Smart ad agencies weathered gloomy global trend in 2001

By IRENE CHAPPLE, Marketing Writer

It didn't turn out to be the bumper year local marketers had expected, but last year still ended on a slight upswing from the previous year, after battling through global pessimism and the September 11 attacks.

Internationally, a squeeze on advertising budgets, exacerbated by the terrorist attacks, led to a 6 per cent fall in advertising spending to about $US325 billion ($756 billion).

In New Zealand, the numbers weren't nearly so gloomy. The resilient, efficient and lean characteristics of domestic agencies garnered a 3 per cent increase in ad spending.

ACNielsen Media International figures show an increase of $45 million to November 2001 - the latest statistics available - on just over $1.6 billion spent the previous year, at ratecard cost.

"Because we are such a small and isolated market, we have learned to work smarter," says Lynne Clifton, executive director of the Communications Agencies Association of New Zealand (Caanz). "Agencies have worked hard to ensure they have diverse client portfolios, so they can weather the international realignments."

Ms Clifton reckons everyone stopped brand building and feel-good advertising as they headed into 2001, looking instead to a sell-hard mentality. Bottom-line results ruled and the previously favoured advertising medium of television suffered.

"With very few exceptions, all we saw and heard was the 'sell, sell, sell' instant response kind of stuff," she says. "Television was well down on 2000 for the first half of the year, newspapers were flat and radio was the big winner, while growth in outdoor advertising also continued."

Jeremy Irwin, executive director of Anza, the Association of New Zealand Advertisers, agrees. He says the introduction of the TVNZ charter affected television advertising, while innovative forms of outdoor advertising creep into the local market and radio scoops a larger whack at advertising budgets.

Figures mostly back the industry guesstimates. ACNielsen Media International's breakdown on advertising outlets shows an extraordinary increase of almost $19 million in radio spending.

Magazine and cinema advertising dropped, and TV recorded a slight increase. Press is still the major outlet, recording advertising spending of almost $314 million to November.

Difficulties in collating information on internet advertising mean ad spending figures are not available, but it hovers at around 0.5 per cent of the country's total ad spending.

Online business suffered a setback with ACNielsen's e-ratings.com withdrawal from the New Zealand market late last year.

The internet monitor's departure leaves Red Sheriff and Hitwise tracking surfers' habits. The two use different techniques, and can churn out wildly different results.

Online publishers and Caanz are working to find a consistent way to track online behaviour.

Direct marketing, although hard to monitor separately from advertising, is flourishing.

Keith Norris, chief executive officer of the Direct Marketing Association, says this year promises to be a good one for direct marketers, as there is more emphasis on measurable results. Last February's launch of the Direct Marketing Code of Practice, based on five principles evolved from the 1993 Privacy Act, is pushed as effective protection for consumers.

Ongoing political issues raised hackles throughout the year, but the now-dumped criminal libel provisions to the Electoral Amendment Act caused a storm at year's end.

The changes would have made it a criminal offence for newspapers and magazines to publish anything in the month before an election that was defamatory or aimed to influence votes. Last year, the industry worked with the Minister of Broadcasting and Commissioner for Children to implement a voluntary code to promote social responsibility in advertising during tweenie time.

ANZA also worked throughout the year to retain the right to advertise prescription medicines and pharmaceuticals. ANZA claims the only industrialised countries with this right are the USA and New Zealand, and our campaigns undergo a self-regulatory pre-vetting process.

The year's biggest brickbat goes to the "hypothetical pitch" issued to competing agencies for the total Air New Zealand/Ansett business by Ansett executives. Major agencies poured time, resources and cash into a pitch, some outlaying up to $100,000. It was a waste of time. Before the process was complete, Ansett had folded. "It was a demonstration of the worst practice in agency selection," Ms Clifton says. "Seeing the effects it had on all the agencies involved was devastating. It was demoralising, unproductive and a phenomenal waste of money - and what an ironic outcome."

The year's quick-off-the-mark trouble child was Coca-Cola, whose marketing campaign for new energy drink Burn was seen by some as just too slick.

Burn, the 2000-2001 New Year's dance party at Auckland's St James, for which partygoers paid $70, had a marketing catch. It wasn't just a dance party, it was a product launch, complete with promotional girls and just one energy drink available.

From all accounts, the party was a hit, though not with the DJs who played. Some threatened to boycott the party, others complained they had been misled. All ended up playing, but there was a bitter aftertaste.

Saatchi & Saatchi takes top marks for best-forgotten slogan: Auckland A. Who could forget it? Actually, most people have.

No one greeted visitors with the Auckland A symbol. There were two, remember? One was fingers up, thumbs touching to make the A cross bar. In the other, forefingers pointed down and crossed the other hand's forefinger. Difficult positions to strike spontaneously on greeting, but, more problematically, the symbol attracted criticisms of racism and of promoting illiteracy.

The grammar pedants thought the swing on "eh", frequently suffixed on our sentences, made us sound like idiots. The politically correct thought the "A" was a mimic on the way some Maori speak, and accused the creators of racism. And some believed in the vagina theory, where the signal indicates that part of a woman's body. Plus, it was pointed out, the sign is very similar to that for AIDS and lesbianism.

Saatchi & Saatchi head Mike Hutcheson thought the furore captured up to $300,000 of free publicity for its client, the Auckland Festival Trust. Latest news from the trust: The A brand is to be reviewed. Whether they will use it to promote next year's festival is undecided.

On a positive note, top campaign performers are tipped to be the Vodafone texting drive, and, despite the distinct "urgh" sound effects from the masses, the Lion Red Chinnies campaign, which continued from mid-2000 through last year. Despite the mixed reaction, it seems the little blobs are taking it on the chin.