Media: Iggy helps small NZ agency score big win

Repeat screenings of ads featuring Iggy Pop had the added bonus of not boring the viewer. Photo / Supplied

A small independent New Zealand agency, Special Group, has topped the 30th Axis awards for advertising creativity.

The firm with fewer than 10 staff just keeps on winning industry accolades.

At the ceremony last night, Special Group took top honours for the Orcon "Together Forever" ads featuring music legend Iggy Pop.

People made versions of Iggy's standard The Passenger using Orcon's broadband to link with Iggy's studio in Florida. It was very clever and the TV ads had an added bonus - you never grew to hate the repeated screenings.

Orcon - owned by Kordia - was named creative business of the year for backing the innovative campaign.

The Iggy ad won the top Grand Axis Prize, a Titanium Axis award and the Gold Axis for interactive advertising. It also won Gold awards for integrated advertising, experimental PR and word of mouth advertising, social advertising, and direct response.

The Sweet Shop won this year's Production Company of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Garry Little, of Digipost. The Emerging Talent award went to Steve Hansen and Paul Kim from Colenso BBDO.

TO THE POINT

John Hunt, worldwide creative director of advertising group TBWA, was a judge in the awards and says he has been impressed.

"There's a degree of experimentation with new media that I don't tend to see in other parts of the world. The recession is clearly bringing out the best in the industry, rather than reliance upon lush production values."

Hunt said there was a fresh quality to New Zealand advertising compared to the rest of the globe. "It feels as if the gap between ideas and execution is also less here because the advertising community in this country clearly isn't scared of getting straight to the point, and that's a good thing."

NEW CHANNEL

Music is making the world go round on digital TV. MediaWorks is expected to announce soon that it will be launching a music youth oriented channel on Freeview.

MediaWorks is obliged to deliver a second digital channel, but there has been speculation on how it can afford it.

The advertising market is still tough and MediaWorks is recovering from its own financial crises. In that sense a music channel makes sense, with a high degree of free and low-cost content. MediaWorks has been gradually shifting music content off C4, and there will be an opportunity to deliver content that way.

Two former directors of the defunct music and youth channel Alt TV are working for MediaWorks.

Thane Kirby and Oliver Driver sold out of the company, which later went into liquidation owing creditors $3 million.

Kirby was programme director for George FM but subsequently stepped down to be a daytime host. Driver co-hosts the breakfast show Sunrise.

However, it is understood that neither of the MediaWorks staff is involved with the new channel. Meantime, record industry sources say that another party is developing plans for an adult focused music channel - possibly to run on Sky TV.

Sky has already picked up exclusive rights to TVNZ pay channel Heartland and a travel channel. But there are prospects for more channels in the early part of next year.

DRIVE TIME

Fairfax Magazines has purchased Driver magazine and will merge it with New Zealand Autocar from the May issue.

John Baker, of former Driver publisher Tangible Media, said the publishing landscape had changed and New Zealand was no longer able to support two magazines devoted to new cars.

COPYRIGHT DUO

Businesses that use background music are bracing for big increases in the copyright fees to record industry and performers body, Phonographic Performances New Zealand.

PPNZ is going through a consultation process for a change in fees but it will decide how much businesses are charged.

So a closer relationship between PPNZ and the other music collections agency - songwriters body the Australasian Performing Right Association - will set the tone for an interesting period ahead. PPNZ is talking about "draft adjustments" to fees in May.

APRA's New Zealand boss Anthony Healey says it has no plans to pump up prices. But PPNZ and APRA are pooling resources and forming a closer relationship, starting in June with a "one stop portal" for background music licensing. Stage 1 will offer licences for the hospitality industry, retail, gyms and dance schools.

PPNZ says that eventually the portal will offer single joint licences incorporating PPNZ and APRA - or at least a single payment. This might make sense for two relatively small bodies but it is a significant move.

PPNZ is different to its Australian counterpart Phonographic Performances of Australia, but they are both dominated by the same record company multinationals.

APRA is a transtasman organisation but closer ties between the songwriters body and the record industry are solely a New Zealand initiative.

Last year, PPNZ gained a reputation for heavy-handed methods for collecting money from retail stores and fitness centres, hiring private detectives and secret filming to chase $155 fees.

PPNZ says these methods have been amended to improve the relationship with fee payers - it is waiting longer before calling in its lawyers. A softly, softly approach to collections makes sense if there is a price rise and if PPNZ has the weight of APRA behind its collections process.

TVNZ SHAKE-UP

Television New Zealand has gone back to the future with its management restructuring. Occurring on the cusp of another drive to improve financials, chief executive Rick Ellis is saying the new system - effectively creating internal markets with negotiations between executives - will be more accountable.

Responsibility for profits and losses will be devolved downwards with a structure that has shades of the separate business units format used by TVNZ in the early 1990s. To be fair plenty of companies are trying to find a way to make sense of structures to meet the rapid changes - TVNZ more than most.

Ellis no doubt knows more about Government plans to split its commercial and non-commercial responsibilities - and the revamp may have something to do with that.

But state television has long resisted cuts to its weighty middle management and the risk is the change will add to bureaucracy at a time TVNZ is cutting back on its core business - delivering programmes.

FLANNERY'S RISE

The change follows the head of marketing and new media - Jason Paris - defecting to MediaWorks where he will head TV3 and C4. Ellis is looking for a new head of marketing whose role has been expanded to encompass sales and to nurture strained relationships with some advertising agencies.

Jeff Latch's role as head of television has been changed so that he becomes head of TV One and TV2. He loses responsibility for news, sports and Maori content but TVNZ insists that the responsibility for negotiating contracts meant that his role had not diminished.

Even so, the restructure marks a significant rise for head of news Anthony Flannery - the Aussie former producer of Channel 9 breakfast television - who has led the push towards tabloid TV as news budgets have been cut.

After years when the once-powerful news and current affairs division had a lowly status, with Flannery reporting to Latch, in his expanded role Flannery reports directly to Ellis.

The appointment of TVNZ6 and TVNZ7 boss Eric Kealey to take over the new media role previously held by Paris makes sense.

But Kealey, who has worked in the non-commercial arm of the company, will coming under pressure to deliver commercial returns on digital assets such as tvnz.co.nz.

Advertising industry consultant Martin Gillman says the changes makes TVNZ more commercial and opens access for advertisers.