Monthly Archives: May, 2011

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Tastebuds tapped, refined Kiwi palates sought for new mystery beer
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Apparently, if you read those preachy books by internet evangelists, the crowd has great wisdom. If you’ve ever met anyone from ‘the crowd’, you’ll know that’s highly debatable, but there’s no doubt they like having their say these days. And, in the latest incarnation of the burgeoning trend to get consumers to help decide on the product that actually ends up on the shelves, Barnes, Catmur & Friends and the Boundary Road Brewery, a division of Independent Liquor, have set out to find 999 Kiwi beer tasters. 

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The children: our future
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Who’s it for: Foundation of Youth Development by Ogilvy, Robber’s Dog and the kids from FYD

Why we like it: It stands up on its own as a great TV ad, but it also has a cool backstory, because the kids who feature in it are …

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Yellow gives DDB a glimmer of hope, but stands firmly by its creative man
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Yellow has just pinned its new digital, hyperlocal colours to the mast with the launch of Yellow Local. As has been the case for around three years, Colenso was responsible for coming up with the creative and wooing the users, while Rapp/Tribal, which has been working with Yellow for almost two years, took care of the direct and digital grunt work. But there’s been a new, albeit rather small development in Yellow’s advertising mix, after DDB was handed some project work.

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APN Outdoor greases up to media fun gluttons with biggest FIHP shindig yet
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After a fairly long period of relative austerity when it comes to the outdoor sector’s trade marketing efforts, it seems things are starting to brighten up, with the Adshel Rally making a welcome return a few weeks back and APN Outdoor ready to celebrate the first birthday of its ‘Friends in High Places’ series by hosting the after party of the CAANZ Media Awards. 

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Like shifts in the night…
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…as Jim Tully and Peter Bush take their place among New Zealand’s media greats; Freeman’s Bay indie Republik opens an Australian office; the Saatchi & Saatchi regional HQ shifts to Singapore from Sydney as Chris Foster takes on a big new Asia Pacific role; Fairfax looks for some creative, integrated inspiration in its new Auckland offices; and Method Studios is acknowledged for its digital work at the New York Communicator awards. 

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Ads@6: 10 May – 24 May
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Ah, Ads@6. Welcome back. We’ve missed you. In this edition, unlike ANZ, Westpac thinks life can be perfect; Mitsubishi lets one rip; State continues the stop-motion approach and offers car protection instead of car replacement; Specsavers attempts to save the short sighted from humiliation; Big Save keeps yelling; Stihl’s dark humour makes a welcome return, as does the Spray and Walk Away guy; Hyundai launches a new model, while Ford harnesses the design strengths of the All Blacks for its AB35 project; MasterCard taps into its World Cup sponsorship by revisiting a classic match; and Infratil goes large with the big ‘Z’ launch campaign while BP fights back with a fairly hard to swallow petrol love fest. 

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Of themselves, by themselves: Ogilvy and Robber’s Dog take Kiwi whippersnappers on a creative journey
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As the old biblical adage goes, there’s nothing new under the sun, which means that cynical industry brows are usually furrowed when anyone claims to have come up with a world-first. Well, Ogilvy has laughed in the face of potential ridicule and claimed it’s done just that with a new TVC for the Foundation of Youth Development (FYD), which shows young people involved in the foundation’s programmes making a television ad about themselves. 

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Cadbury keeps the rhythm, keeps the rhythm going
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Cadbury is currently dealing with yet another crisis after likening one of its chocolate bars to Naomi Campbell in an ad campaign. As you can probably imagine, the diva is not pleased. But, on the plus, less racist and much more feelgood side, it launched the next rhythmical instalment of the Share the Joy campaign on Kiwi TV last night. And it can be summed up with this quote from an unnamed StopPress staffer: “Yeah, I’d grind to that on the DF.”

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Non-riveting online shopping survey reveals not much
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Comparison shopping site PriceMe asked 460 of its registered users a range of questions about their online shopping habits as part of its annual survey recently. And, in the slightly surprising/unflinchingly honest words of PriceMe’s marketing director Chris Palmer, the results are “not exactly riveting reading”. 

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APN nabs ‘Grand Slam’ at Canon Media Awards
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A galaxy of industry stars gathered at Sky City on Friday night as the country’s most important and highly sought after print media accolades were dished out at the Canon Media Awards. And there were a few sore heads among the APNers on Saturday morning after they walked out with what they’re calling the ‘Grand Slam’: best website, newspaper of the year, best daily newspaper and best weekly paper.  

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Conversation wars: Oprah vs The Four Horsemen
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There are a huge number of boring statistics we could tell you about. For example, the increase in the amount of tissues purchased by men on Sundays, ROI on SEO for CEO’s KPIs, or possibly even the amount of TV watched by people in Invercargill aged 45-46 between 6.15 and 6.30pm. But humans are simple creatures. And we’re interested in simple things. Like whether the end of Oprah is deemed to be more important than the end of the world. Well, if you believe social media, and you probably shouldn’t, it turns out she’s not.

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Would Welly? Tui thinks not
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The Wellywood debacle has led to a vast array of humorous jibes being directed at the Windy City (add your suggestion here and we might send you some beer) and Tui has joined the cacophonous debate, in typically cheeky fashion, claiming the proposed sign will detract from the awe inspiring TUIWOOD sign that was erected six years ago in Mangatainoka. 

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DDB loses a pair of aces to Colenso
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They’ve been gaining plaudits and raking in awards for DDB New Zealand for a while now with campaigns like ‘Mexi-Doug’ for Instant Kiwi, Sky TV’s ‘Que Sera Sera’, ANZ’s ‘Perfect World’ and the internationally heralded Sky TV Arts Channel print and radio campaign. But it appears the grass is slightly greener across town, because creative team James Tucker and Simon Vicars are saying goodbye to the Death Star at the end of June to take up roles at Colenso BBDO. 

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When playmakers meet carmakers: Ford’s collaborative AB35 campaign nears its conclusion
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With the NZRU’s increasingly commercial approach, seeing All Blacks on our TV screens endorsing something isn’t particularly unusual these days. But the problem is that they’re often forced to act and, as most know very well, rugby players don’t make particularly good actors. Thankfully, Ford and JWT have avoided that trap with the AB35 campaign, which lets the lads design their very own pimped out Fiesta with the help of the Ford team.  

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Brain enhancement guaranteed, thanks to Media Design School and NZ Post courses
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The Media Design School has just moved into a new swanky building in the Auckland CBD and to celebrate it’s launched a new series of weekend workshops for busy design professionals looking to upskill or add a few new strings to their bows. But the learning doesn’t stop there: the ever-popular—and free—NZ Post Direct Marketing Workshops are back again, with Rapp/Tribal’s creative director Aaron Goldring and Federation’s creative director Ben Chandler set to spread their words of wisdom.  

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It was a dark and stormy night… Sugar and BNZ embrace story time with a difference
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They say everyone’s got a book in them. And most of them should stay there, say others. But to encourage entries into the 2011 BNZ literary awards and get in front of different kinds of people, Sugar brought writing to life with a nice little ambient media stunt that projected real-time stories onto buildings in Aotea Square. And they did it all with a budget of around $10,000. 

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What the Fluxx: Pickering says au revoir to AmbientX, starts afresh with experiential focus
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As the recent CAANZ research shows, experiential marketing is so hot right now. And AmbientX, which is part of the Australian-owned Ambient Advertising Group, has long been at the forefront of that scene in New Zealand. Now, in an effort to distance itself from the obvious associations with ‘ambient’ and specialise in experiential, co-founder and creative director Mark Pickering has bought the business and will be re-branding the company as Fluxx beginning in June.

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APN distribution deal puts Gordon & Gotch back on the goodfoot
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More than a few eyebrows were raised when Netlink shacked up with Fairfax and Courier Post recently and became the dominant player in the distribution market. That departure left a big hole in Gordon & Gotch’s books, but it’s found a replacement fairly quickly after signing up APN’s NZ Magazines, which will move distribution of its consumer titles from Netlink from 1 July following an agreement with PMP NZ Limited.

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Of Aucklanders and elephants
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Who’s it for: YellowLocal by Colenso BBDO and Down Low Concept

Why we like it: It might be a me-too act to counter the arrival of NZ Post’s Localist directory, but, at first glance, YellowLocal seems like it has plenty of good features and …

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On the road again: Toyota’s Top to Bottom restarts its engines
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To celebrate 60 years of the Landcruiser in Kiwiland, Toyota embarked on a quest to take a newly launched FJ Cruiser from the top to the bottom of New Zealand, but, unlike many length of New Zealand excursions, there was a point of difference: the whole journey had to be done off road. It was put on hold after the Christchurch earthquake, but it’s kicked off again and it’s going great guns. 

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Help Wellington in its time of need, quench thirst with Mac’s Hop Rocker
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As we’ve discussed before on StopPress, town branding, despite the best of civic intentions and dreams of immense cut-through with cheesy, pun-laden slogans, generally has an element of desperation and truth-stretching to it. And the proposed Wellywood sign can most definitely be placed in that category. Of course, there have been numerous alternative suggestions and a few websites (here and here) set up where alternative suggestions can be made (there’s now even a campaign by Moa beer that is, fairly irresponsibly, promoting willful damage when the sign goes up in exchange for a bounty). But everyone knows the hoi polloi simply don’t have the creative cajones required to help Wellington in its time of need. So, post your idea for a more appropriate/inappropriate sign on the hill and the two best efforts will get a 12 pack of the pilsener member of the Mac’s family, Hop Rocker, which is sporting some flash new packaging and has recently graduated to the dozen. 

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