MediaWorks NZ CEO, Mark Weldon.

MediaWorks NZ is set to invest heavily into digital and data while bolstering its TV ad revenue by offering never-before-seen-in-New Zealand product placement and sponsored content options for brands.

New Zealand's largest independent TV, radio and interactive media company, headed by CEO Mark Weldon, has been given the go-ahead by international owners Oaktree Capital Management to invest an eight figure sum over the next six to nine months.

"I told them that we needed a lot of investment now to build a really healthy franchise for the future. We've got that and the bulk of that is going into digital,” Weldon said.

He presented the latest strategic shifts at the NZ company's 2016 strategy and content update on Wednesday in Sydney. For the first time, the Australian update came as a group presentation was hosted by the company CEO, rather than locally-based staff, indicating a greater push by MediaWorks NZ to get its message out to Australian agencies and brands. Weldon was joined by group entertainment content director, Andrew Szusterman, and Sarah Ferbrache, group trade marketing manager.

On the digital investment, Weldon said MediaWorks NZ is working with Boston-based Brightcove to fight adblocking, allowing the company to increase its ad inventory.

“The CMS that we're building allows us to insert an ad at the server end, and what that does is it stitches it together so that adblockers view it as content and it doesn't get adblocked. That immediately gives us about a 20-25% increase in inventory on day one.”

He called the project “a key investment” for the company, which will be the first of four global broadcasters to have this capacity.

MediaWorks NZ is also pouring money into maximising its return on its current data pool, aiming to let clients leverage it. An outside company has been brought in for nine months to work on the project.

“We have no intention of selling the data; we're providing it for clients to buy against. That's a very big thing for us,” Weldon said.

“We have 1.3 million email addresses that no one uses, with various levels of information around them. We're rolling out a data management platform and we're overlaying that with really rich third party data.”

On the traditional media front, MediaWorks NZ is also making adjustments. A market survey conducted this year highlighted the need for it to focus on producing more quality local content, news, drama and sports-related programming if the free-to-air network is going to remain relevant in the face of challenges from video-on-demand and other pulls on viewers' eyeballs.

Weldon said the company has poured $5 million into an upgraded newsroom, which will form the basis of a relaunch of its prime news product. With this will come the addition of more specialist reporters into its new team to bolster MediaWorks NZ's ability to tap into New Zealanders' interest in key areas such as health and real estate, Weldon added.

MediaWorks NZ also revealed it is now “putting a lot of resources into” its first serial drama in 25 years.

This will be wrapped up with a New Zealand first: an offering of brand integration opportunities – essentially product placement. MediaWorks NZ is also set to move into and “play up” sponsored TV content, according to Weldon.

“We're looking at doing things a bit differently. Nowhere in New Zealand have you ever had Tony Soprano with his can of Coke. It's been a product-free zone. That's the opposite of James Bond," Weldon said. "So what we will be doing with the drama genre on the production side is we will be offering integration opportunities in our long-running serial dramas. That's a pretty powerful proposition."

As the company makes the changes, Weldon said “stability” will come from its radio business which stands to benefit from a shift in audience measurement methodology in 2016, with the arrival of GfK as commercial radio audience measurement, following a competitive tender in which incumbent, Nielsen Media, lost out.

This will bring the methodology, frequency and accuracy of the results more in line with those in Australia, Ferbrache revealed.

“It'll give a much truer picture of what's actually happening and the brands that have the best strength," she said.

“It's just much more user friendly so we're really looking forward to that kicking in.” Febrache noted that it will also allow the company to tell clients where listeners are tuning in.

Among those who attended Wednesday's event was Jacqui Capel, group client director for Match Media. Capel said Match Media has a number of Australian clients, Pfizer being one, which are interested in and investing in the New Zealand market.

“It's quite different functionally to the Australian marketplace so it is important to keep up with what they're doing,” she told AdNews after the event.

Capel pointed to the brand integration opportunity in the upcoming drama series as a “really positive outcome”, noting that this is a type of opportunity that has been “really entrenched” in the Australian market for some time.

“With the traditional focus on local production in that market that's a real plus. With TVNZ coming from a government ownership background there's limited opportunity in that network. So with MediaWorks NZ driving that further, that's fantastic news and will be a strong opportunity for advertisers.”

She was enthusiastic about the arrival of GfK to the New Zealand market, calling it a “huge thing for that market.”

“I'm really pleased and I think they'll retain their strong numbers and grow off the back of that. It's excellent news.”

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