Tag Archives: anz

Aussie banks gaining on US/UK leaders: Brand Finance

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The latest The Banker/Brand Finance Banking 500 report released by global brand valuation firm Brand Finance shows that the brand values of Australia’s banks have risen considerably over the past year.

The report reveals ANZ as the most valuable banking brand, on top of having the highest global gain in the Top 50 banking brands. Rising eleven places, from 50 to 39, this is seen as being major movement at the station, particularly with 14 Australian banks named among the most valuable banking brands overall.

In fact, the total of Australia’s banking brand values are up 27.3% compared to 2012, with ANZ leading the Australian banking list (valued at USD$5.8b) ranking ahead of Commonwealth Bank (USD$5.29b), NAB (USD$4.98b) and Westpac (USD$4.1b).

In terms of overseas markets, US leader Wells Fargo (USD$26b) has overtaken UK’s HSBC (USD$22.8b) to become the world’s most valuable banking brand in 2013 while another American bank, Chase (USD$23.4b), has risen from fifth to second, also overhauling HSBC.

As the European banks continue to struggle post the fiscal insecurity of the previous four years, plus the troublesome Eurozone, the Brand Finance league table highlights the issue in its data.

As it stands, only five European banks are in the top 20, led by Spain’s Santander (6), France’s BNP Paribas (9) and Germany’s Deutsche Bank (12) with North American and Far Eastern making up the bulk – Brazil and China also feature well at the top of the list.

On releasing the results, Brand Finance chief executive, David Haigh explains: “This year’s results suggest that globally the banking crisis is nearly over as both brand ratings and values are rising. While UK banks continue to lag the global recovery in both reputation and brand value, Australian banks are increasing their brand value.”

 

Full results from the report are available here. 

The fate of retail banks: embrace technology or lose market share

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By Jonathan Greenacre, University of New South Wales

How are retail banks – the incumbents of banking – likely to fare in the era of mobile banking?

This is an increasingly crucial issue for banks. Mobile banking is a major technological development, and history suggests that incumbents can be reduced to obscurity as new players, or ‘market disruptors’, use improved technology to upset the old order.

For example, companies such as Netflix, which uses postal and later online distribution of rented films, are revolutionising the way consumers access movies. A consequence has been that Blockbuster, a traditional bricks-and-mortar DVD rental company, has lost enormous market share. Similarly, as at January 2011, Amazon was selling 105 digital books for every 100 analogue books and contributing to sending Borders, a regular bookstore, into obsolescence.

In the era of mobile banking, banks may be next in line to see their relevance diminished. Internet, telecommunications and technological companies — the market disruptors in relation to mobile banking — are probably better placed to develop key components of mobile banking than banks. Traditionally, banks ‘owned’ the retail banking relationship with customers. They designed, manufactured and distributed banking products. However, mobile banking emphasises disintermediation and these processes may reduce that advantage for banks because market disruptors can provide some (if not all) of these steps.

Market disruptors are becoming increasingly adept at distributing banking products through payment systems. For example, mobile payments constitute one of Google’s three main strategic goals, and it already has a digital banking licence in Holland. PayPal is reportedly scouting for a major retailer to embrace its mobile phone payment services. Square, which provides small devices that attach to smartphones and allow small businesses or tradesmen to accept credit card payments, has signed up more than 1 million customers since its launch in 2010, including the Salvation Army. Around three million customers now use mobile prepaid to pay for their coffee at Starbucks.

New technology is making these processes ever easier. For example, Australian-based mHits has developed a SMS-based technology where natural language messages are used to transfer money to another mobile phone number. (For example, ‘pay 0412345678 $3 soy latte’.)

Many of these developments come under the label of near field communication (NFC), which involves establishing radio communication between smartphones and similar devices by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity, usually no more than a few centimetres. In late 2010, Google introduced the first NFC-enabled smartphone, the Nexus S, made by Samsung. A simple app turns the Nexus S into a portable payment processor. In 2011, market researcher Pyramid Research forecast that 28% of all smartphones (around 250 million) sold by 2015 will be NFC enabled.

Clearly, banks need to reform to ride the wave of mobile payments. To compete with these market disruptors, banks need to remain relevant, attractive and create value for customers. Doing so in relation to mobile banking will require a fundamental reappraisal of a bank’s relationship with customers, and it is unclear the extent to which the major clearing banks have come to terms with this need. In a 2011 survey of over 150 European banks, McKinsey reported that almost 55% assigned 10 or less employees to mobile banking, suggesting a lack of investment in this field. For those who do want to compete with the market disruptors, how should they do so? Four strategies may be helpful.

Collaborate and listen

The first, and perhaps most obvious and fundamental step, involves banks accepting that they will no longer own the customer relationship — and that they should collaborate with the market disruptors. This will involve, for example, supporting contactless point of sales, and generally either determining mobile payment solutions themselves or partnering with potential market disruptors such as Telstra, EFTPOS, BPAY, and PayPal.

Some banks have started. For example, Barclays has adopted a contactless mobile payments partnership with Orange in the UK.

Size matters

The second strategy involves banks becoming bigger so that they can afford the technological innovation required to build mobile banking into their operations. The Economist has argued that the high cost of technology and the gains it promises may mean that in the era of mobile banking, bigger, wealthier banks are more likely to succeed than smaller ones. This is partly because regulation has become more intrusive in the years since the financial crisis, so raising relative compliance costs that may inhibit the capacity of smaller banks to invest sufficiently in the requisite technology.

Furthermore, larger banks such as Citigroup, HSBC and Standard Chartered, appear better able to standardise their procedures and systems, and so can replicate their successful practices across the largely unserved but potentially highly lucrative banking markets in Asia and the Americas.

Use branches to facilitate conversation, not transactions

The third strategy is to leverage any face-to-face contact with customers towards engagement rather than transaction. This may enable banks to stay relevant to customers as a source of financial advice, a capacity that market disruptors will take time to develop. Banks are already heading in that direction. For example, SNS in the Netherlands decided to remove cash from their branches in 2009. In the middle of Paris, BNP Paribas’s flagship concept store contains red, green and yellow beanbags, and white benches with iPads and rooms with couches and flatscreen televisions. The idea is that a customer can see a financial advisor while having a coffee. ING Direct Café near San Francisco Union Square serves coffee, and the barista serving the latte asks whether the customer would like to talk about money or open a saving account. Transactions are not permitted at this bank branch.

Trust: Brand

Fourth, banks can leverage customer information entrusted to them to provide tailored products that retains a customer’s attention. Banks seem to have worked this out. A McKinsey report suggests that some banks have been able to double the share of customers that accept offers of loans and reduce loan losses by a quarter, simply by using data they already have. However, market disruptors are also getting in on the act. In America, Visa has teamed up with Gap, a clothes retailer, to send discount offers to cardholders who swipe their cards near Gap’s stores.

Even then however, banks’ ability to leverage their supposed trust advantage may not last for long. Currently part of the reason that customers trust banks over market disruptors is because they are not used to the non face-to-face aspect of mobile banking. However, as a new generation grows up in which mobile banking is the norm, they may trust the market disruptors, so reducing the trust advantage of banks. In a recent MasterCard survey, 37% of respondents aged 35 and older said they would be comfortable paying for items via NFC, but this figure was 63% for those aged 18-34 years old, suggesting that younger people are much more willing to interact with market disruptors than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

It is clear that banks will need to embrace the changes that mobile banking is forcing upon them. There are strategies that are available to them to do so, but they will need to move quickly. As Blockbuster or Borders might tell you, in the information age, the future belongs to those that are nimble and far-sighted enough to embrace it.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.The Conversation
Read the original article.


Woolworths most valuable Aus brand, pockets of hope for decimated retail

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More than half of Australia’s top 30 brands registered declines in their value over the past year, with Harvey Norman and David Jones among the worst hit, a study has found.

There were clear winners and losers over the past year, Brand Finance found in its annual study into the value of Australian brands. Retail and finance brands bore the brunt of the tough conditions, with many in these sectors experiencing a 10-20% decline in the value of their brands, but it wasn’t all bad news for these sectors with standout brands performing well.

In the retail sector, Bunnings, Coles and Target showed that growth is achievable despite difficult trading conditions, notching 20.3%, 14.5% and 10.0% increases in brand value respectively.

Coles, valued at $4.7 billion, succeeded in closing the gap on rival Woolworths, gaining $597 million in value and moving up the ladder to reach third position. Woolworths, valued at $7.1 billion, maintained the top spot despite losing $504 million of value, prompting managing director of Brand Finance Australia, Tim Heberden, to point out three areas where retailers could step up their game. “Due to increased international competition and changing consumer behaviour, Aussie retailers are learning the importance of customer service, brand differentiation, and omni-channel strategies,” Heberden says.

Australian finance brands also recorded mixed results over the past year, but on the whole outperformed their global peers with six of our banks featuring in the top 100 of Brand Finance’s global list of the top banks. MLC declined the most out of the top 30 brands, shedding 25.8% of its brand value. Macquarie Bank and St George also experienced significant declines, but at the other end of the scale BankWest and ANZ increased in value by 16.5% and 9.8% each. The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) seized the title of Australia’s most valuable banking brand from NAB, increasing its value by $185 million.

Another brand value study, Millward Brown’s BrandZ, recently ranked CBA as the most valuable Australian brand on the global stage at $13.1 billion, compared to the $4.1 billion valuation given in this study. However, Millward Brown does not release Australian results or include all Australian brands in its global list, making no other comparisons possible.

Brand Finance calculated the overall value of the top 30 Australian brands at $51 billion, well below the value it attributes to the largest global brand, Apple, at US$71 billion. The researcher calculates a brand’s value by looking at a company’s market share, profitability, reputation and emotional connection with consumers.

Telstra held on to second place in 2012, gaining $294 million to reach a value of $5.1 billion, placing the telco on par with the once great Nokia brand in an international context.

The Qantas brand continued to free fall dropping below the billion dollar threshold, although this year’s drop of $108 million represents a reduced rate of decline.

 

ANZ custom titles to relaunch with new publisher in 2012

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The custom publications of ANZ Private and ANZ Trustees are set to relaunch this year with a change of publisher for both titles.

ANZ Private’s luxury magazine, In Private, and ANZ Trustees’ philanthropy publication, The Journey of Giving, will be relaunched in 2012 by South Melbourne publishing house, Niche Media (also publishers of Marketing).

In Private showcases the success and achievements of ANZ Private’s influential and dynamic clients from both a personal and business perspective, and The Journey of Giving explores philanthropy through premium format, design and photography, and featuring clients of ANZ Trustees.

“We are extremely proud of how our two custom titles have evolved over the past 18 months, reinforced by the very positive feedback we receive regularly from our high net worth clients who engage with each issue’s editorial. We look forward to the expertise in the Niche team enhancing our publications even further in 2012,” says Jac Phillips, head of marketing for ANZ Private and ANZ Trustees.

Managing director of Niche Media, Paul Lidgerwood, says the company is “Incredibly proud to be working with ANZ Private and ANZ Trustees on their custom publications. We will relaunch these magazines both in print and digital formats and work hard to further deepen the relationship ANZ has with its clients.”

The eighth edition of In Private is set to be published in April, while the fourth edition of The Journey of Giving is due in May.

Top10 experiential campaigns of 2011

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Cool, weird or downright epic, experiences touch an audience like nothing else. They grab and hold attention, create deep and lasting associations and are talked about long after they’re over.

Experiential is a multifaceted and oft-misunderstood discipline, so without getting too hung up on definitions, Marketing brings you this Top10 featuring ten of the best brand activation experiences this past year has seen.

 

10. Desigual – Undie party
A free outfit from Desigual, with one small catch: you have to turn up to the store wearing only underwear and a hundred other people will be doing the same. And if you’re number 101 you’re left out in the cold.

 

9. Lipton Ice Tea – Misting station
It may not be as intricately orchestrated or on the same scale as some of the others on this list, but this installation for Lipton Ice Tea gets right at the heart of what ‘experience’ truly means. The person viewing the ad isn’t just being told what to buy, but is instead being subjected to a sensation that (Lipton hopes) will create a subconscious, and very powerful, association with the brand.

 

8. Carlsberg – Bikers in cinema
‘This is going to be cosy’ – These are the words uttered by your date as you enter a cinema to be confronted by hundreds of bikers and only two seats left, right in the centre. Should you turn around and leave? What could possibly happen if you stay?

 

7. Coca Cola – Happiness Truck
A four-wheeled successor to the virally successful ‘Happiness Machine‘ of 2010, Coca-Cola’s ‘Happiness Truck’ took to the streets of Rio De Janeiro to dispense sunglasses, beach balls, surfboards, as well as a substantial amount of black, fizzy sugar-water.

 

6. Corona – Save the Beach Hotel
Built by a ‘famous artist of trash’ (no, not Britney), the Save the Beach Hotel was created to draw locals’ attention to the littering problem on European coastlines that Corona has been nobly championing for years, apparently. The statistical results at the end are a highlight. For bonus cynicism points: see how many discarded beer bottles you can spot in the walls.

 

5. NAB – Break Up
A local hero that has just won NAB’s CMO the title of Australian Direct Marketer of the Year, not only did it make notable appearances in social media, TV, print, choppervertising, you name it, it also saw ‘Doug’ tied to a pole and a pianist on the back of a truck singing break up songs as he’s driven around Melbourne to the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, and Westpac.

 

4. Ministry of National Defense (Colombia) – Operation Christmas
Here’s a campaign that’s not trying to sell a product or service brand, but an idea. Specifically, the campaign’s purpose was to encourage members of guerrilla groups hiding out in the Colombian jungle to demobilise for Christmas (guerrilla marketing joke goes here).
Depending on your mood and/or personality the music and copy in the video might make you cringe or it might grab your heart strings and rip them out of your chest. Either way, the campaign won Lowe SSP3 a bunch of awards.

 

3. T-Mobile – Angry Birds Live
Setting up a life-size version of the wildly successful Angry Birds smartphone game is very cool. Cutting together a video montage to exclude all the time spent rebuilding the thing and including your marching band and shots of people laughing and holding up smartphones is even cooler. Although, it’s not promoting Angry Birds, so if you weren’t told it was for T-Mobile, would you have known?

 

2. MINI – Getaway Tokyo
Okay, so it won’t start until Saturday (December 3), but if this Tokyo version is anywhere near as successful as last year’s game in Stockholm (it doubled sales), it should be a runaway hit. This time the game is spread over an area of 620 square kilometres (32 times larger than last year’s), and is playable on Android phones as well as iPhones. Players hunt for a virtual MINI with their GPS-enabled smartphone and then try to hold onto it for as long as they can. Anyone within 50 metres can grab the virtual car, and the player in possession of it at the end of the 9 day game wins a real MINI.

 

1. Bing – Decode Jay-Z
The sheer scale and budget that went into this execution boggles the mind. By spreading the pages of rapper Jay-Z’s autobiography throughout American cities and on all manner of media to create both a real-life and virtual treasure hunt tied together by Bing’s online property, Droga5 New York created an experience and publicity dream, not to mention an awards magnet.

Life after brand management: Samantha Hardman

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In this careers feature, Liz Foster asks the question, with the number of corporate marketing roles shrinking as you climb the ladder, where do all the brand managers go?

Who? 

Samantha Hardman, Creative Director, Bento Group

When and where did you work in marketing?

I worked in marketing for approximately ten years, most recently as Senior Manager at ANZ. 

Highest marketing level reached?

Senior Management Marketing, Online & Digital team. I was responsible for all marketing activities for the digital channel across multiple regions. 

What do you do now?

I’m the Creative Director for clothing label Bento. 

Did you choose your path or did it choose you? 

Depends on how you look at it! I genuinely feel fashion is my calling. That said, it was something I actively left marketing to pursue. 

What’s the most important skill that you’ve taken from your marketing days?

Understand your customer. Too many designers get caught up in the art of the medium and forget that at the end of the day, it’s a commercial venture. 

If you had your time again, would you climb the corporate marketing ladder?

It’s a tough call, but I think so. 

What were the best and worst parts of your role as BM?

Best – seeing a campaign through from inception to delivery and having it exceed your wildest hopes in terms of delivery. 

Worse – the monotony and the politics. 

What career tips would you offer an aspirant or current BM?

Never forget to sell yourself like you would sell your product. You are your own brand. 

Also, whilst you may not like the answer, remember: it’s always free to ask. 

Now that youve left the world of brand management, are you satisfied with your current role? If not, what are your future career aspirations?

Satisfied, challenged and excited. I’m thrilled with my current roles, but I still have aspirations for the business and my career along with it.

ANZs travelling WiFi

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ANZ’s OOH campaign offers Melbournes tram passengers free WiFi for the next 12 weeks.

The WiFi tram is covered in ANZ branding and allows passengers to connect their units to the WiFi service while travelling.

The tram forms part of a wider campaign in which WiFi is offered at Southern Cross Station in Melbourne and also in coffee shops.

Follow the yellow brick road

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Background

In 2008, ANZ Bank embarked on a $1 million sponsorship of the Australian tour of Wicked, one of the world’s most successful musicals.

As the presenting sponsor, ANZ’s investment reflected the bank’s commitment to the community and the community’s passions for the arts. Wicked also complemented the organisation’s other sponsorship properties of Sydney Festival, the ANZ Championship (netball), ANZ Stadium and ANZ Ladies Masters (golf).

ANZ was keen to capitalise on the unprecedented success of the production overseas, which had been recognised for attracting a new, younger theatre audience.

Campaign: Wicked
Client: ANZ
Agencies: Haystac, Mitchell and Partners, emitch and Mocom

Objectives

ANZ engaged several businesses from within the Mitchell Communication Group to develop a campaign to leverage ANZ’s investment. These included marketing communications agency Haystac, digital creative agency Rodeo, media agency Mitchell and Partners, digital media agency emitch and mobile marketing agency Mocom.

Haystac and Rodeo were briefed to develop a six-month sponsorship leverage campaign (which was extended to 12 months as the campaign evolved). The brief covered anything outside of above the line advertising spend, and ANZ’s main objective was to engage with customers, stakeholders and their staff in a fun, interactive way.

Strategy

It was important for all programs to activate the sponsorship through clever brand connections, positioning ANZ as a leader in an already competitive and busy sponsorship environment.

“We recognised a need to use big, creative ideas to generate awareness of ANZ’s sponsorship,” says Lia Pacquola, account director at Haystac. 

Strategic insights from Haystac and Rodeo in developing the strategy included:

  • traditionally it is difficult to gain editorial coverage for sponsors
  • big, creative ideas that provide value for consumers or demonstrate clever brand connections
  • are essential for consumer awareness, so
  • brand activation and creative PR leveraging was crucial to the success of generating awareness of the ANZ partnership.

In developing a strategy, Haystac proposed PR and marketing recommendations that were vital in maximising exposure for ANZ. The multifaceted campaign used a number of communication channels to maximise exposure for ANZ:

  • a public relations campaign targeting print, online and broadcast media for editorial coverage
  • development of several m-sites and social media activation
  • mobile communication activity
  • consumer promotions, including a major consumer competition and online games
  • events, and
  • outdoor and online advertising.

The result was a highly successful launch event and leverage campaign for ANZ, rolled out over a 12-month period.

Execution

The campaign kicked off with a launch event held at the Plaza Ballroom in Melbourne, attended by print, online and broadcast media, as well as more than 100 ANZ staff.

Rodeo created www.anzwicked.com, an interactive website that enabled users to discover the Land of Oz and learn more about ANZ, the official Bank of Oz. The site hosted several additional m-sites for promotions and viral components of the campaign, such as the ‘Pitch the Witch’ game and ‘Are you good or are you Wicked?’ quiz.

“The online medium provided ANZ with a creative platform to combine its brand with the musical. The engaging space allowed ANZ staff, stakeholders, customers and Wicked fans to collaborate and share experiences,” explains Daniel Hewitt, digital director at Rodeo.

‘Pitch the Witch’ invited users to play an online game where they selected their character, turned the crank and pitched their witch across the lands of Oz. Pods were set up in the Regent Theatre foyer, so that patrons could play the game prior to the show and at intermission.

As an incentive for the game, ANZ offered the top score winner a ‘Wicked Weekend in Melbourne’ including flights, dinner, spa treatment and tickets to the musical.

Over the course of the six-week competition, 25,994 people played the game and 7615 people entered the competition.

In addition, to promote ANZ’s sponsorship of the musical, Bluetooth activity was installed at the Regent Theatre for patrons to download exclusive content, including interviews with the cast members and clips from the launch event.

Overall, five units were installed at the theatre and three units were installed in three ANZ Melbourne CBD branches.

The website also played a vital role in ANZ’s ‘Win a part in Wicked’ competition, a major consumer promotion held to capitalise on the anniversary of the 12-month sponsorship.

The competition gave one fan the opportunity to win a one-night walk-on role in the show. Fans were invited to submit a two-minute video of themselves singing a song from the musical. Entries were shortlisted by ANZ and Wicked, and three finalists performed a live audition in front of cast members in Melbourne.

The winner attended a costume fitting and rehearsals in the lead-up to their performance on 17 July.

A dedicated m-site contained all campaign messages, including the YouTube auditions submitted. Social networking sites were also used to promote the ‘Win a part’ competition.

Haystac managed daily updates to the Facebook page and responded to fans posting queries on the audition process and providing feedback on their experiences.

Following the announcement of the winner of ‘Win a part in Wicked’, photos of the costume fitting, rehearsals and performance were posted, which attracted hundreds of fans’ interest. Live tweets by cast members Lucy Durack and Rob Mills appeared on the site throughout the campaign.

A comprehensive PR program to generate editorial involved several phases of media liaison, including the competition announcement, winner announcement, and post announcement editorial.

Additional components of the campaign included the installation of three-dimensional Wicked graphics in front of 11 ANZ ATMs around Melbourne, as well as key ANZ branches, a radio partnership with Nova 100 and several special events throughout the sponsorship period, including a Halloween event at the Regent Theatre.

Results

The Wicked campaign was extensive and results were measured in different ways for each individual component. Online activity looked at site visits and user interaction, entry numbers were collated for competitions, media coverage was recorded to measure PR activity and events were measured by attendees and activation.

Media coverage was overwhelmingly positive, with ongoing editorial praising ANZ for its commitment to the arts. At the Regent Theatre alone, over 74,000 acknowledged receipt of the Bluetooth messages, and over 28,000 (38.5 %) accepted the content.

Key results generated by the campaign include:

  • ANZ sponsorship announcement reported on 3AW, Network 10, Channel 9 and The Age,
  • mX photo opportunity of two Wicked fans filming their audition,
  • interview with Rob Mills and second follow-up story on Network 10’s 9am with David and Kim (filmed in situ at the final rehearsal for the winner),
  • local media coverage of winner, Henry Brett,
  • throughout the campaign, the campaign site received 120,254 unique visitors, and the average time spent on the site was 3.02 minutes,
  • the majority of traffic came directly to the site, primarily through above the line advertising, while click-throughs from the ANZ homepage fed the second highest number of visitors
    the highest frequented pages within the website were all linked to specific campaign promotions and activities,
  • eDMs were extremely effective in driving traffic to the website around specific promotions and generated 11,184 new sign-ups to ANZ’s customer database, and
  • 477 entries were received for the ‘Win a part’ competition, with 30,202 unique visitors to the competition’s site, and the auditions received thousands of views on YouTube, with 4469 views of the most-watched clip.

ANZ’s Louise Eyres, group general manager of branding, says the campaign proved extremely successful.

“We wanted to take our sponsorship in a new direction – to do things we’ve never done before. We have been highly impressed with the creativity of the response to our brief and the ability of Haystac and Rodeo to deliver a most successful campaign,” explains Eyres.

SME owners least fond of banks

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Among the SME market, it appears there is opportunity for banking marketers to make some ground as consumer facing efforts outstrip business banking.

Roy Morgan has reported the results of over 3,000 face-to-face interviews showing customer satisfaction among SME owners with the big four banks has risen just 0.2% to 64.3% at December 2010. Their performance with consumers shows a marked gap, at 72.4% for the same period.

Of the big four, ANZ performed best in both consumer and SME markets. Outside the big four, Bendigo bank was the market leader at 84.5% satisfaction.

“It would appear that despite all the unfavourable publicity associated with the banks’ treatment of business customers, that at the smaller end of the market, business owners have generally maintained their level of satisfaction with the major banks over the last 12 months and in some cases even improved slightly. There is obviously plenty of room by banks for improved performance amongst this important segment as they are still well behind the satisfaction level of consumers overall, 67.9% compared to 74.3%,” said Norman Morris, industry communications director at Roy Morgan Research.

Moments with marketers: Cameron McPherson

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Marketingmag.com.au chats to Cameron McPherson – general manager of Rodeo Agency. If you would like to see a certain
marketer profiled, please email your suggestion to Sean Greaney on sean.greaney@niche.com.au.

What do you do?

I have recently joined Rodeo Agency, part of the Mitchell Communication Group, as general manager.

Rodeo is not a traditional creative agency. Our team offers full service graphic design and production, advertising and marketing know-how and limitless online and interactive digital capabilities.We create highly engaging campaigns across online, print, outdoor, mobile and more, and are lucky enough to work with a brilliant range of clients including ANZ, Renault, Jetstar and Heinz.

What was your first job?

As soon as I was old enough to work, Mum sent me off to the local Red Rooster as she was sick and tired of forking out pocket money.

My first professional job was working in inside sales for Macromedia in the UK, which is how I got started in online marketing.

What did you study?

Bachelor of Business Administration at Monash University.

Describe a typical day?

I am generally woken up at 5.45am by my girlfriend going to the gym, promising her that I’ll go for a run around the Tan. I actually get up at about 7am after she’s back from the gym throwing a pillow at my lazy arse.

Rodeo is at a very exciting time in our short history so at the moment my days are very full working on new and exciting projects for our clients, which could include developing a tailored micro-site, creating an online game or producing a print booklet for clients.

In addition, I’m spending a lot of time planning and executing key strategies to drive growth.

After work I’m either getting active – I’m passionate about tennis and part of a social volleyball team Supfoo – or relaxing and unwinding with a movie and a glass of wine.

What is on the agenda for 2009?

A lot! Many organisations are shifting budget from traditional media spend to online, and we are experiencing significant demand for our creative and interactive services.

2009 will be a year of growth and my time will be heavily spent going to market with our new service offerings, promoting the work of our talented team, such as the 200 Year Anniversary campaign for Australia Post. I’ll be establishing a solid framework to underpin our continuing growth. We’ll be adding to our existing team in the second half of the year.

Despite all this hard work, there will also be time for a bit of fun with a trip to Europe to show my better half around Germany and Italy, which basically means a lot of good beer, wine and pasta.

What brand do you love the most? Hate the most? Why?

It’s hard to go past Apple with the way they combine innovation, design and technology in such a use friendly way. It’s very inspirational especially for an agency such as ours, who try to deliver this day in and day out for our clients.

I wouldn’t say I hate any brands, but there are organisations and agencies with good brands who do a really poor job at creating effective and targeted campaigns and that’s frustrating. You don’t need big budgets, you just need to spend a little time to know your audience and make the most of the tools available. That’s what online does so well: targeted, effective campaigns within a very achievable budget.

What do you believe has been the most significant moment in the history of marketing?

The ability of brands to use digital marketing tools has been one of the biggest transformations for marketing departments. Tools such as SEM, banner ads, electronic direct mail and m-sites can be used to create targeted campaigns that are measurable and produce significant ROI.

Working in online marketing, my view point is a little biased, but the statistics are amazing when you look at just how effective the revolution of the digital mediums has been for businesses.

Where can people find you?

ANZ launches global (re)brand

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ANZ has announced the launch of a new brand identity to align with it’s ‘super regional’ strategy and international presence.

ANZ says the new identity and positioning follows 18 months of internal and external research across Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific. The bank hopes to position itself as as people-focused and uncomplicated.

“ANZ is increasingly a regional bank operating in 32 countries and speaking 19 different languages. A strong, unified brand across all our geographies is an important part of our future growth,” said Mike Smith, ANZ CEO.

Part of the reasoning behind the renewed logo is to allow customers from countries where Roman characters aren’t used to connect with the brand.

“Both retail and business customers throughout the region overwhelmingly said the new
positioning ‘we live in your world’ expressed what they wanted from us,” continued Smith.

The rollout of the rebrand across real estate, technology and marketing will cost approximately $15 million.

“The ‘inconvenient truth’ for bankers is that many people don’t believe banks care about
them as people or appreciate how complex their lives have become.”

mcm media launches Audible Intelligence

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Entertainment group mcm media has announced the launch of a new business division, Audible Intelligence.

To be headed up by creative director Andrew Tanner, Audible Intelligence is a creative and audio production house specialising in radio commercial production, including concept development, scripting, audio production and branding.

“Audible Intelligence is based on a philosophy that the best radio creative is like any great creative – it’s driven by great ideas. Radio as a medium also has unique characteristics. If we understand and use these intelligently, radio can be one of the most powerful ways to communicate to the audience,” said Simon Joyce, CEO of mcm media.

The company indicates that the division has been established to benefit advertising clients who are new to radio or have not used it for a while, as well as current radio advertisers.

Leveraging on the companys experience, the division will offer advertisers advice on how to use the medium to its full potential.

Tanner, who has produced radio campaigns for brands such as Coles Group and Myer Gift Card, Rebel Sport and ANZ, also noted that it was timely to offer advertisers this dedicated service.

“Right now, advertisers need solutions that deliver real results. The current economic environment means companies need to make their advertising creative work harder. With stand-out creative radio advertising can be very powerful, as well as cost effective,” asserted Tanner.

According to mcm’s announcement commercial radio reaches over 8.9 million Australians in five capital cities each week, who on average spend 17 hours listening to it weekly.