Page 32 - AdNews Sep-Oct 2021

Investigation
pandemic, especially within spe- cialist agencies such as ours that are in high demand due to our healthcare focus.”
NZistheplacetobeatthe moment. Qassem Naim, head of data and tech, FCB NZ: “It’s defi- nitely exciting. I’ve only been in New Zealand for five years. Before then I was in Seattle and I’ve previ- ously bounced around a few other markets, and I appreciate the abil- ity to get shit done in New Zealand.
“With a smaller market, the downside is the lack of scale and smaller budgets, but the upside is the lack of red tape and bureaucracy.
“The model we’ve been able to establish here is actually one that is getting more attention and is being looked at to see how that can be replicated across other markets.
“New Zealand has a unique ability to test, see how it works, and lead the globe in terms of some of those ways of making use of the new landscape.”
Like everywhere else in the world, as COVID-19 started to break out, there was a rush of ads being pulled.
But by the end of the year it was back to full noise. Ad space was selling early as the summer retail season approached.
“And we’re seeing that trend this year,” Naim says. “There’s a
“I think the New Zealand tone, at its very world-beating best, is ambitious with a healthy slice of humour.”
Tony Bradbourne, Founder, Special Group
lot of disposable income flowing around the market that everyone’s after, trying to suck up, as we head into Q4.
“We’re getting sold out of inventory far earlier than we’ve seen. TV and people are exploring digital audio and podcasting in particular as an up-and-coming channel, exacerbated by COVID-19. That one is becom- ing more and more common to hear, coming both from agencies and clients in terms of their consideration sets.
“Working with a lot of the digital platforms and technologies, and helping clients through digital transformation, we did definitely see a bit of a digital acceleration.
“We ended up being quite busy, whereas some of the other agencies were taking the government stimulus and making redundancies in some cases.
“Plus, after the initial scare of the lockdown, we were able to get back out and continue that work, and build on the momentum that had kind of started without the same restrictions.”
The Monkeys, part of Accenture Interactive ANZ, recently opened an office in New Zealand.
“We have always admired the creative talent and work that comes out of New Zealand,” says Mark Green, co-founder and group CEO. “It has consistently been world class across many fronts, be that music, art, advertising, technology or driving a social agenda.
“At many times it has felt like they have embraced creativity more wholeheartedly than Australia and for that reason we have always been attracted to the idea of opening up in Auckland. Throw Damon [Stapelton] and Justin [Mowday] into the mix and it was a no-brainer.”
The Market
MBM, one of New Zealand’s largest media agencies, ending up having a record year in 2020.
“The growth has continued through 2021, says Matt Bale, co-founder and managing partner at MBM.
“We are relatively back to normal as a society — touch wood — and we are experiencing a buoyant consumer economy which gives clients oppor- tunities for growth beyond pre-COVID-19 levels.
“The industry is pretty much at full employment so there’s great poten- tial for people to develop their learning and careers.
“Clients are investing in data and marketing technology resources, which gives us opportunities to increase sophistication of targeting and campaign delivery.”
As in the rest of the world, clients rapidly pulled activity when the pandemic hit. But after NZ’s national lockdown, which was relatively brief in a global context, there was a period of recalibration and plan- ning for recovery.
This led to a strong fourth quarter in 2020, and that has continued in 2021.
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