Vodafone’s been on a bit of a horror run with bureaucratic entities recently. It’s already been pinged twice for misleading advertising and there are four more court dates with ComCom for separate offences on the horizon. And now it’s been pulled up by the ASA for an ad made by .99 that featured the always dodgy fork and toaster combo.
Steinlager’s impressive ‘We Believe’ campaign to celebrate 25 years sponsoring the All Blacks has so far managed to evade the legal clutches of the IRB/IMG gatekeepers, despite stepping on Heineken’s toes and stealing a big chunk of its RWC thunder. But it hasn’t managed to evade the legal clutches of the ASA, which has smacked Lion on the hand for a print ad that featured a picture of the white can with the line ’30 names we can believe in’. The ad featured in the papers the day after the All Blacks squad had been named and was deemed by a majority of the complaints board to contravene the restrictions around heroes of the young. But does this ruling show the letter of the law is being taken too far?
As Jon Bon Jovi knows, going out in a blaze of glory is always the best way. And Arch West, the man who founded Doritos, is doing just that for his funeral, as a full-page—and slightly macabre—print ad that featured in the Herald attests.
As the old phrase says, you go into a bank looking for your girlfriend and end up leaving with her mother. And while a likable bank may seem like the quintessential oxymoron, ASB is typically near the top of the customer satisfaction charts in comparison to the other big competitors. Now, following on from the first and fairly controversial incarnation of the big Creating Futures rebrand, it has taken a step in a slightly different direction with the launch its new ‘Experience ASB’ campaign over the weekend.
Big ups to NZ Book Month and its agency Rapport Advertising and Marketing for taking out four awards at the prestigious 2011 Promo Awards in Chicago. It was the only New Zealand ad agency to be honoured, alongside other winners such as P&G, Coca-Cola and Kelloggs.
Like many New Zealanders gagging for a long-awaited Rugby World Cup victory, the news that Dan Carter was out of the tournament with a groin injury that obviously came about because it was poisoned by the South Africans ripped our knickers and left a gaping void in our now husk-like hearts. As a very valuable marketing property, many of the brands he endorses, such as Jockey (maybe he should’ve been kicking commando, a la Andre Agassi?), Daikin and Philips, will also be devastated. Before the injury, seeing him on TV or half-nude on a massive billboard was a reminder that our hero was here to vanquish the enemies. Now they only serve to remind us of what we have lost and could forever be linked to pain and suffering. So, for the nation’s good, we propose taking the Stalinest approach and changing history by modifying all marketing campaigns featuring our man Dan. To start the ball rolling—and in honour of the tweet that said “serves him right for being a heatpump”—here’s what we think his ideal replacement would look like in the role. Interestingly, Piri doesn’t look quite as creepy.