Red Fish

Need for a new company

Creating a new company and building an international brand is never something to be taken lightly but sometimes it just has to be done.  Red Fish was created when staff at New Zealand Management Academies (NZMA) realised their business was missing out on a whole new trend of young people looking to combine travel, study and work.

Jayne Hatak, now the International Business Manager for Red Fish, was at NZMA in 2006 when the need for Red Fish became apparent.  “It was a real eye-opener,” she says.  

“We had not fully appreciated that the young people in Generation Y are so different.  If they were thinking about coming to New Zealand, they wanted a single package which covered all their employment, education and travel options.  NZMA was not able to meet that kind of international demand by itself and that prompted us to develop Red Fish as a brand new company,” says Jayne.

The real catalyst for the Red Fish concept was the World Youth Student Travel Conference in 2006.  That global conference brought together the research on the expectations and preferences of Generation Y which was to be critical for the development of the new company. 

Jayne acknowledges that while NZMA officially said they offered a package which included work and study, the reality was quite different. 

“We were great at teaching skills and English language but job placements were handled by individuals in each Academy – sometimes part-time.  We wanted to complete the package by offering a first class job placement service – people like to get hooked up with work,” she says.

Given they had identified customer demand and a business gap, the first key decision was whether to form a separate company or create a new division of NZMA.  Jonathan Cullinane, Director of Red Fish, says they decided early to create a new entity. 

“We felt a new company with a distinct identity was important to help us break into the work and travel networks internationally.  We didn’t want to be limited to just education which is what NZMA does and does well,” says Jonathan.

Developing the right brand

Jayne commented that “it was critical that we created the right brand which would be internationally recognisable and then backed it up by providing the services here.  The brand had to work in Asia but we also wanted to attract people from around the world.  It also had to work for markets and overseas partners who did not have much connection to education in New Zealand.  The research we saw at the conference got us started in the right direction.”.

The first step for any new company developing a brand is picking a name.  That decision can be crucial.  A name which does not resonate with people can really hurt a business.  The way Jonathan saw it, they had a clear choice.
 
“We could, of course, pick a name which simply described who we were and what we did.  Or we could be a bit more Kiwi, a bit more random and create a name which was out there and then build our meaning around it.  We went down the second path because we felt it would appeal more to the kind of people we were targeting,” he says.

They got the red part first because they believed people buy from red.  Jonathan points to the success of The Warehouse to demonstrate that.  The fish bit just suddenly appeared in a brainstorm and Red Fish was officially created.

“We did it all ourselves,” laughs Jonathan.

After running a few focus groups to check the name worked, the new company started to refine their key concepts and brand values.  The intention was to be as specific as possible so they could give their design company a detailed creative brief.

“The brand values we wanted to model were all about being fresh, vibrant, energetic, connected and savvy.  We picked our design company because they had those same values and, because of their ages, could easily relate to Generation Y.  Our aim was to create a brand which stood out but also showed that Red Fish meant work placement,” Jayne says.

They were very pleased with the final results.  “The final brand is all about connecting people to work.  Importantly, it is uniquely New Zealand without even saying New Zealand anywhere.  The little koru motif is perfect,” says Jayne. 

Jonathan agrees but concedes choosing the logo from the selection developed was very hard.  “Despite testing the various options with the target market you still feel like you are signing your life away,” says Jonathan.

Restructuring existing services

While the brand was being developed, the final business case and new company infrastructure were also being created.  This involved taking steps to centralise the existing people doing the employment placements in each of the Academies in order to provide a more co-ordinated approach. 
“This was a chance to smarten up and professionalise our employment services.  Doing this had benefits for both domestic and international students.  It also attracted people to the related education services,” says Jayne.

There are always challenges in setting up a new company and Red Fish was no exception.  Jayne explains they had to re-structure the existing employment services, and that was complicated.  Another issue was having key staff working on the project for almost a year though they did try to ease that by doing much of the work over their quiet shut-down period.

Jonathan notes “Never underestimate the amount of time required.  There are always delays no matter how well you plan.  Life and work get in the way.  If we had known it was going to take as long as it did, we would have sat down with staff and let them know what was going on.  We kept it pretty quiet because we wanted a big bang announcement when everything was done.  However, people got talking about the project and some felt a bit left out which wasn’t ideal given the exciting opportunity Red Fish presented.  We should have given more thought to internal strategies.” 

Success

Since launching, Red Fish has vindicated both the business case and the brand.  It is attracting a whole different type of traveller and helping them find the sort of work they want in New Zealand. 

“Red Fish basically completed the package.  People can learn and then go straight into a job at the end while others may prefer to go directly into work.  We are meeting student demand, community need and national education goals.  It is fair to say we are pleased with the success of Red Fish so far,” Jonathan says.
That success is based on hard work by a dedicated team for a year before even launching.