UNDERSTANDING A POWERFUL AUDIENCE

Skykiwi’s head of strategy Chao Xu talks attracting the Chinese dollar and New Zealand exports reaching its shores.

With New Zealand’s increasingly diverse society, there’s an opportunity to be had in those new audiences. One of those is the Chinese community, and according to Xu, their purchase power is an opportunity not to be missed.

To explain, Xu refers to the immigration policy, which in 2000 had international students paying five times the tuition of local students.

With the high fees, financial support from parents is a necessity for students in order to attend, but that doesn’t just cover their education.

Xu says that financial support allowed the students to live the same standard of life as their parents, saying “if their parents drive a BMW, they won’t drive a Honda”.

“They are prepared to pay a premium for better quality.”

This is backed up by Stats New Zealand data comparing vehicle ownership in the Chinese, Asian and New Zealand ethnic groups. For access to two, or ‘three or more’ vehicles it’s the Chinese that come out on top, while when looking at access to just one motor vehicle, Chinese came out on the bottom.

And when buying a car they don’t need to go to the bank and get a loan, they just buy it, Xu adds.

It’s because of this purchase power, he says, that marketers shouldn’t question the increase in spend to add the Chinese audience to the targeted audience.

Similar to Zhang’s consideration of Skykiwi being complementary to mainstream media to satisfy the audiences’ bilingual ability, Chao sees it being complementary to a campaign’s media mix.

“In advertising we are talking about reach and frequency. If they see the ad on TVNZ 1, TVNZ 2 and then they see it in Skykiwi, the additional frequency is beneficial for advertisers.”

One commonality holding them back is the lack of Chinese speaking staff in agencies, something Xu has seen for himself working in media and taking briefs from the agencies:

“They don’t have Chinese speaking staff within their team, particularly in media strategy.”

A lack of Chinese speaking staff means a lack of understanding of the audience but even then, he warns speaking Chinese does not guarantee an in-depth understanding of the Chinese market.

It’s here Skykiwi can step in as an advisor, with an agency function for those seeking out the Chinese community.

“Content creation, content delivery, company management and social programmes – all of that kind of stuff can be covered by a single point of contact: Skykiwi.

“We are also more than happy to work with agencies, we are more than happy working with external parties.”

Giving an example of the advisory role Skykiwi is able to play, Xu says Skykiwi can advise on what to use and what not to use in an ad because it knows the Chinese people and what matters to them.

For New Zealand companies wanting to get their products into the Chinese market, this knowledge is also important and again, support can be found in Skykiwi.

Nowhere is its expertise better seen than in its export subsidiary, wellcome.co.nz, through which it exports New Zealand health products to China.

“Is Skykiwi media?,” Xu asks. “Yes it is, but it is more than media, we are building up the environment of digital space around the Chinese speaking audience both in New Zealand and off shore.”