Ok, I realise that this is actually old news, but not being a member of CAANZ, I hadn't heard...
Why, oh why, have CAANZ set up a Digital Leadership Group? Apparently, this group "...has been established to provide a strong industry voice to assist New Zealand businesses as they adapt to remain competitive in an increasingly digitised and interactive environment." Ah, we already have that. It's called the Interactive Advertising Bureau. I am not going to list everything that the IAB do and stand for, as they are pretty all encompassing with digital media.
There are a few points that really irk me about the DLG.
Why have CAANZ set up this 'group' for digital media when they don't bother for any other media?
At what point did 2 of the 'senior digital leaders' (Andre Louis, Publicis Digital and Chris Riley, OMD Digital) who have been included in this illustrious group not stop and say, "wait a minute, we're also on the Agency Sub-Committee for this other interactive industry body who do exactly what the DLG would like to one day achieve - why don't we just back them up rather than adding another notch to our belts??"
At what point are they providing a strong industry voice to assist New Zealand businesses? From what I can see on their 'blog' they mostly focus on what is going on outside of NZ. Their blogs include information about:
AAA Town - US
Sprint - US
Online participation - US figures
Barack Obama online campaign - US
BBC - UK
Mint Money Management - US
Music Glue - UK
Online advertising in economic downturn - US information
Energy Saving Trust - UK
Frank's Cocaine Basement - UK
WhileI get that the US and UK are more mature markets than NZ when it comes to all things digital, why are they not looking some of the great campaigns and things that we're doing? Isn't the point to be building, encouraging and growing the NZ market? Yes, some of our trends here will follow the US and UK, but not in entirety. I feel as though, while probably with good intentions, this DLG is only going to confuse people, especially those who don't spend their lives online, and understand what else is out there. The current board of the IAB has some serious smart cookies in there. Mark Evans (and the board - and sub-committees also) have done a brilliant job over the last 2 years building it up, encouraging further learning, auditing NZ online spend and sharing information. The DLG sounds to me like another ego boost.
Get your hand off it, go to the IAB website and check out what people who really care about the NZ interactive industry are doing about it.
So the world is obsessed with Social Networking websites, this I understand. What a great way to keep in contact with people blah blah blah. I can say that as I am a Facebook snob and will not accept just anyone who friend-requests me (always amazes me how you ignore a request and then they request again - get the hint people!)
At any rate, I do worry that people are replacing their lives with this site. Today Stuff had this article about lawyers in Canberra serving legal papers on defendants Facebook pages. Say what? How is this not a breach of some privacy law? Hmm, what could possibly be more humiliating that being served papers... I know, being served them on my Facebook page where everyone that I know can see them. What?
I understand that we are all relying on the net and social marketing to make up for our own laziness but I do feel like some things should be left to the real world.
What a wealth of knowledge this little publication is. I know, it is quite a rag sometimes and is pure gossip, but sometimes the gems that come out, just fantastic.
I find it curious that Fastline make the announcement that Kevin Bowler (Y!X) has been elected chairman of the IAB, Liz Fraser (MSN) as vice-chairman and Spencer Bailey (APN) as treasurer. Good on them all, I have no complaints (for a change).
I do however had 2 questions on this. 1. Why am I reading about this in Fastline and not a release from the IAB? 2. Where is Fairfax?
Further to question 2, where is Fairfax? Their digital team seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Don't come to Thirsty Thursday (except for the lovely Ros, but she isn't the interactive 'person') or the IAB Christmas party. They seem to be MIA at the moment, its a little disappointing considering the effort all the other publishers are going to at the moment.
Shall be very interested as to whether I get any credit for this idea, or if the person I told about it takes the glory, cos, dammit, its a good one.
After talking with Mark at the IABxmas party I realised that the IAB seriously needs something that will make a lot more people in the industry stand up and go, hell yes, don't know what I'd do without them. With the likes of CAANZ coming up with this interactive industry body... something (I don't know, we're not a member of CAANZ because of their stance of advertising fast foods to children, anyway) the IAB needs to put itself in a position where it is indispensable. CAANZ has the numbers behind it when it comes to agencies and if they could initiate something that was useful, they could make the IAB redundant.
Rambling. So, the other day, when trying to make sure that I had all of the most up to date ratecards for some publishers (and not being able to find half of them because they are not on websites in an obvious place) I thought, you know what would be handy, if the IAB put aside a page where publishers could upload their ratecards. Then us agency folk could go to one place rather than 10 odd sites for just the main NZ publishers. More to the point, this would benefit both publishers and media planners. Sometimes you forget about the other publishers out there who perhaps don't have the huge traffic numbers, but could be environmentally a good placement. Nothing like a reminder.
There you go, if it comes to fruition, it was my idea first.
The first was the AGM minutes. Awesome, thanks for sharing kids. Hate to say it - because I know that everyone who is working towards making the IAB something that can be of real benefit to us all have other jobs that they work hard at too - but can these people please talk less and act more please?
Various 'points' brought up in the meeting apparently - thanks Tom, quite agree that publishers shouldn't price themselves out of the market. Some publishers are changing and altering their prices to the point where I can't qualify putting them on a schedule. The rates go up, but unfortunately click thrus are not going up, and worse, the acquisitions aren't going up. When I can't justify my predicted CPA, I stop placing on that site. It is as simple as that. Search delivers, display continues to increase in price, guess where my budget is heading. - in reference to the 'more action less talk' one of the points that was mentioned was the need to further the education of those in the industry. A decent month ago I sent my 'work history' in for consideration to be a part of the education sub-committee. Glad to see that it is so important that it requires mention at the AGM but those who want to make a difference and are passionate about it, we're not even told whether or not we've made the cut. Love it.
Step up or move on. Its time that we make this industry mean something.
Then, this afternoon we get our IAB xmas party invitations. Great. Something about 2 people are invited from your organisation. Brilliant. I'm sorry but our agency is one of the few that attend all IAB drinks, and we're even good enough to usually talk to whomever is hosting, or we're willing to buy our own drinks when no one is. It takes more that 2 of us to put together great schedules for our clients. It takes more than 2 of us to brainstorm ideas with publishers. But apparently only 2 of us are worthy of being invited. Just because someone aimed a little too high with the function last year, I'm guessing.
What I think some people have forgotten is that being listed as an IAB member doesn't mean you know anything about the industry. Not being a member doesn't mean you can't make a contribution.
It's amazing what comes out around election time, but having the US election run so close to ours, I feel as though it shows how different a presidential campaign is to a priministerial campaign. To start with, how to get people to vote. In the states, they seem to go to quite extreme lengths to get one to vote, including enlisting massive celebrities. The first '5 friends' video
has been viewed almost 3.1 million times, with 5 more friends, the second video over 1.4 million times. Here in NZ we have some orange guy who we have seen for years trying to get us to vote. Now, granted, different budgets, different countries, different populations and different overall outcome, but surely we can have some interesting/clever/relevant/inspiring creative in the advertising that is forced on us, and not an envelope on screen for (and I am guessing) 8 seconds with a voiceover. Boring!
As an aside, I also like the online that they are rolling out... way to work in your audiences line of sight.
But I don't mind that I'm a geek. I can freely admit it. I am happy with the fact that when, on Monday morning when I logged in to check analytics, I was surprised and delighted to find that analytics took on a whole new life of its own. YAY! Google continues to be my favourite thing in the whole wide world. Of all things in this world that you can rely on being right and true and perfect in everyway I thought possible, it continues to amaze me in the different ways that Google can make my life better. I love the new layout of the accounts overview. Just beautiful. Confirmation that my sites are on the up and up, bliss. Seeing that one of my sites is 561% up on traffic year on year. I don't think a geek could ask for more.
Thanks Google. You were the shining light of my week.
