Starburst!® Time is running out to ensure eternal glory at this year’s TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards. But wait there’s more!™ Avoid a lifetime of bitter regret and get your work in front of the judges by Friday 20 May. Entry forms and a full list of all categories are available for ten easy payments of www.nzmarketingawards.co.nz.
Even Ads@6 gets an Easter break. Minus a couple of days, this week’s offering includes a really long Countdown ad about pears (both hard and soft), Hammer Hardware still going strong, the IRD make an attempt at humour, Genesis Energy continue to gather the troops to help in the Christchurch neighbourhood muck in, Freeview gets animated, Dilmah maintains its ethical stance and the Topp Twins develop multiple personalities.
APN has been focusing on upping the Herald’s game in the digital and mobile space of late, and it’s done a very good job, with a well-received and award-winning iPad App and mobile site and more on the way soon. As a result of this focus, some brands in its stable have been left behind in this regard and The Listener is a prime example of that. Well, now the website has been completely redesigned by the in-house team to bring it into the modern media era. But the advertiser-funded strategy remains—for the moment, at least.
Small Wellington-based commercial production company HoverLion, which specialises in animation, motion graphics and a touch of live action, has been creating a bit of an online buzz with a viral video that features a unique type of animation created by company co-founder Ned Wenlock.
GrabOne first offered $4 tickets to Event Cinemas in Auckland in July 2010 and, just ten months later, it sold its one millionth coupon (a 61 percent off Canvas Print in the Northland region, in case you were wondering). To celebrate this milestone, it’s giving away two $50 GrabOne credits to lucky, bargain loving StopPressers. Like social media platforms, daily deals sites all seem to require a strange, suitably catchy name. So all you have to do is come up with a ridiculous name for a fictional new entrant to this crowded market and all your discount dreams could come true. Extra credit given for ridiculous slogans.
Subway has just been given a creative spruce up by its recently appointed agency Publicis Mojo and, for a fast food brand that’s generally played it pretty straight with its marketing in the past, the new ‘You Rule!’ direction is rather surreal and of the times, with a big nod to video game culture, crude but popular YouTube animation and possibly even robot unicorns.
It’s coming into winter and the Christchurch rebuild will be kicking into gear soon, which means the heatpump advertising battle is, ahem, heating up. There’s already Stephen Fleming for Fujitsu, the bald guy holding a cat for Mitsubishi, the anthropomorphic door snakes for Toshiba and, recently, a creepy Dan Carter hanging on the wall for Daikin. Now, after Panasonic embarked on something of a spiritual journey with its agency Publicis Mojo to find out what core brand attributes and values it wanted to convey, there’s a new frontman to add to that list: stubby-wearing, bum-scratching Gerry.
There’s a stack of digital marketing surveys coming out of the United States and Europe these days. But what’s happening in our own backyard? Well, here’s your chance to find out. If you want to gauge how your digital approach compares to that of your marketing countryfolk, complete this quick survey from the Kookmeyer Institute and you’ll get sent the full results. Click here to get amongst it.
Aside from the nibbles, the best bit about weddings is often the impressive array of dad dancing on display. And, as this royal breakdancing session shows, Prince Charles should be at the top of his game tonight (here’s a remix).
What do you do when …
We told you about New Zealand’s Webby Awards finalists and official honorees a while back. But we missed one out: local graphic design and interactive design studio Supply, which was nominated in the IT Hardware/Software category for the Netsafe Scam Machine.
Back in November, Smirnoff and Special Group launched a campaign to get people to come up with kerrrazzeee ideas for events, with the winning concepts brought to life and the highs and lows of the lead-up and execution filmed for an unscripted reality show that would screen on FOUR. Well, that show kicks off tonight at 10.30 and Special Group creative director Tony Bradbourne is pretty damn excited about it.
First Brent Smart left his managing director role at Colenso BBDO for a plum posting at the BBDO mothership in San Fran. Now Adam Good is following suit, with the AIM Proximity Auckland chief executive and Clemenger Group Australasian director of digital innovation resigning from his posts to take up the role of executive vice president of Proximity Worldwide.
Finalists for the One Show have been announced and 24 Kiwi entries made the cut, up from nine last year. Colenso leads the Kiwi pack with seven contenders and more recognition for both Yellow Chocolate and TVNZ’s The Pacific campaign; DDB is just one back on six, with the good old reliable Sky Arts Channel work again finding plenty of favour; and Alt Group got three shortlistings in the design category. Clemenger BBDO and DraftFCB got two, while JWT, Special Group, Saatchi & Saatchi, AIM Proximity Wellington and TBWA\ all got one each. There were no finalists in the College section.
Yukfoo Animation’s first short film Preferably Blue, which tells the story of an embittered, reprobate Easter Bunny, made its rather appropriate New York premiere at the 10th Tribeca Film Festival on Easter Sunday. And it’s also off to Germany after being chosen to screen at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film in May.
Last year Alt Group sent out chocolate keyboards as Christmas gifts for its clients. Pffff, chocolate keyboards, Whittaker’s probably said, because at the time it was in the middle of a lengthy mission to create the world’s first ‘chocolate website’.
Not much in the way of new and exciting ad goodies around this short week. So we’ve had to go back a week or two to find the winner.
Who’s it for: Gregg’s coffee by DraftFCB and Robber’s Dog
Why we like it: Ah …
Last week it was revealed by the latest Nielsen Online Retail Report that two thirds of online New Zealanders have received email alerts from daily deal websites, and a further 40 percent said they made a purchase from such sites in the past three months. Now two of the world’s biggest deal sites, Groupon and Living Social, are set to arrive and take some more of New Zealand’s discount dollars.
The pitch for the Super Council account is well-underway and it’s now a three-horse race between Ogilvy, DDB and Colenso/.99 after DraftFCB pulled up lame last week.
It’s often said ad agencies need to get rid of the mirrors and work more closely with their clients to understand their business. Well, Auckland design and interactive shop Fracture has taken that to another level with one of its new clients after taking out first prize for Most Creative Trolley in the recent Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix.
Fairfax Media is expanding its portable news repertoire, last week announcing the launch of its first Android app for Stuff.co.nz. That means “more people than ever can get up to date with Stuff’s award winning news on the go”, according to Fairfax digital general manager Nigel Tutt.
Youngish advertising whippersnappers have just three days left to enter the Fairfax Media Young Print Lions competition. And past winner Brent Colliver suggests entrants would be well-advised to spend the last few days polishing their entries.
It’s about time we faced up to reality. We have a burgeoning digital signage industry in Australia and New Zealand that’s set to become part of a $2 billion global industry, but there are a great many confused brands and retailers. Recent Trans-Tasman research conducted by n.gage has uncovered 71 percent of brands and retailers are willing to look at digital signage models if they can understand the return on investment. However, a staggering 86 percent felt trans Tasman digital signage companies, on the whole, were not addressing digital signage from a holistic business viewpoint. So just how do we help these brands and retailers assess the role of digital signage at retail?
New Zealand’s design students have been putting in quite the winning performance as of late, hauling in some top international awards. First up, Media Design School. Having recently picked up a double-whammy at the 2011 Honolulu Film Awards, the school continues its winning streak with four of its students each winning a gong in the ‘Comprehensive Identity Program’ category as part of the Brand New Awards in the U.S.
The promotional onslaught from Rugby World Cup sponsors hoping to make good on their significant investment into the tournament has begun in earnest, with the dangling carrot of Cup tickets already being used to lure the punters. Heineken is already offering finals tickets with its on-pack promotion and it’s dishing out a few more in the Heineken Trivia Series.
Colmar Brunton has long been dabbling in the field of customer service research, most recently in last year’s Distinctive Customer Experiences Survey, which showed, slightly surprisingly, banks were the best-performing sector. Now it’s taking its findings to a wider audience and teaming up with Fair Go for a regular monthly section that identifies New Zealand’s “customer service champions”.
You can rely on the rather liberal St Matthew in the City church in Auckland to ruffle the feathers of the puritans and zealots with its ‘progressive’ billboards. And, as history has shown, you can also rely on Hell Pizza to stoke a few offensive coals with its advertising. Well, this Easter, the two of them have become surprising bedfellows.
There’s now one big dominant player in New Zealand’s magazine distribution scene after CourierPost, Fairfax Media NZ and Netlink announced a new partnership, which kicks in from 1 July.
…as Kerry Smith is farewelled; Tequila finds its new general manager after a lengthy search; Mango adds three new fruits; and one of The Sweet Shop’s directors gets the nod for his film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
It looks as if the daily deal sites that seem to be seeping out from all over the place have made quite the impact on our online shopping habits, according to the latest Nielsen Online Retail Report. By the end of 2010, the number of New Zealanders aged 18+ making transactions online reached an all time high of nearly 1.5 million. This was an increase of over seven percent on 2009. According to the report, 46 percent of the adult population has made a purchase online, nearly double the number of six years ago.
Ah, the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The time when all New Zealanders unite to celebrate sponsorship. And rugby. With the likes of MasterCard, Landrover, Toshiba, Brancott Estate/Montana, Heineken and ANZ already joining the official sponsorship ranks, comes news BlackBerry developers Research in Motion (RIM) will be nuzzling in for some cozy sponsorship action, with BlackBerry becoming the “official handheld mobile device” for the tournament. ACP is also involved, winning the contract as the official publisher.