KEY POINTS:
Television New Zealand is under fire for paying an Australian company several hundred thousand dollars to change its logo and graphics package.
The new logo was unveiled in the week the state-owned enterprise announced 160 staff would lose their jobs within the next six months.
The Herald on Sunday has learned TV One's new logo cost the company up to $300,000, while a new TV One brand advertisement may have cost more than double that, angering staff and unions who say the company is more concerned with style than substance.
Former head of news and current affairs Bill Ralston, who resigned in February, was gobsmacked at the logo decision, telling the Herald on Sunday: "There must be people sitting there in the newsroom wondering how many jobs could have been saved if they didn't spend money on this."
TV One's latest "on-air graphics package and channel imagery" was designed off-shore by Sydney-based advertising agency, Ink Project. The firm's strategist and managing director Dave Taylor said TVNZ would receive "little change out of $300,000" for its new bright orange logo. "The whole idea behind the orange was to use a warmer colour, they needed to warm the channel up," Taylor said.
"TVNZ provided a very strict criteria which related to making the channel more relevant, a place Kiwis wanted to be. TV One needs to be a channel to come home to."
TVNZ has defended the expenditure, saying the fresh brand identity was essential in putting TV One on the telly map.
"No jobs are saved by standing back and letting our business drop further in market share," spokesman Megan Richards said. She refused to disclose how much had been spent re-branding TV One. "The costs came out of the overall marketing budget allocated to delivering on our strategic plan. The details are commercially sensitive."
Andrew Little, national secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, said he would speak with TVNZ management this week about how much they had spent on re-branding because members were "ropeable" at both the cost and timing.
"This is an organisation built on style not substance and they should understand that people judge an organisation like theirs on what they do, not what their logo looks like."
National's broadcasting spokesman, Dr Jonathan Coleman, agreed.
"I think it is ridiculous trying to save $10 million laying off staff and then changing the logo to orange at a massive cost," he said.
Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey was reluctant to voice an opinion on TV One's new look but said he would raise marketing issues with TVNZ.
"Re-branding will be one of the things that we will be talking about because that is part of their strategy," Maharey said.
Ink Project has been employed by TVNZ for strategic branding advice and design for the past six years - designing TVNZ's current logo, various TV2 brand images and the slick "Our Nation. Our Voice" campaign.
But TVNZ's latest TV One branding campaign, featuring a long-playing television commercial shot on 35mm film, was produced in New Zealand by top agency Saatchi and Saatchi.
The 'We are One' advertisement shows hundreds of Kiwis and several of the network's celebrities carrying torches throughout New Zealand.
Auckland University of Technology head of journalism, Associate Professor Martin Hirst, said the advertisement was difficult to comprehend.
"The first time I saw it I thought it was an America's Cup advert." He said the presence of young faces in the commercial showed TV One marketers were trying to attract a more youthful audience. "The 'We are One' campaign strikes me as a bit desperate because they aren't number one, wishful thinking perhaps."
Hirst said there was "plenty of creative talents here in New Zealand" and paying an overseas firm to devise a new logo for our flagship public channel was "just silly".
Ralston was also left confused: "I don't profess to be a marketing expert but I couldn't see what they were trying to get across in that trailer."
Top advertising executives last night estimated the cost of the "anthemic' television promotion at between $800,000 and $1.5 million. The executives declined to be named, but one agency chief executive said: "It is a bit like those Meridian Energy ads - there is no point to them and the target market is unclear."
