Name: Victoria Spackman
Business: Gibson Group
Brief outline of your business:
The business has two parts. One part is Museums, Visitor Attraction/Exhibition work. The other part is screen – so TV, film and some online work.
In the museum space, we mainly design and create. That can be whole museums, as we have done in France, or just parts of museums or particular exhibitions. Most recently we‘ve been doing an immersive experience with giant touch screens in Copenhagen and El Paso, Texas.
Most of our TV and film work is done for New Zealand but we have also made TV programmes for China. Some of our best known recent TV shows include
Street Hospital and
Prison Families.
When/where was the business started?
The business was started here in Wellington 37 years ago by Dave Gibson. I bought it along with two of my colleagues just over a month ago and I have been Chief Executive here for two years.
What was the most beneficial advice given to you regarding how to begin the export process?
Don’t assume that because it works at home it will work overseas.
How did you source export financing?
In my experience here we have just used finance from our own reserves.
What research did you carry out when deciding where to launch your product overseas?
Some shows are made for NZ and then sold internationally. However, one of the smartest things we can do is induce distributors to get overseas markets to look at our shows before we finish them to ensure that the version we make for NZ works internationally, or needs to be tweaked.
What roadblocks, if any, did you encounter? And how were they overcome?
What was interesting about going into China with our visitor attraction work was the assumption that we were there to show something that could be manufactured. It took us a long time to encourage people to understand that we were not talking about a manufactured product, but a service that might result in a product.
How was your product / service initially received overseas?
With the Copenhagen Project called
The Wall, we had to win an international tender. I discovered long after we had won it that we were the most expensive, but they went with us because we were the ones who said, “Yes this can be done.” So we were perceived as high-value problem-solvers.
In what way has the Government helped you through your export journey? And what, if anything, would you say could be improved?
Both local and national government have been helpful. We have done a couple of trips to China with the Mayor of Wellington, which were highly valuable. We have a good relationship with NZTE who have also been valuable in China. I also went on the Prime Minister’s trade mission to China last year. It’s incredibly valuable to have that kind of support.
As far as improvements go. I would say there’s not always a full understanding of the needs of the service industry, rather than the products industry. It’s something I often have to remind people in Government about.
