Local ‘Madtech’ (marketing and advertising technology) start-up, StreetLevelOne, has created a unique way for businesses anywhere in the world to connect to their local communities and empower consumers to spend locally, to strengthen local economies.

Corrie Lane (Waikato), founder of StreetLevelOne says the Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) based company is at the cutting edge of a new way of delivering interactive in-person advertising.

Although it’s the technology and business model that sets StreetLevelOne apart from other digital marketing companies, Corrie says that’s not why they went into business.

“It all started with my Dad, he had a retail chain store. The rent was going up in his building, the sales were going down, he needed help. I did the research and realised that it is actually a global problem. Online consumerism is destroying retail and local businesses as well.”

While StreetLevelOne’s platform is designed push out advertising content for brick and mortar retailers, it can also be used to disseminate local information for councils, government agencies and other organisations. The benefits of innovative and affordable marketing technology to champion local businesses and initiatives are significant, Corrie says.

One of the key components that’s often not mentioned, Corrie says, is that technology is often given a free pass when the conversation comes to climate change.

“What’s often overlooked is the real energy expenditure involved in maintaining large digital infrastructure. We’re building a set of tools to track your digital marketing emissions physically and online, and we want to include that in every service we offer.”

While they can’t change the habits of people overnight, Corrie believes they can definitely change the habits of businesses.

StreetLevelOne are currently hoping to launch a pilot of their model in Kirikiriroa (Hamilton) to prove the concept. Corrie says, “It’s sort of coming back to my roots being able to help local iwi. It helps make me feel more connected with my culture.”

Once they’ve proven the concept and delivered on a pilot, Corrie says the plan is to go global at speed in multiple countries at the same time. “We know that the more live units we have out there across the globe, the more people we can help.”

Corrie Lane (Tainui), founder of StreetLevelOne is joined by Sales-extraordinaire Dean Murray, and coding genius Ross “The Kid” Leitch.

The proven business accelerator processes used in the Kōkiri programme gave StreetLevelOne the ability to form an advisory board of key people which in turn led to a crucial introduction and partnership with a large international technology company.

“Now we’ve got this massive name that rides along with us and it’s opened so many doors. Everything has changed.”

Corrie says being networked with like-minded people in the Kōkiri cohort who are on a similar journey has been invaluable for the team. “We’ve learnt a lot about ourselves and we’ve formed some amazing relationships which has helped us really challenge and validate some of our assumptions.”