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Year in Review: Ben Cumming, Hell Pizza

In keeping with an ongoing tradition, a few industry players gave us their take on the year for our annual opinion harvest. Here’s what Ben Cumming, general manager of Hell Pizza, thought about 2014. 

1. Favourite local campaign that isn’t yours.

It’s a bit cliché, but I can’t go past Tui Catch a million for sheer effectiveness.

2. Favourite campaign that is yours

Australasia’s hottest pizza The Angry Dragon surprised us all with its popularity. Once news caught on, our customers did our marketing for us. And watching the Breakfast TV presenters get absolutely caned by it was gold. 

3. Favourite international campaign 

I quite enjoyed watching the new trend of viral prank videos to promote new movies, eg Devil Baby and the telekinetic one for Carrie

4. Least favourite campaign

I personally can’t stand the Air New Zealand safety videos, especially the soft porn but also the relentless thrashing of anything to do with LOTR of The Hobbit.

5. Your own biggest success

We’ve had a great year in sales, but the most satisfying measure of our success this year is we’ve had over 200 franchise applications, so demand for the Hell brand is at an all-time high. 

6. Favourite magazine/website/TV show/radio show/podcast/news service/app/song/other. 

This year I’ve enjoyed The Dark Horse, Breaking Bad, Foals, Arctic Monkeys, The Crowd Goes Wild, and Band of Skulls. A band to watch in future, Jungle.

7. Most ridiculous buzzword

The Cloud… you know it’s not in the sky, right?

8. Best innovation

Driverless cars

9. Most over-hyped ‘innovation

Lewis Road Creamery Chocolate milk. Settle down everyone, it’s just chocolate milk (or maybe I’m just bitter because I still haven’t tried it). 

10. Best brands

C’mon, it’s gotta be Hell!

11. Best stoush

Kim Dotcom vs every reasonable and sane person in the world

12. Heroes  

Taika Waititi has had an awesome year, and Brendan McCullum for defying critics and scoring 302.

13. Villains

Aside from the really obvious ones (ahem John Banks). Chris Cairns managed to lose all of his credibility—and any future prospects. 

14. Predictions for 2015

Smart New Zealand businesses should be able to capitalise on a positive economic outlook and the cricket and rugby world cups (and could we win them both?). People will continue to lose interest in social media, especially Facebook, so something or someone else needs to fill that space. 

  • According to Font’s recent survey, 43 percent of marketing professionals in New Zealand are looking to change jobs next year and 65 percent will be re-evaluating career plans over the Christmas period. So check out some of the roles Font has on offer here and have a gander at the infographic based on the survey results here

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