Monthly Archives: November, 2010

News
CAANZ marcommers choose ten of the best
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The Yellow Treehouse and Tourism New Zealand’s Giant Rugby Ball campaigns have been identified by the CAANZ Marcomms Leadership Group as two of ten examples from around the world that best show the value of PR and experiential marketing as part of the marcomms arsenal.

News
Future of the Ad Show uncertain as hand that feeds weighs up TVNZ funding decisions
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The Ad Show’s main aim was to demystify the realm of marketing and advertising for the benefit of the New Zealand public and equip them with a few tools to fully understand the tactics they were regularly being exposed to. It was something of a fringe benefit that the show also seemed to find favour with the industry. But, with speculation about a possible merger of TVNZ’s two digital channels 6 and 7 and uncertainty about continued government funding, it’s still unclear whether there will be a second season of the show, despite what appeared to be a successful first run.

News
Anti-marketing campaigners up the alcohol advertising ante
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While it’s all well and good to marvel at the tactics employed for the latest product launch or to have a bit of laff at the latest big budget summer beer ad—of which there have been many recently—there is, of course, a much less glamorous, more harmful side to alcohol in New Zealand that, understandably, is often overlooked by those in the marcomms industry whose job it is to sell more of it. There are already a host of marketing restrictions imposed on the largely self-regulated alcohol industry and while the New Zealand Drug Foundation believes the government is heading in the right direction with the alcohol reform bill, it contests that a number of the most important recommendations from the Law Commission report (there were 153 in total) have been ignored—particularly pricing, as this blunt but effective anti-alcohol marketing video called the ‘Budget Guide to Drinking Yourself to Death’ shows.

News
Pleasures of the flesh: of bangers, bleaters and burgers
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To celebrate the arrival of barbecue season (and to reference the recent increase in explicitly man-focused advertising) we thought it appropriate to compile a post filled to the brim with meat-related news, including the announcement of New Zealand’s Next Top Sausage, accolades for Silver Fern Farms and New Zealand’s penchant for gourmet burgers.

News
Labour of love wins international animation acclaim for Cunningham
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Two New Zealand soldiers are trapped behind enemy lines in western France during World War I. They find a crying baby in a ditch, lying under its dead parents. What happens when one man wants to save it and the other doesn’t? Not only is this based on a startling true story, but the CG animated short film version, Poppy, has won two top awards at the SIGGRAPH 2010 Computer Animation Festivals.

News
Ads@6: 9-15 November
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This week on Ads@6, a cool car ad from Lexus; another mascot family hits the screens, this time for The Warehouse; Rhys Darby dangles worms for the 2degrees Xmas push; BP is back (with a robo-dog); Jetstar greys up; and who can resist the Magic of Mantovani?

News
News stampede tramples hundreds of innocent bystanders…
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… as Yellow wins some more awards, the wheels on the Instant Kiwi scratchie bus go round and round, Fresh PR slips into something more comfortable, the University of Auckland School of Business reaches a big milestone with its 40,000th Short Course attendant, TVNZ ups its streaming, TV3 spruces up its website, the crowd goes wild for Microsoft Kinect and Sealegs is endorsed by scientists.

News
Toot Toot merrily on High
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Despite recent well-publicised difficulties in the retail sector, Newmarket has done a pretty good job of trumpeting its swankiness and array of shopping options. But it now has a suburban rival, after an enthusiastic group of business owners from the High Street District, together with the champions of the Auckland CBD Heart of The City, appointed the Toot Group to ramp up interest in the area with “an exciting new campaign of happenings”.

News
Light ‘n’ Tasty ‘n’ Pretty Out There
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Bored with your daily ad watching routine? Well, Saatchi & Saatchi and Sanitarium have come up with a solution, making 15 commercials with the same script and setting, but changing three elements in each execution for Light n Tasty’s ‘Every Day Different’ campaign.

News
A bottle full of interest: Monteith’s goes back to the source with new brew
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It’s been almost 18 months in the making, and yesterday, just down the road from the giant salmon and New Zealand’s longest bridge, Dominion Breweries ferried a group of 150 publicans, internal stakeholders and a few filthy journalists to a farm near Rakaia to launch the newest brew in the Monteith’s range, an ultra-premium, hyper-local, “serious beer” called Single Source that aims to tell the story of what’s inside the bottle and recognise those responsible for creating it.

News
Money saw cuts-through, wins Best in Show
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The innovative entries came from far and wide—even for the first time from Britain—but DraftFCB’s Tony Clewett and the fantastically named Rob Banks had the stand-out with their 3D saw made from mock fifty dollar notes and were awarded Best in Show at this year’s Art of The Envelope Awards.

News
To infinity and beyond: e-savvy young’uns peer into crystal ball
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Back in 1989, the first threads of the World Wide Web were woven at Waikato and Victoria Universities via a router from NASA. And, for an exorbitant $5500 a month, educational institutions in New Zealand could link to the rest of the world. The first 21 years have been chronicled by Down to the Wire, a fascinating archive of our digital history made up of interviews with media experts, techsperts and commentators. And now it’s time to look at the future, launching a competition called 20:20 Foresight that asks all students and graduates aged 17 to 25 to send in their mind-boggling visions of the internet in the year 2020.

News
Gambling, sharks and rock’n’roll top tourism awards
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The people and businesses of the Garden City have endured trying times this year but they have at least one cause for celebration: Christchurch Casino took home the Air New Zealand supreme award at this year’s Tourism Industry Awards, while Kelly Tarlton’s was recognised for its innovative marketing campaigns and Rhythm and Vines took home the best festival/event tourism award.

Opinion
Conference call: Social Media Junction 2 in review
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Six international speakers and a range of local big brains from varied marketing and communication backgrounds came together in Auckland this week for the second edition of Social Media Junction and  presented their perspectives on acheiving ROI from social media activity. But ROI is perhaps the wrong phrase to describe what was discussed. With the benefit of hindsight, it was more about content marketing: you’re on social media platforms, but what are you saying, how are you saying it, when are you saying it and are the customers listening and then actually buying or recommending to someone else who buys? Anyway, enough with the questions, here’s what the speakers had to say.

Awards
Mini creatives head to Mini Garage for Media Design School’s end of year soirée
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It’s not every day you get a chance to see the inner-most workings of an institution that was ranked as the world’s fourth best creative ad school by YoungGuns earlier this year. But it just so happens the young whippersnappers from Media Design School are showing off the year’s wares on Wednesday night from 5.30-8.30pm at the Mini Garage on Ponsonby Road. So, if you’re in the biz, get along and see what the future holds.

News
In praise of envelopes
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It’s a celebration of creativity where the humble envelope is given a chance to shine. And tomorrow night at Deus ex Machina in Auckland, with Kiwi pop star and t-shirt dealer Dave Gibson on MC duties, the winners of the 2010 Art Of The Envelope Awards will be announced. So without further ado, here are some glamour shots of the stellar finalists who are in the running for both booty and bragging points.

News
Of war, golf and fertility
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Three good’uns share the gold this week.

Who’s it for: Sky TV by DDB and Prodigy Films

Why we like it: Despite the fact that Rugby World Cup games will be shown on a number of free to air channels after last year’s broadcasting palaver …

News
Update your status, feast your eyes on The Social Network
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The Social Network has been getting rave reviews all around the world (if you want to read a massive, intellectual but quite excellent summary, check out Generation Why? by Zadie Smith). Our crack team of movie experts can confirm that it is indeed a tour de force, a triumph, a gripping social media-related romp—and, after heading along to Val Morgan’s 3D ad showcase last week, we can also confirm that the 3D ads shown before the movie were pretty damn good too. We’ve got a couple of double passes to give away to this rather engrossing tale of mystery, intrigue, skullduggery, powerful nerds and the modern human condition, so put up your most banal Facebook status update on the comment wall and to the most banal will go the spoils.

News
Arise, Penguins of Oktobor
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Plenty of back patting and flute chinking ensued at last week’s official opening of Oktobor Animation in Auckland. And fair enough, too, because it’s now New Zealand’s largest purpose-built CG animation studio and it’s already working away on some rather large international projects, including DreamWorks’ Penguins of Madagascar, a spin-off of the massive hit movie Madagascar. No pressure, then.

News
Can you handle the ‘Truth’?
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Both loved and loathed, the New Zealand Truth newspaper prospered throughout the twentieth century and wielded considerable influence at all levels of society. And its colourful warts and all story is now the subject of a book by author and former staffer Redmer Yska called Truth: The Rise and Fall of the People’s Paper.

News
Ragtimes: APN smirks while Fairfax finds silver linings
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The Nielsen newspaper readership survey year on year comparative results are black and white and read all over: APN’s NZ Herald and the Herald on Sunday are the only newspapers that have improved their readerships nationally, and Sunday News, Dominion Post and Sunday Star-Times, all published by Fairfax, have each lost readership of 10 percent or more throughout the country.