2007 Online predictions for Kiwi marketers

2006 was an interesting year with the spectacular sale of auction house Trademe and the massive uptake of ?"you & me?" media channels like YouTube.com and Myspace.com. So what will 2007 bring? How will this impact on Kiwi marketers ? here are our predictions.

Ferrit will fly like a pig

Following substantial ?reallocation of human resources?’ brought on by continued market and regulatory pressures, Telecom New Zealand will concede that running an eCommerce website (and poorly at that) is not a core competency and will close Ferrit.co.nz down.

Corporates and their acquisitions struggle to co-exist

Auction house TradeMe.co.nz, New Zealand?’s second most visited site, will face a backlash from its user-base as Fairfax meddles with its service offering and revenue model. Either Zillion.co.nz or a new entrant will experience significant gains as a result ? in terms of user numbers, traffic and revenue ? but will not seriously threaten TradeMe?’s position? yet.

Yahoo! is rising

On the back of Telecom New Zealand?’s adoption of Yahoo! over incumbent MSN for its ?"xtra?" portal, we will see a meteoritic rise in that company?’s NZ web presence. Yahoo! currently ranks as the New Zealand?’s fifth most popular site (Alexa.com) and we expect this to move to number three. Question is how will marketers respond?

Kiwis moving to Venice

The Venice Project, launching in March, will change broadcast television ? content and advertising ? forever. Proportionally speaking, New Zealand will show one of the highest rates of pick-up for this service.

Consolidation in the SEA / SEO sector

As suggested by others (Kevin Ryan ? Kineticresults.com), acquisitions in the search engine agency world will impact New Zealand marketers. Fewer companies will deal with specialist SEA / SEO agencies (because there will be fewer of them), choosing instead to partner with full-service interactive agencies that have SEA / SEO as one of many competencies.

iTunes penetration & Podcasts

With the release of a New Zealand iTunes store, we will see a steady increase in the variety and number of locally produced podcasts. At least one unsigned New Zealand music artist will gain international renown purely as a result of publishing their work on iTunes. At least one New Zealand company (not a music label or media company) will run a marketing campaign based around iTunes, such as a corporate podcast, with great success.

30 sec TVC?

More big brands will abandon big-budget TV production altogether, in favour of targeted interactive marketing. Our pick: Air New Zealand.

Revenue share for creators of CGM

The biggest new development of the year will be a new revenue model for content creators. Creators of new CGM content ? however lame or amateurish it might appear – will receive a revenue share from advertisers ? this will also include bonuses for product placement (e.g. create popular CGM containing Pepsi and you get some cash from Pepsi). In essence, the content creator will be getting a cut of the ad rev share that currently all goes to the publisher (e.g. the blogger).

A corporate CEO will dance with MP Rodney Hide

While New Zealand ACT MP, Rodney may not be able to dance, he does blog ? this year we will see a non-IT corporate CEO join him in this space. Our pick: Mark Weldon

No geographic boundaries

New Zealand media buyers will finally understand that the Internet has no boundaries (unless you are in China) and they will start to include international websites that NZ?’ers visit as part of their buy.

Online Reputation Management

We will see still more examples of corporate PR disasters that could have been averted if they had paid attention to what people were saying about them online. Interactive agencies will become increasingly active in helping clients to understand and in many instances influence what people are saying about them online. At least one New Zealand political party will engage an interactive agency for precisely this purpose.