Tag: New Zealand

New Zealand – Insurance provider Zurich in Australia has announced that it will be launching its small business enterprise (SME) insurance offering to the New Zealand market. The new SME offering is said to be a response to the high level of underinsured small businesses in the country. 

Selected brokers can now access Zurich’s innovative Z.stream technology which enables them to provide quotes and bindings for new business, process renewals quickly and have 24-hour access to mid-term policy adjustments and endorsements as well as near-real-time access to claims data and reports for new business.

Zurich said it has identified the most typical SME claims and notes that underinsurance or no insurance is not only about the direct cost of that event, but the loss of income if operations are disrupted.

Brett Wainhouse, regional manager of New Zealand at Zurich, said that SMEs are doing it tough in New Zealand, so they are delighted to be giving brokers the tools and technology to offer small business customers a fast and efficient insurance cover with claims handling that is backed by Zurich’s global strength and local care.

“Our Z.stream technology is unrivalled in this market. This level of sophistication has never been available to New Zealand brokers before now and it’s a key reason why Zurich is a leader in commercial insurance in many global markets. The platform is a gamechanger, focused on speed and simplicity whilst removing legacy inefficiencies and creating a better customer experience,” Wainhouse said.

Wainhouse emphasised, “Our global expertise in the SME segment means we learn about emerging technologies across the world ahead of the market and we can pass on this intelligence to our commercial motor and property customers in New Zealand, giving them a competitive advantage.” 

Zurich’s SME product is offered through insurance brokers only and will be rolled out in the first instance to Steadfast, NZ brokers, and Insurance Advisernet before launching to the rest of the market.

New Zealand – Consumer brands giant Unilever has elevated Cameron Heath, former general manager at Unilever Baltics, to be its new managing director for New Zealand.

Heath joins the New Zealand team after seven years with Unilever. Aside from his previous role as the general manager in Unilever Baltics, Heath has spent four years as the company’s marketing director of food & beverages in Prague, during which time he built a passion for brands with a purpose such as Hellmans and Lipton. Prior to joining Unilever, he has also spent seven years with Procter and Gamble (P&G), spanning a number of customer development and category strategy roles, including time working in the New Zealand market.

In his new role, Heath will bring his extensive marketing and category management experience, as well as his passion for delivering superior product experiences that generate value for people and business.

Heath, who is originally from Sydney, started the role remotely from Australia in November 2021, and has joined his team on the ground in New Zealand last 20 April 2022.

Commenting on his appointment, Heath said that he is thrilled to take the reins of the New Zealand business, which has consistently delivered strong results under the leadership of Nick Bangs. 

He further shared that beyond their environmental footprint, he is also deeply passionate about the role businesses can play in creating a fair, diverse, and equitable world, and he is looking forward to better understanding the melting pot of cultures that makes up New Zealand and finding opportunities for them to scale change.

“I understand first-hand the pressure retailers and consumers are facing as we deal with supply chain disruption and increased cost of production across the board. I am committed to building constructive relationships with our retail partners and consumers to ensure the grocery sector is fair for all,” he said.

This elevation comes after Heath’s predecessor Nick Bangs moved to Sydney to take on the role of general manager of home, beauty and personal care at Unilever ANZ.

Sydney, Australia – Global communications intelligence company Cision has completed the acquisition of real-time media monitoring company Streem.

The acquisition was first announced last December 2021. Through this deal, Streem customers will benefit from the global reach of Cision, while continuing to receive the same local support and expertise they have relied on since the company’s launch in 2017. The customers will also continue to access the company’s existing media monitoring and insights platform, supported by its local product and engineering teams.

Cision said that the Streem brand, platform, and local service will continue in the Australia and New Zealand market. It will also continue to operate as an independent brand, with operations and people, including Streem’s CEO Elgar Welch and CTO Antoine Sabourin to remain in place. 

Stephen Boyes, Cision’s CRO, noted that Streem has established itself as the customer-preferred media intelligence platform in the ANZ market. 

“We are excited that they are now part of the Cision family and that our ANZ customers can benefit from a full suite of monitoring, distribution, insights, and social media solutions,” said Boyes.

Meanwhile, Welch said, “The closing of this deal gives us the opportunity to create the ANZ region’s leading media intelligence offering. Streem is best positioned to deliver on every customer’s need through a single platform and local team.”

Cision is a portfolio company of Platinum Equity, which acquired the business in 2020. The Streem transaction marks the second add-on acquisition Cision has completed in 2022.

In a joint statement, Platinum Equity’s partner Jacob Kotzubei, and managing director Matthew Louie, said, “We are delivering on our promise to invest in Cision’s growth, expand its product offering and extend its geographic reach. We will continue working with the team to pursue more opportunities to drive growth organically and through acquisitions.”

Auckland, New Zealand – With the belief that dogs bring out the best in humans, pet food brand Pedigree in New Zealand has launched a new reading programme ‘Dogphonics’, which consists of five books specifically designed to be read to a good listener, someone who’s extremely patient, full of love, and never judgemental – a dog.

According to a study co-created by Pedigree and The Waltham Petcare Science Institute, dogs as a listener can improve children’s sense of confidence, moderate feelings of anxiety, and provide support.

The reading programme, which was developed in partnership with creative agency Colenso BBDO, aims to help boost the confidence and literacy of children by encouraging them to read to a dog. It will be launched in New Zealand, with titles such as ‘It Was Not Me, I Did Not Eat The Alphabet’ and ‘Where Are My Pants?’. 

Fabio Alings, Mars’ global brand director for Pedigree, noted that they have a long history of creatively celebrating not only how we as humans literally ‘feed the good’ in dogs, but how dogs also ‘feed the good’ in humans, as their lovable innocence brings out the best in people. 

“The Pedigree Dogphonics book set perfectly captures the essence of that purpose – Dogs boosting the confidence of children who are learning to read, and young readers returning that favour by helping shelter dogs find a loving home to call their own,” said Alings.

Meanwhile, Maria Devereux, Colenso BBDO’s CIO, shared that reading anxiety is common, especially at an age when children are going through behavioural changes and developing their own emotional processes. 

“The Waltham Institute has given Pedigree Dogphonics books the science to succeed and the commitment to design craft and storytelling from the Colenso team,” said Devereux.

The book set will be made available at selected bookstores, with digital versions available from Amazon.com. All proceeds from book sales go towards rehoming shelter dogs. 

New Zealand – State, the insurance company based in New Zealand, has launched a new campaign that collated a range of mistake-prone trends, aimed at helping Kiwis make fewer mistakes in 2022.

The campaign, which was developed in partnership with creative agency Colenso BBDO, has reviewed over four million data streams, including more than 210,000 car, home and contents insurance claims, as well as publicly available NZ Police, NZ Transport, Statistics NZ, and weather data.

Titled ‘The State Insurance Mistake Report’, the campaign has ventured beyond the most mistake-prone days of the week, such as garages are the most mistake-prone space in the house, people called ‘John’ make the most mistakes, and there is zero truth to the superstition that more things go wrong when there’s a full moon.

Moreover, State and Colenso BBDO have also produced ‘The Personalised Mistake Report’, an online tool that people can use to be more mindful about what types of common mistakes could be in their future, with the aim to offer a unique experience for Kiwis.

Gabrielle Markwick-Brown, State’s marketing manager, believes that highlighting Kiwis’ most mistake-prone moments in an engaging and relatable way will hopefully help people avoid making as many of them.

“We wanted to use this data to help better protect New Zealanders. While State will always be here to help Kiwis get back on their feet if they make a mistake, our customers tell us time and again that preventing mistakes from happening in the first place is always preferable to dealing with the aftermath,” she said 

Meanwhile, Maria Devereux, Colenso BBDO’s CIO, said, “What the ‘Mistake Report’ shows is that there is a huge amount of risk we actually can foresee. By predicting mistakes, State is in the unique position to show up for customers before they lodge a claim, and actually, help them avoid doing so in the first place.”

The ‘Mistake Report’ campaign was launched last 14 February with a 30“film, supported by digital and print campaigns directing New Zealand to the website.

New Zealand – Amongst small businesses in New Zealand, about 33.2% grew, compared to 41.9% that shrank, while 56.1% expect to grow in 2022, which is an improvement from last year but still lags the average of 61.9%, according to a new survey by professional accounting body CPA Australia.

The new survey reveals that small businesses in the country continue to be significantly less likely to earn revenue from online sales. More than 35% do not earn any revenue online, compared to just 1.3 % of businesses in Mainland China.

Moreover, the same survey found that NZ small businesses were also the third least likely to begin or increase their focus on online sales as a reaction to the pandemic. Also, nearly 30% made no investment in technology in 2021, compared to just 5.2% of surveyed businesses in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, more than 35% of NZ small businesses have not adopted new payment technologies such as Apple Pay, Paypal or buy now pay later, compared to 0.1% of Mainland Chinese businesses, and about 36.8% did not use social media for business purposes, compared to the survey average of 17.2%.

Gavan Ord, CPA Australia’s senior manager of business policy, noted that results are somewhat surprising given the country’s success in limiting the impact of COVID-19 in 2021.

“Improved expectations for 2022 reflect a more confident economic outlook, along with a higher percentage of small businesses intending to invest in innovation and exporting. However, the economic environment has become more challenging for NZ small businesses recently, with inflation and interest rates rising, oil price shocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the effects of Omicron still reverberating throughout the economy,” said Ord.

He further shared that a possible explanation for the lower levels of technology investment by NZ small businesses is the poorer short-term returns they deliver. Of those businesses that did invest, only 32.3% said the investment improved their profitability, compared to the survey average of 53.6%.

“This demonstrates the need to improve the digital skills of our small businesses and for them to seek advice to ensure they adopt the right technology solutions for their business,” added Ord.

CPA Australia noted that another possible reason for a relative lack of investment in digital capability is the demographics of the country’s small business sector. New Zealand was the second most likely of the 11 markets surveyed to have respondents aged 50 or over, and only 24.8% of respondents were aged under 40, against a survey average of 45.2%.

The survey also shows that New Zealand small businesses do, however, take the threat of cyberattack seriously, while 30.3% thought an attack was likely in the next 12 months, about 42.6% reviewed their cyber defences in the last six months, comparable to the survey average of 46.7%.

Moreover, the responses to questions regarding external funding and business growth appeared in part to reflect the different government policy responses last year to the pandemic. Some 45% of NZ small businesses required funds from an external source in 2021. Of those, only 24.8% sought funds for business growth, while 40.4% said they sought funds for business survival. 

New Zealand was also the only market in which ‘government grant or funds’ was the most cited source of funds with 28.4%, and only 24.1% said a bank was their main source of external finance. 

Meanwhile, only 28.1% of NZ small businesses expect to increase employee numbers in 2022, this is a sharp improvement in 2021, when only 11.3%t of businesses expected to increase their staffing levels. 

“This result reflects stronger growth expectations for 2022, but achieving it may prove difficult for many businesses due to labour shortages”, said Ord. 

He added, “Year after year, the survey results show a clear connection between increased investment in technology and digital capability, and business growth. That helps explain why many New Zealand small businesses are confident they will grow faster in 2022 than they did in 2021.”

Auckland, New Zealand – Out-of-home (OOH) media company JCDecaux announces the run of its first digital roadside programmatic campaign with TVNZ, New Zealand’s state-owned commercially funded broadcaster. The campaign is running via dentsu, Hivestack and VIOOH.

TVNZ’s launch campaign is running for three weeks in six main metro markets: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton and Bay of Plenty; across 35 Digital Large Format sites to promote the new series of BAFTA and EMMY award-winning TV drama ‘Killing Eve’.

Kurt Malcolm, trading and innovations director at JCDecaux, said, “Since announcing the availability of programmatic trading across our entire Digital Large Format portfolio in February, we’ve received significant interest from brands and their agencies who are keen to leverage the flexibility and measurability programmatic trading affords. We’re delighted that the iconic TVNZ has become the first brand in New Zealand to formally launch JCDecaux’s valuable new programmatic offer.”

Targeting was applied to direct the buy to index higher with ‘Female TV Drama’ and ‘Fashionista’s’ via Hivestack’s Lifesight audience segments as these traits were identified by TVNZ as their core viewership for the show.

James Brook, senior programmatic account manager at dentsu commented, “JCDecaux’s roadside availability of programmatic Out-of-Home is a massive value-add for us and our adoption of the format. It brings more premium inventory and scale to this rapidly growing channel. We are looking forward to utilising the roadside on briefs moving forward.”

Meanwhile, Ash Houghton, sales director at Hivestack New Zealand, added, “We are excited to help launch JCDecaux’s roadside programmatic offer to our buyers on the Hivestack DSP. The ability to target audiences on the most established roadside network at the click of a button is truly exciting. This represents a great step forward for programmatic outdoor.”

JCDecaux previously launched its roadside programmatic DOOH offering, with clients including Air New Zealand.

New Zealand — Tourism New Zealand launched a new campaign to ensure Australians keep New Zealand on top of their travel list and to motivate them to make “their dreams a reality” and book a trip to New Zealand. Entitled ‘Within Your Wildest Dreams’, the campaign elaborates the dream adventure of travelling to neighbouring country New Zealand for the average Aussie.

The quirky short film starts with an Aussie being awoken from his sleep by a New Zealand native, granted a magical dream beard, the two are transported magically to New Zealand where they have a picturesque dream breakfast juxtaposed by peculiar fantasy scenarios. The film ends with the two travelling to all the scenic locations of New Zealand, prompting the protagonist to make his dream travels to New Zealand come true once he wakes up.

René de Monchy, chief executive for Tourism New Zealand, commented, “With Australian visitors returning to New Zealand soon, ‘Within Your Wildest Dreams’ showcases what New Zealand has on offer and encourages our friends across the ditch to start planning their trip in a lighthearted way that we know resonates with our Australian audience.”

Before COVID-19, Australia was New Zealand’s largest visitor market, and Tourism New Zealand’s research shows that 58 per cent of Australians who want to visit New Zealand will look to do so within six months of travel the border opening.

According to Tourism New Zealand, their research also showed that the proportion of travellers who use a travel agent to book their trip to New Zealand is increasing. In accordance with this and to support their trade partners in Australia, TNZ has produced a toolkit so they’re well-equipped to sell destination New Zealand to their clients.

The campaign is a reiteration of Tourism New Zealand’s ‘Stop Dreaming about New Zealand and Go’ campaign which  was launched in May 2021 to reinvigorate Australians’ wanderlust for its neighbouring Kiwi counterpart.

Auckland, New Zealand – Triton Digital, a global technology and services company for the digital audio and podcast industry, has recently released its New Zealand Podcast Ranker through a dedicated website. In it, Triton Digital provides insight into the top 100 podcasts as well as the top networks in New Zealand from 1 February through 28 February 2022, as measured by Triton’s Podcast Metrics measurement service.

For this reporting period, the top three podcasts include ‘Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive’, ‘The Mike Hosking Breakfast’, and ‘Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley’. In addition, the ranker noted that new podcasts debuting on the ranker this month include ‘She’s On The Money’ ‘Jase & Lauren’, and ‘Last Podcast On The Left’.

Triton Digital also noted that there has been a 30% increase in total downloads of all shows by all participating publishers in the month of February with 7.5m downloads.

Participating networks in the New Zealand Ranker include Audioboom, Australian Radio Network, Headgum, Kast Media, LiSTNR (SCA), MediaWorks Radio Limited, NZME/iHeartRadio, Stitcher Media and Sports Entertainment Network (SEN).

The ranker is made possible by Triton Digital’s Podcast Metrics measurement service, certified by the IAB Tech Lab as complying with Version 2.1 of the IAB Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines. This provides accurate and insightful data around how, when, and where podcast content is being consumed across multiple hosting platforms, with the ability to view metrics by date range, location, device, podcast name, episode, title, and more.

Auckland, New Zealand – Public relations agency Mango Aotearoa has announced changes in their senior structure, namely Sean Brown stepping up as managing director, while group business directors Brianna Elder and Chloe Leuschke are being promoted to managing partners.

Claudia Macdonald, who established Mango over 20 years ago will be moving to a newly created role of executive director. This will see her working across Mango’s corporate clients and people processes as well as with the DDB Group, particularly on its diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Brown, who has been with the agency for the past 10 years – six of those as general manager – says he is proud to be leading the best PR, experiential and social agency in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Elder and Leuschke will work with Brown to run the business, with Elder continuing to lead the agency’s experiential offering.

Speaking about his appointment, Brown said, “Mango is an incredible agency with the best talent and an enviable client list. Since joining, I’ve been privileged to work closely with Claudia who has been instrumental to Mango’s success and reputation as the leading PR firm in the country. The great thing about her new role is that we will still get the benefit of her skills and expertise.”

Meanwhile, Macdonald commented that it is an exciting time for them and the agency and that she is thrilled for Brown to lead the business alongside Elder and Leuschke.

“Sean has helped to deliver phenomenal growth for Mango; he’s a beloved member of the team and is absolutely ready to be Managing Director. It has been such a natural and seamless succession and I can think of no one better placed to build on Mango’s success and, with the support of Brie, Chloe and myself, take the agency to new heights,” she concluded.