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Thesaurus consulted: hodgepodge, gallimaufry and mishmash chosen

It’s news Stinky Jim, but maybe not quite as you know it.

Anti-social media

The Twatisphere was agog and aghast yesterday after shocking revelations about someone who had the e-temerity to steal the name of reasonably well-known Auckland DJ Stinky Jim and use it as the name of a new brewery on Twitter. How dare they, don’t they know who he is, the prideful musos and social media practitioners exclaimed. Epic marketing fail, some scribed. Who cares, don’t you know anything about trademarks or copyright law, others opined. You can read all about the sordid tale here, but the identity faker turned out to be an anonymous intern at an unknown agency who decided to conduct an experiment about creating buzz on Twitter.

“Alas, we have been found out. Stinky Jim’s Brewing Co was a social media experiment to test the effectiveness of social media in creating a buzz for a new company. No money has changed hands, no one has profited from the use of a name or image. But we are impressed with the tenacity with which you defended the use of the images/names. Happy Tweeting, Twits!,” the anonymous Twat Twattered.

Pitcher Perfect

Absolut vodka is all about sharing (oh, and selling booze). And its latest artistic collaboration is with internationally renowned urban artists Stephen Powers from New York and Chiho Aoshima from Tokyo, who have created four limited edition graffiti-ish pitchers that will soon to be available in New Zealand.

“Absolut has always had a great interest in and a passion for artistic expressions and popular culture. We are extremely grateful for our collaboration in inviting people to experience the ABSOLUT art of sharing, our universal idea of sharing art, food, drinks and experiences,” says Rachel Morrison, Absolut brand manager in New Zealand.

The new Absolut Art of Sharing limited edition pitchers can be used to impress friends from early June and will be available from leading liquor outlets for $34.99.

And the generous folks have even offered up a few delectable drinks recipes. Check out www.absolut.com/nz or www.facebook.com/absolutnewzealand

Stunt growth

It’s been interesting to watch the Listener vs Air New Zealand stoush play out – and, of course, the reaction of the masses to Fyfe’s performance. Air New Zealand’s agency .99 has released a few choice stats to show how it all came together, what the results of the stunt were and, of course, provide some evidence in favour of the speedy in-house retail model.

In 17 hours, .99 produced a print ad, set up www.dearlistener.co.nz and scripted, filmed and produced the video. On Friday the dearlistener.co.nz website received 17,200 visits and on the Saturday it received 4,150 visits (the clip has also registered around 15,000 views on You Tube to date).

The Listener’s own website also received a boost from Air New Zealand’s response, with its website traffic on Friday at approximately 23,160, of which 10,340 (44 percent) came from dearlistener.co.nz.

New York, New York

New Zealand’s Bloomsberry chocolate has been available in New York for a while at upmarket stores like Dylan’s Candy Bar (which, you’ll be interested to know, was founded by Dylan Lauren, the daughter of fashion designer Ralph Lauren). But now it’s going mainstream, or at least mainerstream, in the Big Apple, after the Kiwi-born but now London-based company secured planogram positioning for its Emergency Milk and Dark 3.5oz bars in 229 Duane Reade drugstores in Manhattan.

Apparently, only Starbucks and Subway have more stores in New York and Duane Reade’s claim to fame is that it boasts the highest dollar sales per sq ft of any pharmacy chain in the US (massive pharmacy chain Walgreens recently bought it for $1 billion).

“The local Bloomsberry office is to be congratulated on this bold step. Getting planogrammed in a major player like Dauane Reade is an amazingly difficult thing to achieve. No matter how good your product is, everyone else out there wants that space, you really have to go the extra mile to secure it,” says Bloomsberry managing director Vanessa Kettelwell.

If the moderately gimmicky Emergency bars get some traction, the goal is to move into the 7,000 Walgreens stores around the US. The two sweet treats are scheduled to hit the stores in early to mid June.

Sustainable Kiwi battler Ecostore was also recently accepted into Duane Reade stores.

Ming Dynasty

Media Mingle is back and this month minglers will be treated to a luxurious night at Hotel De Brett on Tuesday 25 May. Once again there will be free drinks and canapés for the tight, ravenous and thirsty media crowd. The fun starts at 6pm and places are limited, so register at www.mediamingle.co.nz.

“The success of Media Mingle, in large part, has been due to our sponsors, so a big thanks to everyone who has been involved so far,” says Alex Erasmus, from Bullet PR.

Awarding Strategy

The Yahoo!XTRA folks say the new Digital Strategy Awards, a quarterly award which was established to recognise the role digital strategy plays in the success of on-line campaigns and replaced the Y!X best ad of the month award, are off to a flying start. But there’s still time to enter.

Laura Maxwell-Hansen, general manager Yahoo!Xtra and Helen Baxter, managing director of MohawkMedia, will be regular judges and a new guest boffin will be enlisted each quarter.

“We’ve already received some great entries but clever strategists still have time to get their campaigns in,” says Maxwell-Hansen. “Digital media strategy is the unsung hero of digital media campaigns and we think it’s time that talent was rewarded. Good creative is important, of course, but it’s the strategic thinking that goes into the development of digital strategy that delivers outstanding campaigns and business outcomes for advertisers.”

The four quarterly winners will be eligible for the overall Y!X DSA Annual prize of $10,000 of media on the portal, plus free entry into the CAANZ Media Awards Best Use of Digital category. Quarter one entries close Friday 21 May. More information on the awards can be found here.

Cinco de Mayo

They grow up so fast don’t they. YouTube turned five this week. And, if you’re feeling nostalgic, the purveyor of fine online time-wasters has created a summation of the biggest events in its five year history (a good number of which could be perceived as sad indictments of what kind of content actually appeals to the modern day human).

Youtube Video

Oktobor reign

The interactive music video website that Oktobor recently created for Shihad’s Sleepeater has taken out the Favourite Website Award (FWA) Site Of The Day Award (www.thefwa.com) for the second time this year.

The website and video for the single use a unique interactive aspect built around a grid of 100 fans getting pummelled by blasts of air and water. Visitors can click on any one of them to bring them up to full screen size and see their entertaining wobbling and quivering.

Oktobor won the other FWA, an award programme established in 2000 to showcase the world’s best websites, in March for the Erky Perky website they created for Ambience Entertainment. And since you’re here, you might as well check out their most recent animated ‘irrestwistable’ TVC romp for Twisties that will run in Malaysia.

Best Buys bought
Fortnightly shopping magazine Best Buys has been purchased by the managing director of Pumpt Advertising Dominic Sutton, who will merge it with his existing monthly Auckland publication Smart Saver to create a bigger and better Best Buys household mailer that he hopes will eventually reach over 1,000,000 homes throughout New Zealand.

As the sole director of Best Buys, Sutton is excited about the opportunity to achieve deeper penetration (my word!) with the new merged publication.

“There simply wasn’t room in New Zealand for two publications of such a similar nature, so it made sense to purchase Best Buys and further strengthen its position in the marketplace,” he says. “The reach of Best Buys is quite simply unachievable via any other form of advertising for the same level of advertiser spend. One of the first things I’ll be focusing on is adding further value for advertisers online at www.bestbuys.co.nz and via social media mechanics.”

Best Buys is distributed to approximately 85 percent of urban households throughout New Zealand every fortnight.

Image issues

Research conducted for Getty Images by the newly-launched media industry educational resource Stockphotorights.com has showed that those working in the creative industries seem to have developed a ‘hope for the best’ attitude when it comes to image use in their client’s work. Overall, there was a surprising lack of understanding of legal image use among a large number of those working in the marketing, advertising and digital arenas.

Nearly a quarter (23 percent) of those surveyed said that they do nothing consciously to ensure that the necessary permissions have been obtained from the copyright and trademark owners or models. They just license the image and assume it’s all ok.

With ever shrinking budgets and shortened timelines, creative professionals may find a quick online image search the best way to satisfy a demanding client, but this approach can often land the agency in hot water with large bills for image use or even litigation following the discovery of an improperly licenced image.

Stockphotorights.com is now live for image buyers and creative professionals and it encourages users to provide feedback on the content and suggest ways the site can be improved and evolve with the goal of becoming the definitive one-stop resource for advice and information on legal image use.

Pick and mix

As part of NZ Music Month music, Kiwi fans are being asked to pick their 12 favourite NZ indie artists for a digital compilation by visiting musichype.com, listening to 40 tracks by different artists and create their own digital mix tape by dragging and dropping the entries.

The NZ Indie Mix Tape competition is supported by the New Zealand Music Commission (NZMC), Independent Music New Zealand (IMNZ), Mr. Vintage and 2degrees mobile. And these generous sponsors are offering a range of booty to a few lucky entrants.

Online voting finishes on Sunday 23 May. The 12 finalists are announced Monday 24 May and featured on a custom made USB stick in the shape of a mix tape, as well as being pressed on a limited edition LP.

Going Commando

Below the line consumer marketing agency Commando has enlisted a new account director Lara Mitchell, with some saying she is a Redshirt who came directly from a Muay Thai kickboxing boot camp in Thailand. She also spent some time at JWT London where she was an account director on B&Q and Baye, as well as roles with Grey London and Colenso BBDO.

Commando director Sonia McConnachie says Mitchell’s strategic branding, social media marketing and combat/jungle/lion taming experience will bring a new perspective to the team.

Archery

Kylie Archer has joined the Ministry of Economic Development and has been appointed to manage the New Zealand Major Events team. Archer recently returned to Wellington after five years in Auckland with Skycity Entertainment Group, most recently as head of marketing.

Lara Mitchell; keeping things in line at Commando

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