Ak@Play

Background

Auckland City Council (ACC) oversees a vast and diverse number of events, exhibitions and venues. From parks, volunteer tree planning, recreational centres, libraries, art galleries, a zoo, lantern and international cultural festivals, and Teddy bear picnics, Aucklanders have a huge range of leisure options to choose from.

An expansive organisation structure meant Council event promotion tended to be done on a granular basis. The problem this posed was that Aucklanders commonly sought out their favourite things to do and stuck to them, missing out on events that they otherwise might have attended had they known about them. Perhaps indicating latent needs for portal access to event information, a high proportion of the two million plus visitors annually to the Council's website www.Aucklandcity.govt.nz accessed its events section. The clear indication was that a single access point was the best way to expose Aucklanders to a larger and hitherto unfamiliar number of leisure time options when they were looking for something to do.

To address the gap, ACC created a new brand called Ak@Play - 1001 things to do everyday, which brought together all of Auckland's leisure options under one banner.

Target Audience

300,000 Aucklanders.

Channels

• Web
• Email

Approach

Launched in October 2004, Ak@Play provides visitors to the Council website with a single portal of searchable leisure options. Portal visitors can choose to subscribe to a weekly e-letter, which delivers updated information directly to subscribers via email. The Council uses a number of channels to promote Ak@Play, including the back page of its newsletter, City Scene, which reaches 168,000 households every week; an Ak@Play brochure published at the beginning of summer and distributed to 300,000 Auckland City households and businesses; and Xtra's newsletter.

How Touchpoint Technology Helped

• Automated data capture and registration via web forms
• Managed subscriber database
• Real time, web-based reports on activity and click-through levels
• ASP hosted solution, obviating requirements for Council administration, IT and database support

Results

• 1,400 subscribers since October 2004
• Quality of interaction is high and validated because the Council is able to see who has opened the e-letter and what was viewed
• Consistent 65 percent open rate, with a further 30 percent click-through on at least one story; 5,000 click throughs in total
• Minimal unsubscribing
• The Council is aiming for 10,000 subscribers. The current rate of subscriber acquisition is 300 per month. New partnerships will enable heavier promotion to accelerate new subscription

Client insight

Gary Wilton, marketing strategy manager, Auckland City: "An ASP solution like Touchpoint is fantastic from our point of view because you can forget about the administration and concentrate on the communication, which is our core business skill.

"What's been fascinating for me as a marketer is that when we first launched the e-letter we were thinking about researching subscribers to find out who they were and their interests, which is what you do, classically. But this is now old thinking as reporting tools and database driven communications mean you get the necessary information without having to directly canvass your subscribers," he said.

"Launching a mass e-letter is nerve wracking. Your brand is at stake. You've got to make sure the content is meeting recipients' needs in the first two-to-three deliveries. You don't get a second chance after that. With reporting tools that provide immediate feedback it is easy to protect your brand, because you are able to react and change content, should you need to."