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National | Business

Māori marketing agency helps Māori businesses survive COVID-19

Statistics show that most businesses fail in the first five years. Seven years after its inception, whānau business Platform Advertising is now helping Māori firms survive COVID-19. Director Piri McMath explains how they assisted Pounamu crafters Rakai Jade to get online.

“We’ve helped set up their webstore. We’ve had to do that in quite short timeframes,” McMath says.

Rākai Jade, McMath says relied on customer commissioned work prior to COVID-19. The collapse of the international tourism industry has crippled a lot of Māori businesses. So getting this Rotorua business online was crucial to their survival.

Turns out advertising and websites were the tip of a huge iceberg. McMath says that they’ve helped their clients reinvent themselves to survive.

“Putting in place digital tools to support their businesses. Whether that’s project management tools, managing their payroll systems … or booking systems. Really just looking at plans going into the future,” she says.

Helping Māori businesses survive COVID meant that Platform Advertising had to bring in outside contractors. Piri McMath predicts that she will have to hire permanent workers to help with the increased workload.