MarketTalk with Tom Dunkins

Over the years since 1987 when Telecom NZ was established, it has undergone many changes in ownerships, logo changes, and rebrands. These various (often pointless) rebrands have costed Spark hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. In today's episode, we will be uncovering the history of the Spark brand and its future.

Sky Television New Zealand has recently announced that their contract with Paramount Pictures is ending, and therefore they will be losing many key channels such as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and others. Does this mean less variety for Sky customers? What will Sky's declining sales due to the rise of streaming mean for their future?

Branding is arguably the most important part of business, and is often overlooked. There have been many cases where companies have attempted to rebrand unnecessarily, and they later learn the consequences of poor branding. This includes GAP, PayPal, Jaguar, Tropicana, Vodafone NZ, and many others which will be covered in this episode.

If you live in New Zealand, you may often see thousands of $7M+ houses on the market and think to yourself "How do so many people get so rich in this country?". How are there so many millionaires in New Zealand and what are you doing wrong to not become one? Find out in today's episode of MarketTalk.

With the rise of cheating and plagiarism from NZ school/university students using AI (ChatGPT, Co-pilot, etc), universities such as Auckland and Victoria (Wellington) are getting rid of online exams and reverting to hand-written, in-person exams. What do you think about this? Let me know in the comments!

There is a myth going around that the cost of living is cheaper in Australia than in New Zealand. However, after comparing prices of groceries, rent, restaurants, electricity, etc in New Zealand to Australia, it is clear that New Zealand is actually much cheaper to live in. Why are New Zealand media companies sabotaging their own country's economy? Find out in today's episode.

Is advertising EVIL? In this short episode, we look into a few examples of the unethical use of advertising over the past centuries. We also look at the history of advertising and how it has evolved.

The rise of AI music generating platforms such as Suno, MusicLM, and MuseNet will surely have a big impact on the world. Not only for music artists but also for the way we listen to music and discover new music. How will this affect you in the future? Find out in this episode.

Since 1929, Woolworths has been New Zealand's top supermarket brand. However, it has undergone a huge number of rebrands and acquisitions over the years, which I will explain in this episode. How did Woolworths, Bigfresh, and Foodtown all turn into Countdown but then later turn back into Woolworths? Well, it's a complicated history indeed...

Trump has recently unveiled 10% tariffs on all New Zealand imports to the United States. Along with that, the US and China are currently undergoing a trade war. Could all of this cause a massive recession for New Zealand and many other countries? Find out on this episode of MarketTalk!

Milford Asset Management offer various mixed-strategy and single-strategy managed investment funds, ranging from conservative (low-risk) to aggressive (high-risk). In today's episode, I will be reviewing my experience with Milford so far and going over some of the alternative options to Milford (i.e. Simplicity, AMP, ETFs, etc).

Have you ever received an email from a company that was written for someone else (e.g. internal staff), but it was accidentally sent to you? Well, that email may have very well been sent to you on purpose as a sales tactic for an upcoming promotion or event. This is called "mistake marketing," which has been on the rise lately. In this episode, we look into what exactly this entails

Finding the first few clients/customers for your startup business is always going to be the hardest part. In this episode, we will be looking over every area of marketing where you can advertise your products/services for FREE effectively. This method will guarantee you many clients/customers.

How would people earn money if no one had a job? Would higher education be necessary? Would the world become a utopian WALL-E type paradise or a dystopian hellhole? In this episode, we explore all of this and more!

Over the past 7 years or so, YouTube has been making it way harder for new creators to gain views and grow an audience for their channel. In this episode, we will be going over why it's so hard to start a YouTube channel in 2025 and what you can do to beat your competition and master the algorithm.