The flappers were flapping, the pin stripes were thick, the feather boas were ticklish and the awards were plentiful at the Great Gatsby-themed Magazine Awards at The Pullman last night, especially for the big winners Good and Cuisine. And don’t you word and picture lovers scrub up nicely. Photos by Simon Watts from Getty.
This year’s Red Socks Day falls nearly 11 years since Kiwi legend Sir Peter Blake was killed by pirates on the Amazon. Today, the Sir Peter Blake Trust continues to honour not only the man himself, but also his leadership, love for the environment, and his dedication to New Zealand youth. And to help raise awareness for this year’s Red Socks Day, Westpac, which is the foundation sponsor for the trust and has supported it since it formed in 2004, and .99 worked with street artist Sparrow ‘Component’ Philips (co-founder of the Cut Collective) to create a one of a kind stencil-art styled image of Sir Peter’s face made from almost 3,000 red, white and black socks.
Put the over-achieving founder of digital agency AKQA Ajaz Ahmed and the vice president of digital sport at Nike Stefan Olander in a room to talk about the possibilities—and challenges—of the digital realm and you end up with Velocity: Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital. We’ve got one copy to give away, and all you have to do is tell us what we might be doing, how we might be doing it and what we might be doing it with in the future. As John Elfreth Watkins showed, though the suggestions may sound wacky at the time, they often have a habit of coming true.
Since Steinlager Pure was launched in 2007, Lion has used big name American actors to endorse the brand, with the likes of Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe and Vincent Gallo gracing our screens and stroking our egos in the past campaigns made by Publicis Mojo. But after a hiatus from Kiwi TV screens as its big brother’s white cans took over during the RWC—and with DDB now as its lead agency—it’s ready to launch its next campaign on Sunday. And for the first time the new mascot is a Kiwi: successful director, actor and all-round funny man Taika Waititi.
The Block is going off in Australia at the moment as it reaches the final stages of the current season, and MediaWorks is doing its best to ensure the same thing happens for the first season of the New Zealand version, launching a full-scale marketing assault created by the inhouse team that’s been pretty difficult to miss.
A collection of moderately entertaining things collected from the internet.
It’s the night the magazine industry comes together to, as ACP head honcho Paul Dykzeul might say, indulge in a bit of gratuitous back patting. Or, as the MPA might say, reward the publications, publishers, editors, designers, sales folk and contributors who toil away on their various titles. And it was Good and Cuisine’s Sarah Nicholson that reigned supreme on the night, winning the top magazine and editor of the year prizes respectively.
Toyota has held onto its number spot in the 2012 rankings of Interbrand’s second Best Global Green Brands report, but Johnson & Johnson isn’t far behind and Danone (#9), Ford (#15), and Starbucks (#36) are rising fast, with tech and automotive brands dominating.
The New Zealand Herald’s Viva magazine turned 15 recently, and, as part of the celebrations, APN offered agencies an opportunity to submit a creative concept for a chance to win a spot on the front cover and inside front cover of the birthday issue. And JWT’s idea for Pernod Ricard’s G.H. Mumm champagne brand took the top prize, with the birthday edition of the magazine coming enclosed in golden bubble wrap and the phrase ‘enjoy the bubbles’.
She’s been behind some of the country’s most creative—and creatively awarded—marketing campaigns, but after four years with the embattled Yellow Pages Group, business transformation director and former marketing director Kellie Nathan has decided it’s time for a change.
justONE clients Farmers and Subway have respectively seen Farmers Club and the Subcard loyalty programme announced as finalists in the retail category of the prestigious Colloquy Loyalty Awards, which salute “the most transformative, customer-focused enterprise loyalty initiatives internationally”, with .99 and New World for its wine sale eDM the only other finalist in that category. And Fly Buys and Air New Zealand’s co-branded card is a finalist in the innovation in loyalty marketing.
The Research Agency welcomes an international research heavyweight, Eleven\PR snatches a couple from PPR, Ambient Group ramps up its experiential and talent offering, Firebrand does some of its own recruiting, Rob Fyfe wraps up warm with Icebreaker, Komli NZ wins About.com, In Motion Post gets a slice of Bunnings, JOOB announces one of its regional big dogs and a couple of Auckland dining hotspots get some international attention.
Haystac has been selected as Tourism Victoria’s New Zealand PR agency after a rigorous competitive pitch process that began in March. Expressions of interest from over 30 agencies resulted in 11 tender submissions, six shortlisted hopefuls and finally, three pitch presentations.
Leopards, as the old chestnut goes, find it quite difficult to change their spots. But since its launch, Skinny, a sub-brand of Telecom that’s gunning for the youth-market, has gone about things much differently than its big brother. And its modern approach to marketing seems to be working quite well so far.
To celebrate its 21st anniversary, the TVNZ/NZ Marketing Awards were given a proper spruce up this year with the launch of the ’Everything Marketing’ platform and the announcement of eight new categories. And the changes have been met with approval, because a record number of entries and new entrants were received for the 2012 edition, with a total of 45 entries in the running for the top spots.
Old Navy by Crispin Porter+ Bogusky and Curious’ Miki Magisiva, the V Motion Project by Colenso and Thick as Thieves and the Sir Peter Blake Trust’s clip by Contagion take cakes this week.
The Australian division of Fairfax has announced some massive changes to its business recently, including a plan to cut 1,900 jobs, erect paywalls, outsource subbing for some of its titles to New Zealand and take some of its broadsheets tabloid. Fairfax NZ boss Allen Williams has said it’s a case of two markets and two time frames and the shifts won’t affect the New Zealand business, but they have affected the local industry in one way because Andrew Holden, the editor of The Press in Christchurch, has been named as editor in chief of The Age in Melbourne, replacing Paul Ramadge, who resigned yesterday.
Using your phone as a payment device is something that’s been talked about for years but rapidly increasing smartphone uptake means it is now starting to come to fruition in New Zealand. ASB and TSB have recently come out with updated mobile payment technology, and plenty of other companies like Swipe HQ, Google and MasterCard have their own iterations hoping to render the wallet an anachronism. Now ANZ has upped its activity in this space as well with a Facebook campaign by Tequila\ that aims to drive new registrations for its goMoney iPhone app.
“But I had that idea.” Spend any time in an agency creative department and you’ll hear that a lot. It’s usually true. In fact, if I think back a decade to adschool (and communications theory before that) there’s a well-founded, pointy-headed theory that there are only seven creative territories. And, just like the seven musical notes, true creativity is about the song you choose to write. So what better place to explore that theory than through the winners of this year’s Film Lions? I spotted six of the seven core thoughts—same old ideas, incredible craft. Or, to mis-quote Edison, one percent inspiration, 99 percent execution.
News of three senior defections at Fairfax in Australia surfaced yesterday, following on from last week’s news that it planned to cut 1,900 jobs—or around 20 percent of its staff—as part of a restructure aimed at facing up to the challenges of digital publishing. News Ltd is also set to cull staff, although it has said the number is “significantly less” than Fairfax (its own press appears to be looking on the bright side of that decision). And while New Zealand’s newspaper biz is still doing it tough at the moment, Fairfax NZ chief executive Allen Williams told the NBR it was a “case of two different markets, in two different timeframes”, so going tabloid and putting up paywalls wasn’t on the agenda–yet. Add in the Leveson enquiry in the UK and it’s tough out there in media land, so it was interesting to see the results of the 5th annual Oriella Digital Journalism Study, which showed the world’s media were cautiously upbeat despite continued uncertainty in the global economy and “digital technologies have affected the practice of journalism less markedly in New Zealand” than elsewhere.
Swipe HQ, a Kiwi offering with echoes of US payment technology Square, is on track to hit the market in August. But founder Manas Kumar, chief executive of local tech company Optimizer HQ, which listed on the German stock exchange this year, says it’s more than just a transactional technology. It’s an “end to end” business solution.
he means of distribution might be changing, but there’s still no better way to convey emotion and tell stories than with video content, whether it be a traditional TVC, a short film or an interactive music video. So herewith, all the gold winners from the film and film craft categories at Cannes.
The creative gang have had their fun at AXIS and Cannes, so the focus now shifts to effectiveness awards. And, in addition to the local call for entries for the 2012 Effies going live, Effie Worldwide have announced the results of its second ever effectiveness index, with Colenso BBDO, DraftFCB and DDB ranked in the top 20 most effective agencies in the world.
When it comes to brand advocacy, it doesn’t get much more fervent than the love humans seem to have for Queenstown’s Fergburger. Pretty much every day, 21 hours a day, the line stretches up Shotover St and feasting upon one of its sizable delights is firmly etched onto most visitors’ to-do lists, to the point where, according to untrustworthy local Queenstown experts, it now has the second highest turnover of any business in Queenstown. International rugby players are certainly not immune from its culinary charms either, as evidenced by Irish captain Brian O’Driscoll, who, when asked in his post-match interview if he would be returning to visit said maybe, if the burger joint was calling.
New Zealand finished off its Cannes run with a few more nods over the weekend, with Special Group and Colenso BBDO adding two gongs each to bring the total local haul for the Festival of Creativity to 21, an improvement on last year’s paltry six lions but still not quite back up to the record 25 lions in 2010.
When Ogilvy launched Kiwibank’s tenth birthday ad a few months back, we said: “Wait for the moaners to see the kid jumping off the rock”. And whaddya know, the haters hated, the moaners moaned, and, in its latest round of decisions, a complaint was partially upheld, with a majority of the ASA complaints board finding the ad had “not been prepared with the due sense of responsibility to consumers and to society”.
Of all the NZ Olympic sponsors, Moa is perhaps the most unlikely, given its oft-controversial approach to marketing and the fact that it’s, well, beer, a substance not particularly well-renowned for improving athletic performance. But even though the NZOC is an organisation renowned for taking things pretty seriously, Moa, which celebrated a solid medal haul of its own recently, has still been able to have a bit of fun with its sponsorship activity.
ZenithOptimedia has once again gazed into its crystal ball and released its global adspend forecasts, including predictions for the New Zealand media marketplace. And both the global and local trends make for interesting reading.
Anna Gervai joins JWT, a couple of changes at DB, Sarah Fenton moves up the Yahoo! chain, Vodafone gives Jane Wilson a call, Stephen Williams joins Adcorp, Senate adds a pair, Hypermedia adds Hobday, Terabyte Interactive gets the nod in AUT Excellence in Business Support Awards and the EMANZ crew wag chins.
Sugar is on the receiving end of some extra attention at the moment for its supposed effects on health and, as this very interesting piece in The Guardian shows, the finger is being pointed at the food we eat and drink we swallow for leading to an average 19kg increase in weight since the mid-’60s. But hey, at least the ad campaigns for these sugary elixirs are cool. Right? Anyway, the next instalment of V’s Motion Project has gone live, with “technology experts, motion graphic artists, dancers, Burundi drummers, guitarists, marching bands and the vocal talent of Brandon Black from The Wyld” banding together to create the track, ‘Can’t Help Myself’. Pull your hoody up, let your pants hang low and download it here.