Auckland, New Zealand – Automotive brand Volkswagen in New Zealand has appointed Mango Communications Aotearoa as its public relations agency.
Through the appointment, Mango will provide media relations, experiential and ambassador management to Volkswagen NZ, in addition to expertise across the full gamut of marcomms.
Mango Aotearoa Managing Director Sean Brown, says that Volkswagen New Zealand is an exciting addition to Mango’s ever expanding client list and the team is looking forward to going full throttle with an iconic brand.
“We are so excited to be offering an integrated marketing solution for Volkswagen New Zealand, helping to drive more success in Aotearoa by sharing the stories and incredible next generation technology behind Volkswagen. It’s a privilege to be able to work with such an iconic brand and the fantastic people who make up the team, Brown said.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen New Zealand General Manager of Passenger Vehicles Greg Leet, commented that Mango Aotearoa has the ability to deliver the integrated offering they have been looking for, working closely with sister agency DDB.
“We were so impressed with Mango’s combination of strategic thinking, creativity and quality execution. Already the team has been impressive to deal with and we are really looking forward for what’s to come,” Leet said.
New Zealand – Eight in 10 New Zealand travellers are set to travel in the next 12 months but are less willing to share their personal information for both safety and personalisation, according to a report by global online travel company Booking.com.
The data found that New Zealand was ranked fourth as the country with the most travel confidence. With India topping the poll, Vietnam, China, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Korea, as well as Taiwan, and Japan were also part of the ranking.
The same data also revealed that 79% of the surveyed travellers in New Zealand are most likely to travel in the next 12 months, while 49% consider leisure travel important during COVID-19, and 27% of the travellers would not postpone a trip despite the surge in COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, 41% are accepting anticipated travel disruptions, while 61% are comfortable with the reopening of borders. About 58% are also willing to share their personal information for safety, while 47% are willing to share their personal information for greater personalisation, and 58% have confidence with New Zealand receiving international travellers.
Moreover, the data shows that even with the resumption of international travel, a large majority of New Zealand travellers are likely to continue with domestic travel. Despite this, nearly half are likely to travel internationally in the next six months with the majority of travellers planning to travel within the APAC region. It also found that the pandemic has had some impact on the type of accommodation that travellers prefer with hotels emerging most popular, potentially due to a desire for more transparency around safety.
“The commissioned research polled 11,000 travellers from 11 countries and territories across Asia and Oceania between April and May 2022, combining this with the company’s proprietary data and insights as a digital travel leader over the past 25 years,” said Booking.com.
New Zealand – New Zealand’s advertising economy will be increasing by 8% in 2022 to reach NZ$3.5b, according to data from Mediabrands’ MAGNA.
The report found that the country’s economy will be growing by more than 2.7% on a real basis in 2022, levelling out from the rebound in 2021 with more than 5.6%. In this environment, linear advertising revenues are increasing by over 2%. The linear advertising spending this year is at 90% of its pre-COVID total.
Meanwhile, television revenues are increasing by over 2% and are expected to continue their decline at -3-5% from 2023 to 2026, while print is shrinking by -1%, however, out-of-home spending will grow over 13%, reaching about ~90% of its pre-COVID total. With this, MAGNA predicts home to surpass pre-COVID measures by 2023.
The report also revealed that TV pricing continues to increase as demand is significantly outstripping supply. Some price-sensitive brands have started to shift away from linear TV, but not yet to a significant degree.
For digital advertising, the data shows that revenues are growing by 13% to reach NZ$2.2b, while campaigns on mobile devices are leading ad spending, which will grow by more than 17% and represents 70% of total digital budgets. By format, growth is being led by video with over 15%, search with over 15%, and social with over14%. Looking forward, digital will continue to take share compared to linear advertising formats, and by 2026 digital budgets will represent 70% of total advertising budgets.
New Zealand – Tourism New Zealand, the agency tasked to promote the country’s tourism around the world, has launched a new domestic winter activity campaign, which showcases a range of Aotearoa winter experiences.
According to Tourism New Zealand, despite borders opening for overseas travel, around two-thirds of New Zealanders intend to take a domestic holiday in the next 12 months, and that winter is Kiwi’s second favourite season.
Bjoern Spreitzer, Tourism New Zealand’s general manager of New Zealand and Business Events, said that the ‘Winter, So Hot Right Now’ activity encourages those who may not traditionally think of travelling within New Zealand over winter.
“New Zealanders have been travelling domestically for two years now – this winter we will be competing with demand for short and long-haul international holiday destinations that are warmer than our winter,” added Spreitzer.
The campaign follows the agency’s ‘Do Something Autumn’ campaign, which deems to have generated 409,000 website visits and 111,000 referrals to tourism businesses, making it the most successful domestic campaign of Tourism New Zealand.
Auckland, New Zealand – Creative agency Colenso BBDO has announced the appointment of seven new creative hires, led by Hadleigh Sinclair as the new group creative director.
Hadleigh has created award-winning campaigns for iconic brands, including Air New Zealand, Lion Nathan, MARS and FOXTEL. He was previously at dentsu Auckland where he led the creative output of the agency, including ASB’s ‘Borrow The All Blacks’ campaign.
Speaking on his appointment, he said, “In 2010, at the end of my internship at Colenso, I was told there were no jobs going. I was gutted, the place is like nowhere else, so I orchestrated a plan to get back in the building. 12 years, and four holding companies later, I’m pleased to say the plan’s worked out.”
Other appointments include Dustin de Souza, formerly from McCann London and Wunderman Thompson, joins as a senior art director; as well as Léon Bristow, who has recently returned from agency DDB C14torce in Barcelona, will partner with ex-Havas London creative Sophia Cussell.
In addition, Jian-Xin Tay joins as intermediate art director, while Hugo Smith and Stella Wilson join to bolster the design department, working with the head of design Dave Brady.
Simon Vicars, CCO at Colenso BBDO, says, “The best creative people I’ve worked with have had two consistent attributes: talent and energy. This group is brimming with both those things. I’m excited to see what we can do together.”
Wellington, New Zealand – New Zealand state-owned bank and financial services provider Kiwibank has launched its first major brand overhaul, with the aim to reflect ‘modern’ Kiwi culture.
The new brand identity includes a new logo, which was inspired by the te ao Māori concept of a thriving Aotearoa, expressed through the native harakeke plant. It also includes new digital channels and a physical network, which includes agency services and business banking hubs, making it the largest physical network of all banks in the country, and will see updates and upgrades over the next few months.
Kiwibank has also launched a new brand platform, featuring a line-up of some of the most inspiring and innovative Kiwis, including Allbirds, Dawn Aerospace, UBCO, Emirates Team New Zealand, and Banqer, as well as pop duo sensation, Broods – all leaders in their respective fields and making a positive impact on Aotearoa and the world. It highlights the work each brand is doing in its industry to lead the way in creating a better world and celebrating what it means to be a Kiwi.
The campaign has been produced by creative advertising agency Special and will be distributed across television, radio, digital, out-of-home, and social, alongside media agency OMD, while the identity change was led by Kiwi design specialists ThoughtFull.
Moreover, Kiwibank has also launched ‘Co-own’, an alternative option to traditional homeownership where Kiwis can team up to get on the property ladder sooner. This seeks to help enable more Kiwis with their homeownership dreams.
Steve Jurkovich, Kiwibank’s CEO, shared that when they looked at their brand, they wanted to understand what it meant to thrive and reflect on how modern Kiwis see themselves and their culture today.
“After 20 years in business and as we look ahead at the change the bank is undertaking, it is the right time to better reflect the bank we are today and the ambition we have for the future for our customers, communities and country. Kiwibank has ambitious plans for the future and is investing substantially to become the bank of choice for even more Kiwis. We are two years into a five-year transformation that will see us continue to grow and support Kiwi, balancing purpose and performance to make Aotearoa better off,” said Jurkovich.
Meanwhile, Simon Hofmann, Kiwibank’s general manager of brand and marketing, noted that they are in the process of changing thousands of customer touch-points from the website and digital tools, customer communication and social channels, to the app and ATMs.
He further shared that their physical stores are being reimagined, as they are launching a new brand ‘Local for Kiwibank’ across their network of 100 partner sites which offer express banking services.
“The brand platform and campaign reflect what it means to be Kiwi, featuring Kiwi brands that are modern, game-changing, and passionate. Kiwibank is proud to be the bank that is helping Kiwi thrive and ‘This is Kiwi’ demonstrates our purpose – Kiwi making Kiwi better off,” added Hofmann.
New Zealand – As Kiwis celebrate the return of international travel with borders reopened, Air New Zealand‘s loyalty programme Airpoints has launched a new creative campaign that is designed to show New Zealanders how they can transform their everyday spending to unlock the power and joy of travel.
The campaign, which was developed in partnership with creative agency Bastion Shine and dentsu, includes a 60” AV and a social campaign directed by Adam Stevens and produced by Good Oil.
Titled ‘Don’t Live Pointlessly’, the campaign shows why travel should be prescribed as a therapy to relieve stress, grow relationships, and aid mental health, and how Airpoints want all New Zealanders to experience those benefits.
Andy McLeish, Bastion Shine’s chief strategy officer, shared, “The Airpoints programme has been around a long time and there is a huge opportunity to connect with a large part of the member base. We wanted to re-ignite emotional connection with the Airpoints programme through its largest benefit – that it enables anyone, no matter who they are, to get closer to their travel dream every single day.”
Meanwhile, Rich Maddocks, Bastion Shine’s chief creative officer, said, “Reminding Kiwis how they can live a life less ordinary through the power of travel was a fertile creative territory, rich with insight. The challenge for us was to bring that narrative to life in a way that was as interesting as it was true. Hopefully, we’ve done that.”
The campaign is already available across broadcast, digital, social, and OOH. Further activity is also set to launch over the coming months aimed at enhancing engagement with the programme and showcasing the multiple ways to earn and spend Airpoints.
New Zealand – As New Zealand relaxes border restrictions to welcome tourists, Air New Zealand has launched a new safety video that features its ‘Tiaki Promise’, which encourages both New Zealanders and international visitors to care for the place, culture, and people.
Titled ‘Tiaki and The Guardians’, the story follows Tiaki, a young man who boards a flying canoe and sets off on an adventure across Aotearoa. With the help of Air New Zealand and Julie, who is a character that embodies the rest of New Zealand, Tiaki visits four Māori guardians including Papatūānuku (the land), Tangaroa (sea), Tāne Mahuta (forest), and Ranginui (sky). Along the way, he seeks advice from these guardians on how better to look after them.
Jeremy O’Brien, Air New Zealand’s general manager of brand and marketing, stated that they want tourism to build back better than it was before and part of that is to share with the visitors a sense of kaitiaki – to encourage them to act as guardians of the country.
He further shared that their safety videos are world-renowned and through them, they have an opportunity to educate and inspire on the importance of Tiaki and everything it stands for, which is about being good hosts and good visitors.
The airline worked closely with the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute to design the waka and its carvings. From there it was taken to the various filming locations and flown on wires to create realistic shadows and textures for post-production. Moreover, the cutting-edge LED stage screens, used in The Mandalorian TV series, helped to bring the legends of Māori culture to life.
O’Brien said, “I’d like to thank Pou Tikanga and storyteller, Joe Harawira, New Zealand Māori Tourism and the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute for guiding us, right from concept to the building of the waka, and the cultural formalities we followed throughout. The collaborative effort has helped us share this story and the principles of Tiaki authentically.”
The film has been already rolled out across Air New Zealand’s international and domestic fleet and is available to view online.
Auckland, New Zealand — POP MART, the global culture and entertainment company best known for art toys and collectable toys, has announced the opening of its first New Zealand store in Auckland this April.
Located at Queen Street, the commercial centre of Auckland’s CBD, the two-story site features a range of POP MART toys from their numerous series and of varying rarities.
Justin Moon, VP of POP MART, and president of POP MART International, said, “We are excited to come to New Zealand and open our new store in Auckland, a world-renowned and beautiful city.”
Moon adds, “With our well-designed store, we can connect with local art toy fans and consumers, bringing them a joyful and engaging shopping experience, and sharing the culture of art toys.”
The New Zealand store is the first official POP MART store in Oceania. The company launched two Roboshops, or toy vending machines, and a pop-up store in Australia last year, which proved a hit with local art toy fans. A store also popped up this year in London that marked the brand’s first physical store in Europe. The Beijing-based art toy brand has already expanded into 23 countries and regions across the world.
This April, we have a new payments feature, a fresh creative leadership as well as an empowering campaign on gender inclusivity coming out as our top stories.
For the first time, a story from New Zealand enters the list – a web code developed by a telco and shared through a moving creative campaign.
A rewards and discovery platform in Singapore has also launched a new payment feature that offers something new through its fresh payment process.
Meanwhile, the Indian arm of a global communications network has named a new creative leader.
To kick off this month’s Top Stories is a unique proposition to ‘see all genders’ online: a web code released by New Zealand telco Spark, with creative campaign done by Colenso BBDO.
With our society being more open and inclusive, there is stronger call for every part of our daily lives to align with this inclusivity. One of those areas is the gender selection on forms online, where traditionally, they are fixated on the choices of male and female.
Speaking about the campaign, Frith Wilson-Hughes, brand lead partner at Spark New Zealand, said that their campaign direction has been inspired by their company’s motive to use data in a much more healthy way, which will benefit New Zealanders in general, including promoting diversity and inclusion.
“It does seem to be like a simple thing, but one of the things that we have made clear on our [campaign] site is that it’s not just about changing the code, it’s about looking at how you treat people with different genders holistically,” she said.
She also noted that their campaign site featured resources that companies and organisations can use to integrate the code into their website. This is aimed at educating them on the importance of diversity and inclusion and not overwhelming them.
Coming out on our top stories is the fresh appointment of Aalap Desai and Titus Upputuru as its new chief creative officer and national creative director respectively for Taproot Dentsu. Desai, who will carry the role for both Taproot Dentsu and Isobar, sat down with MARKETECH APAC and shared what he thinks has been the biggest change in brands over the pandemic.
Without a doubt, Desai said it’s them going digital.
“In the past 2 years, I think COVID has expedited the interaction element in every brand. Because everyone is at home, we had to shift to digital, and that’s the biggest change in the brand narrative that I’ve seen,” said Desai.
He shared that the good thing is, over at dentsu, ‘digital’ has been an ongoing conversation. Brands are now more open to exploring, however, Desai points that their understanding can be limited.
“We’ve also started upselling things, and brands have also started buying them. For example, [something] like a legacy Indian brand getting into a metaverse conversation,” he shared.
Landing on the Top 1 is the recent launch of ShopBack’s cashless payment feature Shopback Pay, which at its core, eliminates the process of topping up funds, instead enables to directly pay in the ShopBack app with only the linked payment method.
In an interview with Julian Foo, head of payments at ShopBack, he shared that the main idea behind Shopback Pay is primarily overcoming the adversities that consumers and merchants faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think in terms of what we saw, in our user base and surveys, it was that consumers actually had quite a fair bit of cashback, right, in the shop bank account. On average, we see about like, $200 worth of cash in every customer’s account, which is actually not doing anything at this point in time. So then we ask ourselves, hey, what can we do to help the users actually use their cashback? And for us, it was quite simple. What if we developed a payment method that allowed users to burn the cashback that they had earned online,” Foo said.
He added, “With this product innovation, I think it really allowed users to see an additional use case of earning cashback on shopping, where they can now use their cashback to burn at the merchants.”
Foo also shared that their primary goal has always been making the consumer experience convenient and rewarding.
Watch our exclusive interviews with the brands themselves on the latest episode of MARKETECH APAC Top Stories, now live on our YouTube channel.
Rankings are based on Google Analytics from the period of 16 March to 15 April.
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