12 Days of Advertising - Day 10

Day Ten: Tom Reidy, Catalyst90

Tom Reidy is the Founder and Managing Director of Catalyst90 - a social media agency that agencies use. Tom describes Catalyst90 as a group of "bright, creative and passionate geeks" which is probably why they also started the Wellington chapter of the Social Media Club. Tom has more than a decade of technical sales and marketing and more than three years social media experience behind him.  

If you're based in Wellington, I'd highly recommend popping along to the next Social Media Club event in the new year and in the meantime get a fix of social media new on Catalyst's blog.  

Leave a comment to go in the draw to win a pair of Puma kicks (closes 20th December 2011)! 


Best of 2011
Nicole: What was your favourite New Zealand advertising/marketing campaign for 2011? 

Tom: Mammoth Dips - Real Man Food, Man.

Nicole: Why was Mammoth Supply Co. your pick? 
I liked this most of all due to the good humor and the fact that no man likes nibbles! The humor content was the winner on this, simple and effective. No frills or flowers just straight to the point. This is a great example of work focusing directly on the target audience with no compromise or softening of the message. A bit of a missed opportunity in the social space, but a great campaign never the less.

Mammoth Dips "Real Men" TVC

Nicole: According to Stoppress the original strategy was to appeal to men but without alienating women who were still considered the product purchasers. 

Trends for 2012... Nicole: What do you expect to see more of in 2012? 
Tom: Overall I'd say we will see a continual rise in digital marketing, especially in the social space with many NZ brands exploring things such as FB apps, naturally I'm a little bias here. I'd like to see more ads such as the Mammoth Dips that understand the audience and the best way to communicate to them.

It's also time that we realise that in social media "quality bets quantity". The latest CatalystEnigma stats demonstrate that the number of engaged Twitter users in New Zealand is hovering around just 20,000 people. But according to Tom, this group of people are characterised as being early adopters, “These are smart and tech savvy people who have an increasingly large influence on mainstream media channels. If you manage to excite and inspire even a small proportion of these people, your message will spread through Twitter to other social media, then offline and, if it’s compelling enough, through to mainstream media. After all, Twitter is where traditional media now looks for breaking news”. Read more on this here. 

Nicole: What do you expect (or hope to) see less of in 2012? 
Tom: Ha without doubt I'd love to see less brands trying to control social, more should focus on how to empower through social. I also hope to see less of brands having little or no content through the social networks and more of smart positioning.

Were you also a fan of the Mammoth Dips campaign?