Graham Bloxham has taken over main stream media IN NZ through a massive shift of people from opinion based writing to Social media.

Kiwi Social media expert Graham “bloxi” Bloxham talks about how he came to be so deeply passionate about Wellington,  digital footprints and Social communications. 

When did your passion for all this digital stuff begin?BLOXHAM holding a Samsung phone the built Wellington LUVE and the phone he toot to the protest.

When I was a teenager in the 90s, Every Day when I would come out of school, I would go read the dominion post. I was fascinated by global and local stories, then I would tell stories about global and local events to my group, family and friends. I then became a sign writer at 13, in the hallway of our home in Totara Park, painting and designing logos for local hairdressers, music stores and at 18 started my first advertising billboard service by placing ads at the Upper HUTT railway station. I would charge local businesses for signs, art and billboards and shout my mates “kegs of beer” if their parents owned businesses, to get stories, and I would sell billboards and make signs for their parents or friends’ families. UPPER HUTT and Wellington is a small place, to be fair. From there I have always either owned billboard companies, or digital media networks. With a couple of mates we built a big network of touch screen kiosks called I-stations and I wrote a early yellow pages app called 14info.co.nz

What was the first big advertiser you hooked ?BLOXHAM interviewing Nicola WILLIS when she was in opposition to the ARDERN government.

My first big advertiser was Wellington Alive, the campaign for Kerry PRENDERGAST, Mark BLUMSKY, Chris PARKIN, Rex NICHOLS run by Brent SLATER for Wellington council. I borrowed TVNZ studies out at Avalon, to hand paint massive skins and I managed the design, printing and installs for the campaign. The Wellington Alive team/we won the election with 9 candidates and BLUMSKY as Mayor. That was my intro to the big city lights. With no-one to guide me and literally no cash, two of us managed to signwrite huge Wellington Alive signs for 9 candidates. I remember the sweetest moment was standing in the Mayor’s office in the town hall, surrounded by winning, and a few losing people.

Now, when you say social media is brutal, how do you deal with the personal online attacks? Thank god for Ai. We can now see it all in real time, who it is, if they are at work, how serious the person is, and as I can see the threat level, I can reply with my head, not my heart. Previously to this, I didn’t know how serious and where it was coming from, and that is a powerful and free place to be. Powerful to be able to respond or ignore. 

How did you get into Social Media?

I have always been in the media game, with online directories, as an outdoor media owner, and at the time, approx 2023, I purchased WellingtonLive from a crazy mad teenager. I was building a bundling engine, called “Wellington in your pocket”, with Jason BUCKLEY, the HELL marketing guy. He asked for an advertising budget to promote the project, and I hate paying for ads. I offered him 50k of billboards, and purchased Wellington LIVE from, to avoid paying Facebook for ads, and that gave him the reach he needed. A little unorthodox and it was not purchased for what it has evolved into. A social media powerhouse that can get 40% of the city’s attention with one post. We did get in a bit of trouble, I will admit to that. I forced them to purchase the pages off BUCKLEY as we were too similar, two full on marketers, and he wanted us “as owners” to hide behind young people,  which i knew in Wellington was impossible. BUCKLEY then spent crazy energy trying to hurt us. NUTS.  I then went to the Wellington protest and hit Facebook LIVE, unknowing and as a complete “boomer” that it would be broadcast to millions of people immediately, and that  changed Wellington LIVE from posts of ducks crossing the road, earthquakes, fires and beautiful videos of Lilia Alexander, the previous owner, breathlessly running through flowers, to a more serious site. 

That immediate shift drove Alexander mad with the “what are you doing texts and messages” and she subsequently spent two years trying to kill what she started, which ended in an insincere apology! Alexander, BUCKLEY and others primed and supported by MSM and others, it was a fairly brutal, nasty time, and those personal attacks, and 2 major threats continue till today, even though I’m now just a content creator and sprint editor. Lilia Alexander who built Wellington LIVE.

Now, I don’t condone relentless brutal personal attacks. These days we have over 50m engagements a month, and ONE NETWORK WELLINGTON LIVE has 5 brands, 33 pages and groups pushing over 80 pieces of content daily to 7 platforms; we’re very fortunate in Wellington to have super fast internet, a cool city and we can outsource all this work. 

But back at the start in 2022/3, I employed Kiwi creators and writers, but the offshore teams produce “at least 15x the output”, work 24/7, take them seriously, as a career, know the tool sets and platforms sophistication. They live in huge cities with 19m people, so these people are furious, busy and hungry to succeed, win and get ahead. It’s absolutely amazing how the 24/7 teams have manifested success. 

You just can’t compare the performance of a kiwi with an offshore content creator. It’s like chalk and cheese. 

From there i got into all the platforms, Facebook, X previously twitter, You TUBE, messenger, whats app, TIK TOK and i even was forced into Instagram, although I find it upside down and a back to front Facebook. I still lead the content creators with the biggest tiktok. 5.5m “just saying” however Sara Jane Seddon from the mighty suburb of Island bay has just got a 5m tik tok. 

We set to learning how the algorithms and platform tools work. For me, the content was about telling a natural fun entertaining story, and general stuff about the environment in a way that was a bit different. I quickly found out what a community backlash felt like, and realised “every single comment is worthy”. All news bad, urgent, happy, eager,funny or angry is OK, and it all goes into a melting pot called life in Wellington. 

The audience and community growth was more about how much money you had to pour into building organic audiences and I built that through 2023,4 when advertising was dead, so we build a super engaged audience that is now in hot demand. And I’ve always been on the lease side of billboards and never felt comfortable in the sales side of advertising, and i’m not a big fan of online ads either, so making content and building audiences was a lot more fun than selling ads. 

From a very early time in digital I learnt the discipline of being real, natural, “sharing now”, but I never once thought that it would turn into NZ’s biggest Social Media network much bigger than even STUFF. That happened through a mass audience shift from old media, to Social media and we are in social media, it’s as simple as that. We did lots of trial and error content, but people are on devices and brands are constantly being pushed to them.

It’s like having a giant dynamic powerful mechanism pushing out stuff to millions of people, in a way they want, and seem to ask for, every day, all day for a very low cost.

What do you like most about social media?Bloxham at HOMEGROWN backstage interviewing the stars

I love that it’s the cheapest form of  media and monitisation that you can get into. And that 44% of the tens of thousands of comments, vids, pics and events & stories are sent to us free. We don’t print a newspaper, or have all that cost, it’s a nice place, full of “mostly uplifting” entertainment. If an emergency or big story happens, we get it within seconds and our 24/7 sprint editors amplify that. If you own a phone, buy an audience and you have the confidence and energy, you can do it.

How have you seen Social media evolve? Bloxham was attacked and filmed the violent end to the WLG protest and doubled the size of the network in one day.

This is the story of why Old media will be be almost eliminated, like the Yellow pages died. It’s their slow motion train wreck. 

AI & Elon Musk…[TRUMPISM] forced META to open up recently, and I personally think “Google and META” take way too much advertising revenue out of NZ. That opening up of organic audiences has tripled ONE NETWORK WELLINGTON LIVES organic reach,  and engagement rates. People “hate, hate hate” ads and natural – organic, relevant and timely content is what people want. We have developed “social personalisation” with Ai. We have even started to predict what people want. 

It has become so incredibly powerful. Just last week the ONE HUB team scoped 1700 people that looked at Wellington from offshore overnight, and using Ai we predicted when they would travel to Wellington. 

That is seen by some as scary, and is absolutely gold for companies like AA, Qantas or local Hotels. Given the annual Mckinsey report said, “if you can’t measure it, never spend that money” this kills magazines and print overnight. Gone burger. It’s all driven by an insatiable desire for what’s happening, I want it now, I want it short, snacky and I’m online 24/7.

I’ve seen the Social media, data and audiences accelerate since the protest, and with Ai, content creation, targeting and personalisation has become really affordable. Since COVID, corporate brands have got involved, wanting exposure in natural organic audiences, and now there’s interest from many of the big brands, like Mazda, Air NZ, New World. 

Wellington LIVE even partnered with Singapore airlines a few years ago, and the world’s biggest BBQ company Weber to open stores. Everywhere you look there are tools to monitise the audiences and with paid ads conversion ay 0.004% we guarantee 26x that performance at least. 

For me personally the Wellington live thing evolved from a hobby where it was just me and my mates talking about national and global events. I’d buy them beers for helping with content ideas, to where the sites have evolved so much.

How did you get into billboards?Bloxham holding a stick as taken my STUFF to make him look silly, that’s how main stream behave, disgraceful individuals.

I built my first mega site on St Patrick’s fence on Cobham drive heading in from the airport, which was a 6m x 3m site. I booked a meeting with media buyer John DEE and went to Saatchi & Saatchi on the 3rd floor cnr Courtenay pl and Taranaki st. Sean McCready, John’s Boss at the time, kicked me for touch, and told me to come back when I had 50 billboards, that “one” site was not enough! That stung!

The following year I turned up with 59 billboards, and was told NO, for the bigger companies, OGGI, APN and so on had bigger networks, in Auckland and I was still too small. This “wankiness” started my wariness of media buyers, and advertising in general. I knew all the rich landowners in Wellington and Auckland, to sign up the billboards and build the wealth, and I relied on sales people to suck up, and sell to the shiney agencies and media buyers. In those days agencies were creative led, like organic Social media now is.

 I quickly figured out how to bend council rules and get huge billboard consents, and i totally disrupted outdoor media in Wellington, and was soon generating 1.5m revenue annually, making 400k profit, & i sold that media company to APN who are now NZME. 

I have always understood  property owners, and those leases are like gold. We generally keep 10 or so sites for charity and personal promotion, or for companies we need to promote like Wellington LIVE. etc and I recently helped the digital outdoor LUMO guys sign up 5 or 6 digital sites in Wellington, with my various landlord contacts, and to be frank, i still love billboards. It feels weird having developed and merged massive social media networks, and having outdoor billboard sites, as they are so completely different. But billboards are now very interactive, so they are doing ok and billboards and Social Media Work incredibly well together. 

Billboards and audiences have “unlimited possibilities to work with social media” to entertain and convert audiences. I see a huge revenue stream in a symbiotic channel between the two, and we did quite a bit of measured work in that area. With #reporting we can see immediate audiences engagement, within minutes, so there is no reason a billboard cant link to a social media audience that then purchases something near by. I see that happening within the new ONE NETWORK WELLINGTON LIVE thing, and the same goes with Radio and TVNZ. It is just the beginning of interactivity. And the media’s that do this will remain viable options. 

What spins your wheels on a daily basis

Every day is a new day. I’m enjoying not being on that phone all the time. Wellington is a good city and it was like being in a video game. It’s good to take a photo as I like the spot, as opposed to trying to always angle the content to surprise and delight. I’m running for city hall currently and I’m still networking like crazy. This Social media thing has thrown the “cat amongst the pidgeons” at times, but I’m keeping busy with the ONE HUB EXIT, and being really genuine in how I interact with others in the race. Its for Welly at the end of the day.

More recently I’ve been head down working with ONE NETWORK WELLINGTON LIVE team to merge our sites and audiences together whilst sharing all our various skills, and bring our 24/7 team into much more robust systems for the EXIT. Every day im learning to be careful with Ai and being challenged to Focus, something i struggle with. I’m still actively involved as a content creator, writing with ai as a  buddy, driving, taking photos and sending vids to the 24/7 sprint editors to snack up into content and send out. We send to 7 platforms so the messaging, posts, reels, polls stories and the various “ tool sets” the platforms offer us, often need to be split into different feels, styles and so on. One recent innovation is that organic audiences often react to vibe and energy, so we use 3 modes, maintenance, fast and “the mode i love “insane mode”. With  insane mode we can amplify to 40% of the city. Its absolutely positively ridiculous to be fair, but it still a lot of fun seeing it operate without me doing everything. The topic editors’s have their own audiences etc. It is a bit complex but with a good system “ONE HUB” style approach it’s working out fine. 

As i’m exiting SM i’m starting to see sm for what it is. A place where the 0.0 4% karens and haters have a much bigger impact than is thought. In their own minds, but not in reality. Though 99%+ of content and people in the groups, pages, sites and community are normal, fun and uplifting, and the bullies and haters “must have to burn out”, as they are coming at it from a bad or negative place, and that energy cant be sustained, unless you’re a maniac or “Main stream media” and have a financial reason to try and hold you back. But we approach that differently. 

When I arrived home today, I got a phone call from a person in the eastern ward, which is code for Hataitai to Seatoun, saying: ‘We’ve got a problem, if you’re going to be a counselor… what are you going to do to get our vote? so that local body thing is really my main focus now. Bring on October. 

That is my biggest dream come true. If I can “get into council” to rep the people, and try to weed out all the waste, stupid projects, get cycle lanes off the agenda, and focus on growth and weeding out some nasty stuff holding Wellington back. Where I grew up, the council wasn’t as visible as they are now. They were servants of the public and got on and did the work. That’s how I prefer it.

What does your schedule look like today?

It’s broken up into three parts. Family. I love competing to prove that I’m still one of the best on the global stage and I can do that, run for city hall and be there for my family. There’s the relaxing side, which is about tuning out and just being me, and enjoying the vibrant people and environment of Wellington. The third part is the now. That’s being in the present, where I really get to express and push myself. I love fear. It’s the balance between what i’ve learned, fear of failing, and being polite. With something new I can really push myself to that edge.

I think being in the now is the most exciting part, especially for people that want a better Wellington. 

If I had two wishes it would be to reassure all the SM haters, its ok to let it go. The fight is over, and “no one won or lost” and we all still live in Wellington. 

Two, the temperature increased 5/7 degrees and we start growing bananas and coffee.

What do you actually think of WCC?

Maybe you’ve got yourself into a position, and built a massive engagement or developed Ai to un-redact council censored documents, so the identity of your bullies is visible. People can change. I am far from the perfect communicator ­– I am always pushing the envelope and disrupting and I hope to reduce costs at council to save ratepayers lives, homes and make WLG great again. But it is possible to collaborate and move on. If you have the vision and you’re open to ideas, and use your ears and mouth in proportion, you’re already halfway there. The rest is just dedicated work, determination and surrounding yourself with supportive capable honest people that believe in transparency. With Ai, everything is open now. 

What’s exciting to you

Family. Being accessible for my girls. And my next phase will being fit and healthy for their lives are so vibrant and dynamic, in a new set of circumstances that require exciting thought and it’s wild times, so I’m committed to them a lot.

It’s exciting that big brands are starting to see that organic SM audiences deliver better more natural reach than the toxic paid ads that deliver a 0.04%, like radio ONE NETWORKWELLINGTONLIVE feels like the start of MOREfm 15 years ago. We just started Streams and Social radio, so it’s always evolving. 

 When I was at school it was all about ‘if you want to be a successful person you have to be an All Black.’ For me, I wanting money and i wasnt that fast. Aggressive yes but liked skiing too much. I had a skateboard, a BMX and a pen and paper.

What motivates you?

Main stream media are why this thing is so valuable. They ate opionated, discouragable self important Zealots. Absolutely disgraceful people, always looking to benefit at another’s expense, primarily.

To never forget where you’re from, that there is no glass ceiling, and to never stop entertaining. Chasing that feeling of fear and a great story intertwined into a relationship. Because we didn’t really have much when I was growing up, I found it really easy to just pick up the phone and have a chat with a mate, and compete if you need to. I still use the same mentality now and I’ve been able to build a pretty awesome life and career out of that approach.

See unredacting public docs, my story, The PROTEST you tube channel for more of Bloxham’s stuff.

Story from Various sources, inspired by “Mad Mike the drifting driver”, written for the NONSTOP for Wellington.live web site. By AQ, writer, content creator and 24/7 sprint editor LEAD.