DraftFCB | 2010 Agency of the Year

Clashing Over Cornflakes

// April 18th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

The Battle for Breakfast is on again after TV3 unexpectedly introduced Firstline, “your early edition news, weekdays with Rachel Smalley”, in the aftermath of the Christchurch Earthquake.

The job description for Firstline is deceptively simple: “Just the facts, ma’am.” The new show has opted out of the standard fare of shockjock antics and warm and fuzzy stories that has characterised breakfast television in recent years, choosing instead a pure news bulletin format.

So has it worked?

The new TV3 show has certainly delivered significantly higher ratings than its predecessor Sunrise was achieving a year ago. The first four weeks of Firstline have averaged ratings (for all people 25-54) that are 36% higher than Sunrise could manage over the equivalent period in 2010.

That’s not quite the full story, though. Television One’s Breakfast ratings are up nearly as much over the same period, increasing 30% year on year.

As a result, channel shares over the morning marmalade have stayed nearly the same. Sunrise captured 16.9% of our breakfast programme attention in March 2010; Firstline has lifted that share to 17.6%. One Breakfast continues to dominate, with the remaining 82.4%.

Overall, there has been a useful increase in breakfast television viewing in 2011 – but, although it might be flattering to attribute that increase to the new Snap, Crackle and Pop of televisual competition, we suspect that the steady stream of floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and reactors gone wild are more responsible for the current urge to catch the latest headlines before joining the morning rush.

There is one useful trend indicator that suggests interesting times may lie ahead. The number of Kiwis aged 25-54 who tuned in to Television One Breakfast at any time during the week (the weekly cumulative audience) was substantial for the first two weeks of the monitored period, then dropped away as urgency diminished. Firstline cumulative audiences, on the other hand, have remained surprisingly consistent throughout the first four weeks of the programme’s existence.

It’s too soon to read much into these tentative entrails, but we wonder where they will lead …

Dollar Deals

// April 18th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

The battle for media bragging rights continues with the release of advertising industry turnover figures for 2010. The numbers, compiled by the Advertising Standards Authority from data supplied by the various industry associations, show that:

-  Newspapers remain the medium with the largest advertising turnover (627    million dollars, up four million dollars on 2009 revenues)

-  Television is in a very strong second place at 607 million dollars (up 37 million on 2009)

-  Interactive advertising leapfrogged both radio and magazine revenues during 2010 to claim the Number Three spot with 257 million dollars (up 43 million dollars on 2009 results)

-  Radio revenues for the year were 241 million dollars, up slightly from the 236 million dollar tab in 2009

-  Magazines showed a small annual increase, up two million dollars to 219 million

-  Outdoor showed a similar increase, reaching 70 million dollars in 2010

-  Unaddressed Mail revenues dropped a little over the last twelve months, shedding three million dollars to arrive at a 55 million dollar total for 2010

-  Addressed Mail was static, achieving 53 million dollar turnover in both 2009 and 2010

-  Cinema advertising revenues surged from six million dollars in 2009 (its worst take in years) to reach eight million in 2010 (matching its advertising yield from 2002)

Collectively, advertising industry turnover totalled 2.137 billion dollars in 2010, up 4.5% on 2009′s 2.045 billion but well down on revenues for any of the previous four years, which ranged from 2.229 billion (2005) to more than 2.3 billion (2007 and 2008).

We may not have officially endured a double dip recession, but the ad industry has shared consumers’ pain during 2010 — and Kiwi disposable income remains elusive, whether you’re wanting a new print for the wall or a new printing press for the weekend edition.

That, in turn, creates opportunities for savvy marketers in 2011: the pressure is on media sales teams to deliver to budgets that match or surpass 2010’s efforts. Cash is still king, and a marketer with moolah that’s new to the medium should still be able to make out rather well.

Tales of the iPad

// April 15th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

As the iPad2 makes its debut in New Zealand and around the world, more research comes to light about how users use the device.

Amongst the findings from a British study conducted by YouGov on behalf of digital customer engagement agency Seven:

• -   one in five men read their iPad on the toilet (sorry if you didn’t need to know that)
• -  87% of iPad owners used their tablet every day of the week
• -  Over half of those polled (51%) said they preferred reading magazines on the iPad than in print form
• -  42% said they are more likely to pay attention to interactive magazine advertising on the iPad than advertising in magazines and newspapers, while 31% disagreed
• -  63% say they’re NOT early adopters of technology (in other words, the iPad doesn’t just appeal to the geek crowd)

An earlier study, by BusinessInsider.com, found that:

• -  Two-thirds of iPad owners use their iPads 1-5 hours a day
• -  Three-quarters of iPad owners say that they’ve used the iPad MORE since their initial experimentation period
• -  People spend slightly more of their personal-computing time using their iPads than any other device

Overall takeout from these sets of research: that the iPad isn’t just a five-minute wonder, but has been quickly adopted into the daily routine of its new owners. It’s here to stay – we need to plan accordingly.

Social Media and Compliance

// April 15th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Social Media is enjoying its fifteen minutes of fame amongst marketers and communications professionals – but there hasn’t been much discussion about the dangers implicit in the medium from a corporate compliance perspective. Is everyone in your organisation familiar with the rules, laws and expectations that govern communications to investors?

Really? Even those who tweet or post to Facebook through their own accounts?

As a 2010 IR Web Report article by Dominic Jones pointed out, many companies may be exposing their firms to potential compliance risks because they have failed to play an active role in monitoring, managing and engaging on social networks.

As the article notes (http://bit.ly/dUIqMF):

These compliance issues are arising mostly because investor relations departments have taken a hands-off approach to their companies’ social media activities, even though investors and analysts are increasingly using these channels to keep informed about their holdings.

In the absence of dedicated investor relations accounts on social networks, investors are turning to corporate accounts managed by inexperienced employees who are unfamiliar with the complex rules, laws and expectations that govern communications to investors.

The result is a virtual free-for-all where companies as diverse as blue-chip brand names to obscure penny stocks are behaving as if the social web is beyond the reach of securities laws.

But guidance from securities regulators is clear. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, says that all communications made by or on behalf of a company are subject to the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, including on Twitter and Facebook.

The report identifies three key compliance concerns:

1. Widespread linking to and republication of third-party content, including select [favourable commentary on the company] without adequate disclaimers or explanatory language;
2. Almost universal inconsistent use of disclaimers for forward-looking statements and [non-approved] financial measures; and,
3. Poor synchronization of information distribution, leading to investors who follow company accounts on social networks receiving information [several hours or more] after its release to other channels.

Social media also introduces new types of implied or explicit endorsement for third-party content. On Facebook, for example, “liking” a user comment or post could be construed as the company endorsing its statements. Meanwhile, the common activity of “re-tweeting” (forwarding) messages on Twitter could also be construed as the company endorsing a particular message.

How compliant is your organisation again?

New Zealand by the numbers

// April 15th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

• $2,874 million: gross revenue of The New Zealand screen industry for the year ending March 2010
• 25%: increase in number of listings on Trade Me Jobs in Q1 2011 vs Q1 2010
• 86%: percentage of the country expected to have access to the Freeview High Definition TV service in time for the Rugby World Cup
• $3.68: average price of milk in February 2011, according to Statistics New Zealand
• $4.18: inflation-adjusted average price of milk in January 2002 ($3.20 in 2002 dollars)
• 20,037: number of $1 BurgerFuel burger vouchers sold on Treat Me (TradeMe’s new group buying site) between midnight and 8am on the day the new website launched
• 16hrs 55mins: average time spent listening to commercial radio each week (Survey T1 2011)
• 70%: percentage of Kiwis researching electronics on the internet before making a purchase (Fly Buys Shopping Intentions Poll)
• 20,000: number of HDMI cables sold on Trade Me in 2010, as HDTV took off in New Zealand
• 43%: percentage of accounting and finance professionals who were uncomfortable with “friending” the boss on social networking sites (Robert Half Workplace Survey)

Ambush by AdWords

// April 15th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

If you’ve been thinking that a useful way to eat your competitors’ lunch is to buy their brand name as a Google Adwords search term, it’s time to think again — the long arm of the law is finally reaching out to deal to this sort of ambush marketing.

The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has just recommended to the Court that UK retailer Marks & Spencer — in dispute with Interflora UK because M&S has been purchasing the Interflora name as a Google AdWord — has in fact infringed Interflora’s trademark rights by doing so.

That recommendation is not quite a Court judgement — the final ruling is still a couple of months away — but the ECJ tends to follow the advice of its officials most of the time, so it’s likely that the Court will indeed find in favour of Interflora.

Any infringement is the advertiser’s problem, not Google’s — a 2010 judgement by the ECJ found that Google had not broken any laws by allowing a trademarked word to be sold to non-trademark-holders, but did not rule on whether the purchaser would be in breach of trademark protection rules. This latest decision, if confirmed by the ECJ, directly lays the legal blame on the offending marketer.

Legal niceties notwithstanding, it’s hard to claim innocence when the clear and present purpose of such ambush tactics is to lure away prospects from your competitor (despite the fact that prospects are searching specifically for that competitor by brand name).

Now might also be a good time to revisit the keywords lurking under the hood (in the non-visible code) on your website. If any of your competitors’ brands are listed there, in the hope that search engines will find them and deliver your site to prospective customers, you could also be heading towards a future legal stoush. Brandjacking might sound like a good idea in brainstorming sessions, but some ideas are best left to languish on the whiteboard.