional providers. Today, that has changed. Now, instead of traffic being distributed among tens of thousands of networks, only 150 networks control some 50% of all online traffic. Among these new Internet superpowers, it's no surprise to find Google listed. In fact, the search giant accounts for the largest source (6%) of all Internet traffic worldwide.

This data comes from a new report put out by Arbor Networks, who has just completed a two-year study of 256 exabytes of Internet traffic data, the largest study of global traffic since the start of the commercial Internet in the mid-1990's.”

Read more here.

iProspect New Zealand Wins MySpace

2009-10-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

Just three weeks after launching in New Zealand, iProspect has won the MySpace account.

The business was won without a competitive pitch and will involve search and digital strategy through iProspect and planning and buying, through iProspect’s sister agency, Carat.

“MySpace is a progressive digital brand that requires like-minded digital and media thinking to continue to flourish in the burgeoning NZ market. Carat and iProspect seemed the natural fit for MySpace at this time – and we’re very much looking forward to working together,” said Susan Carlton, Head of Business Development, MySpace New Zealand.

“This win is a vindication of the strategic developments at Carat and the investment made in launching search specialist company iProspect. We are very excited to win MySpace and look forward to doing great things with Susan and her team,” said Ryf Quail, Director, iProspect.

YouTube Launch New Media Analytics Tool

2009-10-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

YouTube has launched a new service called Insights for Audience. This video analytics tool takes your audience deomographic on YouTube and compares it with their own demographics. The difference between this tool and previous YouTube insights tool is that the analytics for Insights for Audience are based on the whole YouTube audience, versus only specific videos. After setting up a search query many different insights can be found on the kind of videos the target group watches. This tool can also be used to discover which video categories are popular among the target group.

Media agencies can use this tool to discover which type of video YouTube users search for based on their country, age, gender and interests. The tool then displays the most popular videos for the audience.

Comparing users that are between 18 and 34, from USA, Australia and Great Britain and who are into Telecommunications showed that users watch 17.2% more Telecommunications videos than the average YouTube user.

Click here to try Insights for Audience for yourself.

Sky becomes available on the XBox in the UK

2009-10-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

Sky and Microsoft are joining forces to deliver live television and video on demand to Xbox game consoles. There will be up to 20 live television channels available, with hundreds of movies, sports, entertainment and documentary programmes available on demand. It provides an easy way of viewing Sky Player programming, previously available on the personal computer, on the television screen, allowing users to enjoy television in a second room without the need for an additional set-top box. It will also be possible to get Sky channels without a satellite dish or set-top box, on a separate monthly subscription.

Read more: http://informitv.com/news/2009/10/02/skyandmicrosoft/

Carat wins the cup!

2009-10-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Media Agency Go-Kart Cup took place on Friday 2 October at Auckland Raceway. The annual event sponsored by Metservice.com saw Brad MacDonald and Jon Allen take first place and the cup awarded to Carat, after one hour of driving. Well done guys!

iProspect Launches in New Zealand

2009-10-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

iProspect, the world's leading search marketing agency, steps up in Asia Pacific region, and forges ahead with global expansion.

Peter Hunter, Managing Director of iProspect Pacific, announced today the launch of iProspect in New Zealand. The new office is part of iProspect’s continued worldwide expansion designed to offer marketers a seamless global search marketing solution.

“We are truly delighted to bring New Zealand into the iProspect family. The opening of this office is significant as the New Zealand market has lacked a top-tier search marketing offering,” said Peter. “Our presence in New Zealand will have a considerable impact and provide search marketers with the experience, expertise, sophisticated tools, and impressive results that iProspect is known for across the globe,” he added.

“By having iProspect offices in major markets around the globe, our New Zealand clients will get the best of both worlds – local market knowledge combined with sophisticated tools and techniques. Together it’s a combination that provides significant benefits to our clients,” Peter said.

Ryf Quail, currently Digital Director of Carat New Zealand, will head up iProspect in New Zealand. Ryf is a pioneer in the digital industry with over 15 years experience in digital and media. He was the Media Director for WSA Online, Australia’s first interactive agency of the year in 1998. He built WSA Media into the largest digital media agency in the country before selling the business to Emitch.

Ryf has also been Managing Partner of digital at Razor in Australia, working with clients such as Nike, SBS, RaboPlus (RaboBank), Navman and HCF.

Ryf will be joined by Ivan Atkins who has been managing strategy planning, negotiation, execution and measurement of online campaigns for Carat clients. Ivan has also recently returned from Hong Kong where he attended the iProspect University.

iProspect was founded in the USA in 1996 and acquired by Aegis plc in 2005. The services of iProspect include natural search engine optimisation, paid inclusion management, pay per click advertising management using Aegis’ own patent-pending bid management tool iSEBA®, feed management, search leveraged public relations, and Web analytics. These search engine marketing services are tailored around each client’s unique needs, capabilities and business model in order to increase the number of potential customers that visit their websites.

It also improves the rate at which those visitors take desired actions once they arrive, and provides in-depth analysis on which clients can base continual optimization of their marketing efforts and make informed marketing decisions.

“For New Zealand, search is about creating commercial advantage for clients by capturing interest generated by their advertising, their competitors’ advertising and other market factors. It may well be that for many New Zealand clients and categories this is new thinking and, if applied correctly, it will give them the jump-start to their businesses they are demanding from agencies in times like these,” Ryf said.

Press Release: 10 September, 2009

Twitter users are more likely to review or rate products

2009-10-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

Tech and media research firm “Interpret surveyed over 9,200 internet users in August, finding that roughly 24% of the respondents that used Twitter, reviewed or rated products online; just 12% of people that used other social nets—but not Twitter—said the same. Twitter users were also more likely to visit company profiles (20%) than non-Twitter users (11%), and twice as likely to click on ads or sponsored links (20% vs. 9%).”

Read more: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-study-twitterers-more-receptive-to-ads-than-other-social-net-users/

Online Advertising Overtakes TV Advertising in the UK

2009-10-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

"In the first half of 2009 internet advertising weathered the recession and grew by 4.6% to £1,752.1m, despite the entire advertising sector contracting by 16.6% during the same period.

According to the bi-annual online advertising expenditure study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) - the trade body for digital marketing - in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) - the internet has now overtaken TV advertising to become the UK’s single biggest advertising medium.

The UK remains the world leader in terms of market share for online, with the medium accounting for 23.5% in the first half of 2009. The results signal a significant restructure of marketing budgets as advertisers follow their audiences online and look to the internet for even more measureable and accountable methods."

Read more: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/adspendgrows300909.mxs#

TVNZ Media Commission Plans

2009-10-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

TVNZ’s planned reduction in media commission has given us all something else to focus on after the months of angst around challenging times, shrinking marketing budgets and how to best leverage the resulting soft demand media environment for client competitive advantage.

The reduction in commission is a serious issue for advertisers and their agency partners. No official statement or commitment about corresponding rate changes has been issued yet. There have been several verbal platitudes that of course rates will be adjusted accordingly and that this move is not driven out of a desire to increase costs to advertisers. Frankly this is not believable. The only reason for a media company to drive such an initiative is to increase yield off inventory. Therefore the plan has to be, at the time the reduced commission comes into effect, to manage the rate position to deliver some level of revenue increase.

Carat is diametrically opposed to any move that could see media costs to our client partners inappropriately inflated and will be ever vigilant for hidden rate increase as this plays out.

As the new Sales Director at TVNZ I learnt very quickly, after being left to defend an outrageous rate increase dropped on the market during another historically soft media market period by my predecessor that just because you put up the rates doesn’t mean the money automatically follows. This is a demand driven market and the power of the advertiser is that you can speak with your dollar.

This move could also easily push some advertisers out of the medium further exacerbating the soft demand cycle and minimizing any benefit TVNZ hopes to gain for itself. I can’t help thinking that at some point in the future some other TVNZ CEO or Sales Director will look back and go “what was the point”!

The fact that TVNZ positioned this review as being in response to demands from agencies and clients further heightens our chagrin around this move. A self serving and cynical approach. Yes it may be timely for discussion around fee models between some clients and advertisers. In many cases a link to commission for agency remuneration isn’t appropriate anymore and fees for specific service deliveries are more relevant. It is unfortunate that these discussions, best held within a context of productive partnership, are now to be driven within the “muddy waters” of TVNZ’s agenda.

Did You Know 4.0

2009-09-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

This is the next official update to the original "Shift Happens" video that you may have seen. "Did You Know 4.0" is the completely new September 2009 version which includes quite compelling facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. The pace of the video is a little fast at times so keep your finger near the “pause” button so you don’t miss any of the information.

Carat New Zealand Appointed to Handle Nokia

2009-09-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

Nokia New Zealand has awarded their media planning and buying to Carat New Zealand. Nokia decided to align to Carat New Zealand as a result of representation of the Carat New Zealand offering to Nokia’s New Zealand representatives. Nokia’s Mike Blackwell says “I am impressed with the evolutions at Carat New Zealand under the leadership of Managing Director Lauren James, particularly the advances in Carat’s strategic arm and digital offerings.”

Lauren James states, “Nokia New Zealand’s decision to join us at Carat New Zealand is extremely pleasing. Nokia is an outstanding brand that we are proud to have on our agency register. Under the strategic leadership of Matt O’Sullivan our new National Planning Director and Ryf Quail our new Digital Director we look forward to driving exciting new media initiatives and business results for Nokia here in New Zealand.” Nokia’s appointment of Carat takes place immediately for activity from 1 October 2009.

Press Release: 25 August 2009

Carat New Zealand Wins TaxRefunds.co.nz

2009-09-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

Since taking over the reins of Carat New Zealand as Managing Director, Lauren James and her new leadership team have won their first piece of new business with the appointment by TaxRefunds.co.nz after a competitive pitch involving other agencies.

TaxRefunds.co.nz Marketing and Communication’s Manager Jan Hellriegel said, “Carat demonstrated a deep understanding of our business and clarity and strength in their strategic thinking. They presented a strong team, one passionate and hungry to work with TaxRefunds.co.nz.”

Lauren James added, “We are very excited by this appointment, it’s a reflection of the new energy and direction from the new senior management team here in New Zealand. TaxRefunds.co.nz is our first new business pitch together and the fact that it is for an inspirational and powerful market leading brand in its category makes this win even more satisfying for us.“