Here are some photos of the awesome MMR shirts we've recently got printed! These shirts were created for the national measles, mumps and rubella campaign.

Protect against measles. Be a kaitiaki for your whānau.
​
The easiest way to protect yourself from measles is to get immunised – it's easy and free.

Check out the campaign website here!
https://www.hpa.org.nz/campaign/guardians-of-the-future

The influencer marketing industry is forecasted to be worth an impressive 5-10 billion dollar industry in just the next five years. In 2017, nearly 80 percent of fashion, luxury and cosmetic brands implemented influencer campaigns. Influencers are strengthening brand awareness like never before, and consumers are turning to influencers to drive their buying decisions.
 
Our trip to New Zealand Fashion Week was a sheer example of how influencers are changing the New Zealand fashion scene alone. Influencers are becoming a brand in themselves with social media engagement the strongest indicator of how effective influencer campaigns really are. We’re increasingly becoming more involved with brands looking to include influencer marketing into their marketing strategies and executions. If you’re still unsure exactly what this marketing and social media sensation means, check out this article we’ve attached. 
 
https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-trends-2018/
​

Our Social Media Strategist Blanche, presented on the latest trends in social media at the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce DIY Digital Skills Day.  Her presentation explored the many platforms of rapidly growing social media apps and trends highlighting that 2016 saw a massive growth accumulating 1.9 billion mobile users and 2.3 active social media users worldwide.  We have recapped just a few of her significant points/forecasts from her presentation.  

Advertising

Social networks are smart just like search engines. They use algorithms to personalize the organic social content based on what their users will love.
This makes it harder for businesses to have their posts seen.
This is why brands spend massively on social advertising year after year. According to Content Marketing Institute, paid advertising on social ads increased year after year. In 2016, the social ad revenue crossed $1.53 billion throughout the globe.

Live Video

Live video is still new but we saw it taking Facebook by storm in 2016 with it recently announcing it will roll out a 360-degree video for live users. 
Live Video allows businesses to interact with their audience and customers in real time.  Many major platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Instagram already have this feature. 
 
Social Influencers

Social influencers will grow like anything in 2017.  Old school advertising techniques don’t work anymore with over 47% online consumers using ad blockers.   Influencer Marketing is found to be a much better marketing approach.  Over 84% marketers reported that they plan to use at least one influencer marketing plan in the next 12 months. 

​​We were so excited to attend Fashion Week in September and support our clients, Nichola and the other Maori designers who were part of Miro Moda’s 2017 show, our highlight of Fashion week.  Adrienne Whitewood’s solo show was breath-taking from start to finish and we left absolutely blown away by the quality of Maori fashion designers that were showcased.  Of course to truly experience fashion week, one has to include a Stolen Girlfriends show and 2017 did not disappoint. 

The week long event which attracts thousands of fashion-focused delegates from around the world is a impressive example of how powerful social media is, with all the coverage it generates and generated in addition to the millions of dollars that were spent through other channels of media. 

The role of the Influencer was much more apparent this year with a noticeable shift from a previous celebrity crowd and presence to the Influencer, who plays a significant role in leveraging brands throughout the week across their personal social platforms. Audiences and followers of these influencers, a powerhouse of their own are exposed to a week of designer shows, after parties and most persuasively their multiple designer outfit changes per day.  It's an opportunity to extend the brand presence of both designers and themselves. 

We love binge-watching television shows as much as the next person – Mad Men, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Narcos, Breaking Bad, you name it, we’ve watched at least three episodes of it in a row.
 
But our daily binge conversations have got us wondering - what exactly is it about these shows and the rise of streaming services that has us watching entire seasons in one sitting? Binge-watching is a relatively recent phenomenon, after all, so is there any science behind why we do it?
 
A little light research and we’ve found that actually, yes, neuroscience provides a partial explanation, as does writing style. Psychology Today reports that some of our bingeing complusion comes down to empathy - we humans become glued to complex, emotionally-charged stories because of our ability to recognise the feelings of others and take on their psychological perspectives.
 
Neuroeconomist Paul Zak of Claremont Graduate University set out to examine the science of empathy in storytelling. He showed participants a video about a young boy with terminal cancer, seemingly joyful and completely unaware of his fate. We get the father's perspective too. Although he tries to enjoy his last months with his son, he finds it impossible to be happy.
 
Subjects commonly exhibited two emotions after viewing the video: distress and empathy, with blood samples showing increased levels of both cortisol (a stress hormone) and oxytocin (a hormone associated with human connection and caring). Zak concluded that these empathetic feelings are evidence of our compulsions as social beings - even when faced with a fictional narrative.
 
So we relate to the people in the stories we watch.  Seems fairly obvious. But why do we binge, watching episode after episode even when we know we should probably be in bed?
 
In a much-referenced 2008 study, Psychologist Uri Hasson of Princeton University and colleagues observed the brain images of participants via fMRI while showing them four video clips of: Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm; Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Alfred Hitchcock's Bang! You're Dead; and a 10-minute, unedited, one-shot video of a Sunday morning concert in New York's Washington Square Park.
 
Hasson wanted to determine the intersubject correlation (ISC) across all viewers' brains to examine how they'd respond while watching these four different clips. The Washington Square Park video evoked a similar response in all viewers in only 5 per cent of the cortex, while Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly came in at 18 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively. The Alfred Hitchcock film, however, elicited an ISC of 65 per cent.
 
In other words, compared to the other clips, Bang! You're Dead was able to coordinate the responses of many different brain regions, resulting in simultaneous "on" and "off" responses across participants in 65 per cent of the brain. Hasson concluded that the more "controlling" the clip - in other words, showing the viewer exactly what they're supposed to pay attention to - the more focused the audience.
 
“Hitchcock was a master of orchestrating everything: what you're watching, what you're thinking, how you're feeling, and what you predict will come next,” Psychology Today reports. “In similar ways, modern-day TV writers and directors engage viewers worldwide with the flash-forwards of Lost; the gruesome action of Game of Thrones; and the eerie exchanges between Breaking Bad's Gus Fring and Walter White.”
 
So today’s TV writers are more controlling, which leads to bingeing. But there’s actually more to it than that, even. Cast your mind back a couple of decades to the kind of shows that were popular. No doubt Friends and The Simpsons spring to mind. These shows had very few long-running story arcs, each episode neatly wrapping itself up, meaning you could check in and out of a series and still follow what was going on. There is no need to see every episode of The Simpsons, when each episode essentially hits restart upon completion.
 
Now think about the plots and storylines in your favourite shows to binge-watch. Their narratives require sustained, sequential viewing, each episode building on the last. Miss one or two and no doubt you’d be completely confused as to what was happening.
 
“As bingeing becomes possible and commonplace, it’s only natural that shows should start to take it into account,” D.B. Weiss, a Game of Thrones writer, told Romano.
 
The result is a new golden era of television that, like pageturner novels, make us desperate to see what happens next.
 
“It’s like the people who make potato chips,” Carlton Cuse, a writer from Lost a forerunner of today’s must-watch TV, told Romano. “They know how to put the right chemicals in there to make you want to eat the next potato chip. Our goal is to make you want to watch that next episode.”
 
Writers ratchet up the action, intrigue and plot twists, and it works, as you’ve probably realised, bleary-eyed at 2.37am when you finally see Frank Underwood take the presidency.

So what’s next in television? The steady rise of 360 degree film and immersive, virtual reality experiences has the potential to change things again. After all, you can’t get much more invested than sitting next to Mr Robot’s Elliot Alderson in his lounge as the action unfolds around you. But will that be as addictive? Guess we’ll just have to stay tuned...

We love what we do here at Platform Advertising. But even more than that, we love when you love what we do. We recently got some great feedback from the team at NZ Louvres. We're excited to continue helping NZ Louvres grow by meeting all their marketing and advertising needs.

"When our company looked to rebrand after 10 years in business, we looked to Platform Advertising for their guidance. At first glance they appeared modern, confident and in touch with the ever-changing world of marketing. However, it became apparent very quickly that there is more to Blanche McMath and her team than the aesthetics of their building and brochures. We have found them to be incredible to deal with, always listening to our needs and delivering amazing outcomes that exceed our expectations, time and time again.
 
Platform Advertising have been an integral part of our growth, providing advertising and marketing, from business cards and brochures to social media and website development, ensuring that NZ Louvres is at the top of its game online. The numerous projects that Platform Advertising has done for us is fantastic, always gaining positive results and giving our company further confidence to continue investing in marketing our business.
 
We look forward to continuing our relationship with Platform Advertising and have absolutely no reservations in recommending them to any organisation that is looking for an outstanding company to perform all of their advertising and marketing needs."

- Nadia Haua, Business Manager