Trish Deans, from Heart of Takapuna stands on the grass verge on Esmonde Rd. outside the Harbourside Church were she has 3 billboards protesting the Takapuna Carpark sale, like in the film Three Billboards. / Greg Bowker
COMMENT:
New Zealand appears to have been struck by a strange case of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri syndrome.
Whether it's the lasting impact of the recent film, or just a spontaneous realisation that billboards are available to the general public, in recent months we've seen a few examples of individuals and small interest groups trying their hands at outdoor advertising.
The most recent appeared in the shape of an anti-vaccination billboard near Middlemore hospital, which was subsequently removed after prompting more than 100 complaints.
Last month, developer Richard Burrell expressed his wrath on Wellington billboards calling on Ebert Construction to pay subcontractors the money owed to them.
A little further back, in July, Trish Deans and her organisation Heart of Takapuna erected a trio of billboards to protest Auckland Council's planned sale of the Takapuna carpark for development.
The anti-vaccination billboard prompted more than 100 complaints. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Media agency veteran Richard Thompson, now the co-founder of Future State Consulting, says billboards are useful for this kind of messaging because the entry cost for a single billboard (or even three) isn't prohibitive when compared to something like a television ad.
Thompson says billboards are relatively easy to design and offer reach that would be hard to get with other channels.
"You have massive frequency of traffic with billboards," he says. "You have people going backwards and forwards, to and from work, so you get a lot of value even if the billboard is only up for a month."
Outdoor advertising, he explains, can also be coupled quite effectively with digital media in the sense that conversations that start in the real world are often taken online and expanded in the mainstream and social media.
"This is certainly part of the reason why the outdoor and digital media channels have grown so much over the last few years. They work really hard together."
The coupling of the outdoor and digital worked a treat in each of the recent examples, with mainstream news media penning stories about the billboards, which in turn led to debate on social channels.
While he sees the recent trend towards citizen billboards as fascinating and somewhat entertaining, Thompson warns that the outdoor advertising industry needs to be cautious about allowing it to become too rampant.
"There has to be a filter. You don't want too many people airing their dirty laundry on billboards because it could cause the media channel to be viewed as toxic by consumers and advertisers."
The impact of such toxicity has been seen in recent years, with some advertisers suspending their advertising on YouTube because of concerns about the sort of content their brands might become associated with.
There was also a similar retreat by US advertisers from Fox News last year, when sexual misconduct allegations started piling up against controversial anchor Bill O'Reilly.
Three offbeat billboards aren't likely to have any immediate impact, but you have to wonder how comfortable New Zealand's most prestigious brands would be sharing roadside space with anti-vaxxers or whoever might come next.
OurAuckland Magazine to (finally) get a revamp
While some media can veer toward toxicity, OurAuckland magazine couldn't be accused of any such thing. If anything, until now the monthly magazine published by Auckland Council has erred on the side of sterility.
The publication, 540,000 copies of which are distributed to homes and businesses in Auckland, will from now on be produced by Bauer Media.
The media company behind Metro, Woman's Day and The Listener, among other titles, is set to increase the size of the publication from 16 to 32 pages and spread the distribution wider to cafes, transport hubs and other busy areas.
As many as 10 of those pages will feature advertising, to be secured by Bauer.
The council expects that shifting production from in-house to the media company will save about $300,000 over the next three years.
While production costs have been cut, council head of brand and marketing Victoria Walker says there were no job cuts.
"No staff have been made redundant as a result of this partnership," she says.
"A small number of staff will still have a role in the production of the magazine, while others will have time freed up to focus on growing our digital channels and engaging with Aucklanders online."
Bauer Media Group managing director Brendon Hill says the revamp aims to develop a magazine that matches the council's vision of Auckland as a world-class city.
Hill says he wants the magazine to play a role in making Aucklanders feel proud of and connected to the city within which they live work and play.
This will demand a massive turnaround of a magazine which has until now felt very much like a standard community freebie, rather than something you'd share with your friends.
A magazine that perhaps got closer to the revamp's goal was the discontinued Paperboy, which Bauer had to close for commercial reasons early this year. It will be interesting to see if a bit of the flavour that typified Paperboy will now bleed into the OurAuckland magazine.
Those decisions will rest with long-time magazine editor and publisher Ben Fahy, who recently crossed the floor from ICG Media to lead the makeover of OurAuckland at Bauer.
As experienced as he might be, Fahy will face a unique challenge in working with the bureaucratic forces at Auckland Council, which, as its press release reminds us, "will retain full editorial control".
