Out of the ashes of 2009.comes nzgirl version 11.0

Media Release
12 July 2010

Out of the ashes of 2009….comes nzgirl version 11.0

To mark the 10 year anniversary of nzgirl and celebrate surviving 2009, award-winning online magazine nzgirl.co.nz has re-launched. And not just with a new look & feel, but with an entire new approach to content, advertising and audience interaction.

The new site is an enormous departure from its predecessor - with the most notable change being to the shift in focus to a very specific content theme of ‘our favourite things…’

General Manager and editor, Tee Twyford explains the logic that drove the changes: “nzgirl’s most popular feature over the last 11 years has been our Hot 5. Without fail every Friday our audience demand to know where it is, and when it goes live our traffic spikes - it’s their favourite thing to look at on nzgirl. This got us thinking about what it is that makes the Hot 5 work... recommendations, discovery, influence and adoption. Pretty basic psychology really; we all like to know what is hot, what is new and we want to be a part of it NOW. That single thought stemmed the challenge of ‘how do we extrapolate the Hot 5?’

We asked our audience about their favourite things and whilst broad in their response, we could easily categorise them into their favourite things to….eat, buy, entertain, know, people, places and win. This helped define the strategy and navigation for the new site.”

Investment in a new site was a big call for nzgirl – who openly concede that 2009 was the most challenging year on record. Publisher and founder, Jenene Freer maintains that, “we just got through it and it’s only thanks to the belief and passion of a couple of people that made it even possible. Survival for us has meant ‘being the fittest’ – we’ve had to really dig deep and figure out what our point of difference is. We feel we’ve found that now by being brave enough to throw out the rule book and start again. We’ve worked tirelessly to challenge ourselves to bring out what we think is the best version of nzgirl.co.nz to date.”

Other features to get excited about are:
- “The Five Way” ad – one ad spot; five different usages (M-Rec, Super Rec, Ridiculous Rec, Sky Scraper, Mega Skyscraper). One price, use it however you like….
- Introduction of the IAB “Super Rectangle” (as seen on the NZ Herald)
- New Zealand’s biggest permanent online ad spot, “Ridiculous Rectangle”
- Home Page take-over Ad, aka “The Smack Down”
- Full integration of social media functions – forums, comments, Facebook likes, nzgirl Faves, Twitter RTs, to provide an easy ‘spread’ of information
- User generated content launching soon

Finally, keep your eyes peeled for the new nzgirl marketing campaign – due to launch late July. The nzgirl team hopes to further drive excitement about the possibilities and potential of the new site to truly connect the 95,000 women on the membership base together.

www.nzgirl.co.nz

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