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New Zealand: Case Studies
Other pages under this section:
Case Studies - Government
Case Studies - Businesses that Engage in Social Media
Case Study 1: Professional Firms Engagement in Web 2.0
In New Zealand, the big four accounting firms namely KMPG, PWC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young made use of web 2.0 to recruit graduates. Due to the high competition for talents, it was interesting to see then how these firms were pitching themselves to the YouTube, iPod, and social networking generation. These four firms have just launched their 2008 grad careers sites. Compared to the previous years, these firms only made use of static sites which was almost like reading a brochure online. However, this year all the firms have engage in Web 2.0 which includes videos and blogs to draw in new talents Below are the roundups of what these firms did.
1. KPMG
KPMG make use of the Web 2.0 styles which include having new fonts, fresh bright colours and lots of white spaces. They even include a blog which create and an online dialogue with candidates whereby candidates can leave comments and questions. Furthermore, they even include a videos and podcast which contains employee value propositions (EVPs).
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2. Deloitte
Deloitte has included podcast to their career website this year. Their website gives users a nice relaxed style. However things like blogs, interactive videos and decision-making tools galore are missing from their website. Only their United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) sites contain them.
3. PWC
PWC contains photography and some valuable information and selling points, but lacks the impact of videos and podcasts. Like Deloitte, they clear miss the blogs from current grads, competitions, video, live chat facilities, SMS/TXT updates, and insights into the life and thoughts of a PWC employee which is only available in the US and UK recruitment sites.
4. Ernst and Young
Ernst and Young (EY) still had a Web 1.0 look even though there are some great content on the site. They recently added a video on Youtube which showcase the lifes of employees in EY. EY US was doing some cool things within Facebook. In addition, they had “day in the life” videos, presented by existing grads. The EY UK site has video, podcasts, and a cool little peek into the electronic diaries of existing grad recruits.
Conclusion
Overall, KMPG clearly stands up among the big four accounting firms in engaging the candidate as it made use of blogs, podcast and videos which was absent in the other firms.
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Case Study 2: Air New Zealand -
Use of Google Adwords for Better ROI & Bebo to reach out to candidates
About Air New Zealand
Air New Zealand is New Zealand’s flagship carrier, serving passengers traveling throughout Australasia and the South Pacific, as well as to Europe, North America and Asia. Air New Zealand is based at Auckland International Airport and employs more than 10,000 people. As the country’s national airline, Air New Zealand is a recognisable and successful brand.
Google Adwords
Facing increased costs due to rising fuel prices and increased security measures, airlines today must operate under margins tighter than ever, and Air New Zealand is no exception. The company offers customers a range of ways to book – online, via the phone or through travel partners, however the lowest cost of sale is achieved by customers who serve themselves online, without the need for live customer service involvement.
“Given the growth of the online savvy market, we looked at ways of increasing the traffic purchasing flights on our website,” says Air New Zealand Online Performance Specialist Scott Giles. In search of new, cost-effective ways to reach travelers, Air New Zealand began experimenting with online marketing options such as banner and display advertising. Giles also began looking into search-based advertising as a way to increase qualified traffic to the Air New Zealand website. “In 2004, we decided to try Google AdWords to take advantage of the extensive reach of Google search,” says Giles. Air New Zealand set up several trial AdWords campaigns focused on flights to Sydney, Brisbane and within New Zealand. To gauge the success of these campaigns, Giles and his team set up unique ad content promoting flights on Air New Zealand to each advertised destination.
Results
Giles remarks that the AdWords campaigns were easy to set up. “We loved the flexibility of creating AdWords campaigns ourselves, not to mention the power of making changes at a moment’s notice,” he says. The immediate result of the trial campaigns was phenomenal with revenues of $160 for every $1 spent. This was gauged each time a consumer clicked on an AdWords ad and booked a flight on Air New Zealand within 30 days. “Our ROI from AdWords was significantly higher than all other forms of on-and off-line advertising,” says Giles. In addition to delivering a superior ROI, Giles reports that Google AdWords has had a positive impact on brand awareness for the airline. “Google search reaches more than 70 percent of all Internet users ‘down under,’ which makes it the most efficient way to reach the largest volume of Internet users in Australia and New Zealand,” notes Giles. Google search has now become the largest driver of all traffic to the Air New Zealand website, accounting for more than 30 percent of its referring traffic. “There is no other vehicle that gives us the same level of ROI or traffic volumes,” says Giles.
“Since our initial test campaigns, Google search has grown to become an integral part of the marketing mix. Air New Zealand has since expanded its AdWords campaigns to focus on specific seasonal promotions such as flights to Fiji. The company has also experimented successfully with advertising various price points timed to take advantage of travel seasonality. Air New Zealand has also integrated its TV, print and search advertising campaigns to maximize results. For example, when a TV campaign launches, Giles ensures that a complementary AdWords campaign is running simultaneously. Information tracked using Google Trends points to a commensurate spike in online traffic during offline ad campaigns. “We started with small steps two years ago. We’ve been so pleased with the results from AdWords that we have expanded to multiple campaigns and markets. From a cost and overall effectiveness standpoint, AdWords has become a pivotal part of our marketing mix.”
Using Bebo to reach out to potential candidates
On top of using Goggle Adwords as a form of advertising for customers. Air New Zealand is also taking a fine attempt to connect with a younger generation through social media. After taking a closer look at the Air New Zealand on Bebo, it be be seen that potential candidates were asking Air New Zealand for information about their career choices in general - with a few getting quite specific about comparing certain employers.
Case Study 3: Starting up a Nation - New Zealand
There is a company in New Zealand named Start-Up Media, has taken it upon themselves to see that their country’s local online sector becomes a player in the international online space. Start-UP, formed by Patrick MacFie with partners Tim Norton, Tim Copeland & Nigel Lewis, is all about providing local online entrepreneurs with access to the right information, resources and networks that they need to succeed in the Web 2.0 world. In doing so, Start-UP hopes to drive growth and investment into the New Zealand online sector.
“We recognize that the online space represents an area of massive opportunity for the NZ economy. We have world class talent in the creative industries and a unique perspective on the world that when focused on the Web 2.0 space could very quickly put our small nation on the Web2 Map” says MacFie. That’s obviously a pretty big call when considering that on a recent trip to the O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference they struggled to find a single person who could name a successful NZ Web 2.0 company. “We were at the conference filming for our upcoming TV series and as part of each interview we conducted we asked the interviewee what New Zealand online companies they had heard of, and people were like “ummm, arrrrr I’ve never heard of any.” It was pretty damn funny to begin with but a little depressing after about the tenth blank-faced answer.”
Undeterred, the team launched their NZ based online site and magazine publication in December 2007. “Our trip to the Valley was invaluable in that we were able to demystify the whole process of taking a NZ company up to Silicon Valley and conducting a successful in market launch. We were then able to come back to NZ and share the experience with others in the local space through our various media channels.” The Start-UP founders point to free flowing knowledge exchange and collaboration between experienced online entrepreneurs and new or aspiring entrants to the space as being crucial to their country’s ability to make an impact on the international scene. They are now poised to launch a Y-Combinator style Web 2.0 Incubator from their nation’s capital. “The incubator is a natural extension to our business model, everything we do is about supporting the local eco-system. The incubator provides us with the means to ensure that we are consistently turning out a world-class product and we’re not sending guys up to the Valley under-prepared,” says MacFie.
The Start-UP team are currently in production on their first TV series that will screen on New Zealand’s leading TV channel and have just moved into full time production of Start-UP Magazine. “I’d say that most people around the world would look at our print and TV media channels as pretty old school but in an early stage online market like New Zealand we have to reach out and engage our community wherever they are,” says MacFie. “We believe that there’s some kid in front of a computer monitor at some NZ University campus about to create the next Facebook; we want to make sure he or she gets the support they need to make it happen.”
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Case Study 4: TradeMe - New Zealand Version of Ebay
| While eBay remains the world’s dominant online auction site, this is not the case in New Zealand. An estimated 60% of all website visits in the country are to Sam Morgan’s creation, Trade Me. Typically Trade Me will have 600,000 items for sale compared with eBay New Zealand’s 14,000 items. Based in Wellington, Trade Me is New Zealand’s most popular shopping website, with more than a quarter of the country’s 4.1 million population registered with the site. With 48 employees, it has diversified into car, property, dating classifieds and map services. As a child, Morgan had been dragged around Wellington’s garage sales and auction rooms by his mother, so from an early age he had a sense of people’s passion (and addiction) to bargains and the community spirit among traders. He combined this understanding of trading with his theory that the web is a place to hang out and do stuff. “A lot of people don’t get it yet, that [the internet] is a community,” says Morgan. What Morgan did was create an online space where New Zealanders wanted to hang out, grab a bargain and connect with other Kiwis. |  |
Morgan launched the site in March 1999. He bought a server on his credit card and connected it to the internet in his father’s office. “It was nothing special,” says Morgan, “just a PC connected the internet running a web server and a simple database.”
Start up costs were an estimated $A12,000. While Morgan was developing the Trade Me site, he kept his day job as a technology consultant at professional services firm Deloitte. He worked nights and weekends on Trade Me from home
When Trade Me first went live, there were no fees for buyers or sellers. Morgan wanted to build subscriber numbers first. He started with 20 subscribers, all friends and family.
“On day one, you don’t have anything for sale and you don’t have anyone — you’ve got no buyers and no sellers,” says Morgan. “So you’ve got this really long organic growth path and you have to get up and that’s really the main barrier to entry in this space.”
Morgan deliberately avoided advertising. “I think our brand is defined by our community,” he says. However Morgan was known for his letterbox drops, office emails and driving around Wellington in a bright green Holden with Trade Me written on the sides, hoping to raise awareness of the site. It took five months to build a subscriber base of 1000.
According to Morgan, the best way to boost subscriber numbers is to focus on the website. “Make it kick ass, and people will tell their friends. Everything else costs more money than you get in return for a business like Trade Me where the customers are, individually, worth very little.”
Rewriting Business Plan
There was a major flaw in the early business model of Trade Me. Morgan had predicted that internet advertising would be an important revenue stream for the site. (He was about six years too early for that to happen.)
Without decent revenue, the business was looking precarious. Morgan had to change the fee structure, first introducing fees for priority listings, bold headlines and images. Soon after, in September 2000, a success fee was introduced with fees ranging from 1.9% to 5.9% depending on the item and the sale price.
Morgan found the cash the business needed by selling 50% of the business to a local venture capital group AMR & Associates (now known as Movac). He secured funding when the site had only 1500 subscribers.
Movac, which included former colleagues at Deloitte, paid $NZ75,000 for the shareholding (which would be worth $NZ350 million in less than six years). The cash allowed Morgan to leave Deloitte, find an office and concentrate on Trade Me.
Trade Me only had two main rounds of funding, from the same set of investors. “We weren't raising much money and never really put together a big business plan to raise funding,” he says.
“It was more a case of ‘shit, we have got no more money. Shall we put some more in?’,” says Morgan. “I would take no salary, investors would put in a bit more money and we worked off a valuation made up on a whiteboard quite quickly.”
Two-and-a-half years after the site launched, Trade Me became profitable. The site went from 6000 auctions a month in March 2000, to 250,000 a month in 2003. New Zealanders were hooked. Revenue figures followed the same pattern, with four successive years of annual revenue growth of more than 1000%.
Expansion Plans
Trade Me branched out, creating spin-off businesses including a dating service FindSomeone, a site to track down friends called OldFriends, a site to handle Trade Me transactions called SafeTrader, and online map service, smaps.
All these sites are easily accessed through Trade Me. Morgan also introduced property services on to the site in 2005. Within a year it could boast listings for one third of all property for sale in New Zealand.
In the same year, international buyers and sellers were banned from Trade Me to cut down on risky transactions – a huge drawcard for locals afraid of being ripped off online. Only Australians with a New Zealand bank account are exempt from the new rule. The next market for Trade Me is Trade Me Jobs.
Morgan will stay at the helm until 2008 as part of the Fairfax deal. He intends to concentrate on strategy, pricing, senior management coaching, recruitment, key site metrics and user interface design.
He has also begun investing in technology businesses in New Zealand. The Fairfax Media deal made Morgan and a group of a dozen early investors, including his parents, sister Jessi and long-time business partner Nigel Stanford, multi-millionaires. His share of the deal was $200 million.
While Kiwis were astonished at the sale price, the New Zealand Herald rightly points out that the sale price is 15.6 times its projected earnings in 2007. On a good day, Google is valued at 75 times its earnings.
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Click Here to Know More About Doing Business in NZ
Click Here to Know More About NZ Media Landscape
Elvinna_Shah |
Latest page update: made by Elvinna_Shah
, May 30 2008, 6:05 AM EDT
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Keyword tags:
Air New Zealand
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Case Studies
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