E-shop turns back time to ferret out the masses

Peter Wogan

Online shopping mall Ferrit may exist in cyberspace but it has turned to the more traditional advertising medium of television to push its message.

Ferrit's new advertising campaign - by its new agency Consortium - was launched on Sunday, with half its budget allocated for TV.

Ferrit marketing head Peter Wogan said advertising aimed to spread the message that the website was an online mall where shoppers could browse for new goods.

"In the first six months of our existence, we had made some assumptions that the market would intuitively know what we were," he said. "We just weren't getting a clear message to the market about what Ferrit is."

Wogan said the TV exposure was backed by billboard and online advertising, and print ads running from the end of the month.

AUT senior advertising lecturer Dave Bibby said Ferrit's integrated marketing plan showed TV was still an important avenue for advertisers.

"The 30-second TVC model has diminished in its effectiveness but it's not dead by a long way," said Bibby. "It's still probably the most powerful communication model there is out there but, obviously, with TiVO (digital video recording set-top device for TV) and the fragmentation of the media, people have to look elsewhere and can't rely exclusively on that."

IDC telecommunications analyst Chris Loh said Ferrit had the potential to generate a "noticeable portion" of Telecom's revenue and the increased advertising was lifting its appeal.

"As users become increasingly confident in conducting online transactions 24/7 from anywhere with internet access, there are few impediments to Ferrit's gradual increase in profile in New Zealand," said Loh. "With Telecom committing more money to promoting the site and pushing new marketing channels, this process is being accelerated and expanded beyond just the technically savvy, to the broader market."

Wogan said Ferrit initially pitched its offering to wealthy, tech-savvy 30-somethings but had reviewed its target. "We've thrown that out the door - our target market now is anyone with a wallet and anyone who's buying retail goods."

The shift to appeal to the masses meant television as "the cornerstone" of advertising made sense.

"The campaign is a broad reach, mass market campaign," Wogan said. "We decided that TV needed to be part of that mix. What we were asking them to do was to get back to a simple and clear message about what the site is."

The website had a record day on Monday, with 16,000 unique visitors.

It was on track for 150,000 unique visitors for the month, compared with 115,000 for December .

Wogan said the aim was to build traffic up to a sustained 300,000 unique visitors a month by December.

Ferrit also wanted to increase shopping options from the 129 retailers now on the site to 600 by the end of next June.

Wogan said more functions were in the pipeline, including the ability to buy on the website. "The biggest competition for us, and for New Zealand retailers, is overseas sites."


More Ferriting

* The Ferrit website had its record day on Monday, with 16,000 unique visitors

* It is on track for 150,000 unique visitors for the month, compared with 115,000 for December.

* The aim is to build traffic up to a sustained 300,000 unique visitors a month by December.