Audience participation was required partway through this number in Auckland’s Vector Arena last Saturday as the sound system failed Art and Paul. I was lucky to be there for their first venue in their final world tour and must admit to having a tear in my eye as the whole arena picked up the tune where Simon & Garfunkel left off. It was a truely special moment for everyone there. Shame about the individual singing on this clip.
The dust is settling on a busy period at Trade Me. Earlier this month we took to the road to share a few stories with over 300 New Zealand marketers and their agency folk.
The Trade Me Revolution Tour showed audiences in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch the progress of New Zealand’s largest website over the past ten years with CEO Jon Macdonald sharing insights into our passion for speed, ease of use and some measurement tools. Bernard Hickey from Interest.co.nz told us that Kiwis are only interested in mortgages and interest rates, demonstrating these big numbers against the tiny numbers involved in our sharemarket, for example. Trent Mankelow and Mike Pethig shared some techniques and ads that people don’t hate. Finally Geoff Matthews from new-kid-on-the-block site, TaxRefunds.co.nz shared the perfect storm that is driving his traffic and profits sky high in only 7 months.
We were keen to show marketers who are moving online a few tricks and traps to help with their websites and that marketing those sites using a considered combination of Television and Trade Me is effective and recession-busting. We got some challenging questions and a bunch of great responses from attendees. All in all, a huge success.
A few thoughts arising from the series:
* This recession is a biggie. A real biggie. It’s going to take a long time to recover, and recover from.
* Recession is not a time for sitting on hands; simply ‘riding out the recession’ ain’t going to cut it this time around.
* Recession equals restart. And it’s time to hit the restart button. It’s a chance to take stock and regroup.
* Cut out the stuff that either doesn’t work or that you can’t measure.
* It’s a really good time to just do the stuff that works.
I didn’t retell this gem but it still makes sense today as a business analogy, more so now than ever before.
For many marketers the online revolution has been underway for a few years now. For some, it’s only just started. If you would like to see the video and presentation of our five speakers, please email me to mg at trademe dot co dot nz and I’ll send you the link.
Many of you will remember the 1980’s television commercial starring botanist, David Bellamy who implored us to rid the nation of the invasive plant pest, Old Man’s Beard, Clematis vitalba.
Well, a modern day repeat of this campaign is now overdue. Plus action.
Background … I’ve just spent Easter in the idyllic Marlborough Sounds. As I drove my guests around the windy Queen Charlotte Track, the flowering, fluffy seed heads of the rampant climber were everywhere to be seen. Almost every corner was turned to the sight of this weed enveloping native bush on both sides of the road. It was pretty frustrating but typical for this time of year in the Sounds, I recalled.
The bach has been getting a bit overgrown so I got stuck into some gardening. This included ripping out some Old man’s beard that had re-sprouted in the five years since I bought the place and spent days combing the hillside on the back of my property, chopping the leathery tenticles of the OMB as is the legal responsibility of every property owner. It was clear that I would have to do this every few years to knock it back and keep it under control. This got me to thinking.
First, I wondered whether the property owners of the Sounds, DOC and the Marlborough District Council (depending on location) could be prosecuted for not removing the weed as per the bylaw. I guessed they would be exempt from legal action. Then I moved on to wondering why the PD gangs, community service folks, etc couldn’t be press-ganged into action. This moved to a strema of consciousness discussion with those around me about utilising our newly unemployed. But the reality is that the answer lies with the residents and home owners who use and enjoy the Sounds. There’s no point blaming the council, government or wishing for free labour. It’s up to us.
So I’m thinking about launching an ‘Old Man’s Beard Must Go’ Day. One day each year when we will join forces to tackle this pest. We can use social media to promote and educate, garner support from those with access to tools, resources, people, passion and energy. We can clamber up the hills and slide down the gullies of the Marlborough Sounds and reclaim our native bush. For one day, every year, we can demonstrate not only that Old man’s beard must go, it will go. Shall I do it? Are you in?
Trade Me turns 10 - view the story on 3news.co.nz. Some interesting statistics towards the end of the piece …
“The numbers speak for themselves. Every day around 180,000 items are listed on Trade Me, of which 60,000 are sold. There are well over two million active users, and every day almost 500,000 different people visit the site.”
I managed to get along to ad:tech in Sydney last week. Enjoyed the key notes and many of the sessions (was reminded of a downward quality curve as day progresses graph though). Conference-wise, what impressed me most were the four Twitter streams set up and promoted to attendees (and non-attendees) to converse, joke, comment and add insights through the entire conference. Hash tags (#) means searchable on Twitter ergo #ATSYD refers to the general conference stream, with #ATSYD1, #ATSYD2, #ATSYD3 used for the three breakout rooms running contemporaneous sessions. At times I suspect there was more in-room Twitter participation than directed at the speaker.
Someone posted that tweating in conference is akin to passing notes in class and it certainly felt that way to me; slightly disrespectful to a speaker trying to carry the audience through a complex thought process as laptops and phones are furiously typed. But the upside is huge. 4000 tweats got crunched down, a whole lot of attendees got to know each other via Twitter, we got to comment directly to the speakers and panels immediately following the sessions. It was a highlight of the event and added tremendous value to the sessions.
One of the key themes this year was the movement of brands into the online conversation rather than merely being a flash sideshow. There were numerous case studies of integrated use of social media to drive campaigns. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, mobile, web and WOM (word of month) combining to build communities. The emphasis on social media to reach consumers over-shadowed search and display, despite the obvious dominance of the latter two sectors. Being in the online display business was almost redefined as traditional media!
I really enjoyed the first keynote, Nick Brian (CEO, Mediabrands) who stated that Recession equals Restart. Nick proselytised that it wasn’t enough for marketers to just hold off, waiting for things to improve, but rather to hit the restart button and redefine their marketing strategies - with digital innovation at the core.
Here are 10 lessons from social media as provided via Twitter from @servantofchaos
The World Push Ups Championships are coming to Wellington on 28th March ‘09. Check out the current competitors.
Will you enter?
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is planning their Xmas Party for Wellington. It will be at Boulot, with Uncle Monkey, on Tuesday, 11th December. This will be seriously invite only, unlike our thoroughly enjoyable Thirsty Thursdays. I understand tickets are coming out soon so make sure you’re a member of the IAB to attend.
The famous Women in Technology debate was held again today in Wellington. I can report that the Baby Boomers (Brent, Rebecca, Duncan) cleaned up, despite strong evidence demonstrating that Gen Y’s (Charlotte, Nathalie, Tim) really will lead the future. Very funny and clever arguments by both sides. Another great lunch for 200 plus attendees. Cool costumes. Here’s a couple of thumbnails from the debate …
Hustle for Autism at the San Francisco Bathhouse launched David Cohen’s new book, A Perfect World (ISBN: 1869418158) and Russell Brown’s new website humans.org.nz in style. You can buy the book at the Public Address store.
Bill English’s speech was perspicacious. And witty … “I am the deputy leader of the Labour Party.”
It turns out my bidding instructions, on behalf of Don Christie for Morning Tea with John Key, were also assigned to the PR woman at the front of the room - so we both reached Don’s agreed price rapidly! Had I known, I would have asked Stephen to up the bidding even further. Thanks to everyone who helped raise a mighty sum for the Autism Intervention Trust.
Update: A really nice report from David Farrar.
Rightclick and ’save link as’ if you want to download a file of the entire Rugby World Cup schedule for your Microsoft Outlook calendar. Here are the fixtures if you want a link. This may be the most important download you undertake this year (if you’re a rugby nut like me).
