New Zealand Herald, the country’s most-read daily newspaper, needed to respond to the changing way people consume their news and to raise awareness of its flagship product.

Enter its groundbreaking new broadcast news show, New Zealand Herald Focus (NZH Focus), developed to introduce an entirely new audience to the New Zealand Herald.

It allows audiences to consume their news on the go, choosing not only where and how they want to view content released multiple times through the day, but also customising their consumption to reflect the topics and stories in which they are most interested. The structure of the NZH Focus team and the systems in place around it enables it to respond to a rapidly changing news agenda and eliminates the need for audiences to “appointment view” the news.

To drive new audiences toward this innovative content, we created a breakthrough, multi-platform marketing campaign to expose the NZH Focus brand to a younger, more tech-savvy audience than our traditional print consumer. Not only was this content released on the New Zealand Herald Web site, it was also available on various social media platforms.

We launched the brand with clear objectives:

• Raise awareness of the show and the Herald brand among a younger, more mobile, and socially savvy audience, aiming for at least 50% under the age of 40.

• Drive video streams in excess of 500,000 per week for our news product.

• Introduce the brand to a social audience that we haven’t previously engaged with.

Since launch, NZH Focus has had steady growth in views, with increased viewership month-on-month. At its peak, NZH Focus is being streamed 1.7 million times per week, with social and mobile being key drivers of the audience. The audience is significantly younger than our traditional demographic, with 69% under the age of 40.

Not only is NZH Focus amplifying the news agenda set by the editorial team of the New Zealand Herald, it is regularly breaking its own stories, establishing itself as a well respected outlet for original and high-quality digital journalism. A number of the stories have received a huge social media following, and our eight-hour stretch of “live” coverage around the U.S. elections had more engagement than many of the other television networks.

NZH Focus also has expanded outside of key metropolitan areas by launching Local Focus in four additional regions in the North Island of New Zealand. It is staffed by young, talented videographers that are bringing audiences stories that would not have otherwise been told.

As we near the one-year anniversary of NZH Focus, not only is the brand at the forefront of New Zealand digital journalism, but a constantly expanding and evolving team is allowing for even more in-depth reporting. By upskilling our team to fill multiple roles, we are now able to file stories from the field, allowing for rapid delivery of multi-platform news across print, digital, radio, and now video.

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