Monthly Archives: July, 2012

News
Irish eyes are still smiling as O’Sullivan takes over Droga5 reins—UPDATED
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We broke the story about Andrew Stone leaving Droga5 on Friday to spend more time with his family and do some consultancy work. And that high-profile departure, combined with the recent loss of its foundation client ASB to Saatchi & Saatchi, led to a fair bit of speculation that Droga5 was in a bit of trouble. But Mike O’Sullivan, who has stepped up to fill the leadership role, says the doors are still well and truly open and, with a few new clients and a new management team, the agency is poised for growth.

News
TVC of the Week: 31 July
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Sorted’s shrinkage, RadioLive’s fly on the wall approach, ASB’s Facebook in real life tomfoolery and TV3’s Olympics promo take the TVC title this week.

News
Green light at the Dark Knight
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It’s been featured in Wired, the Huffington Post (“a virtual reality explosion”), The Daily What (“a prototype for Skrillex’s inevitable 2017 Super Bowl half-time show) and a fair bit here on StopPress. And the V Motion Project has started its experiential journey into the public domain, with a surprise in-cinema activation showing the technology in effect on the big screen.

Movings & Shakings
Movings/Shakings: 31 July
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MediaWorks adds some more integration, Gordon Jon Thompson takes a gamble on Sky City, APN names Peter Hunt as its director and chairman of the board, and DB opens up its newly-renovated Monteith’s Brewery in Greymouth.

News
PwC picks continued growth as digital moves to the heart of NZ’s media and entertainment businesses
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Last year’s PwC New Zealand entertainment and media outlook said conservatism needed to be shed if media businesses wanted to make hay in the rapidly changing modern era. And, according to the second edition, what previously looked like a wide gap between old and new operating models is now being bridged and the New Zealand market is finally starting to embrace the new ways in which punters consume content, with revenues in the sector growing four percent to $5.2 billion in 2011, PwC tipping an average of five percent percent growth throughout the 2012-2016 forecast period, and mobility seen as the biggest driving force of change.

News
Twitter tracker shows Coca-Cola leading Olympic sponsor race, McDonald’s languishing in last
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During the Rugby World Cup, the off-field battles between sponsors—and, often, non-sponsors—made for fairly interesting viewing. And the same is certainly true with the Olympics. Thankfully, MediaCom has its finger on the pulse with its Twitter Tracker, which ranks sponsors by a unique Olympic Twitter Score that includes total volume of mentions, engagement and reach metrics and, importantly, positive or negative sentiment.

News
There’s gold in them thar social hills, says new McKinsey study
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There’s plenty of debate about how to measure the value of social media, and, in some cases, whether sites like Facebook and Twitter are at ‘the heart of a fallacy’ around online advertising. But, according to a new study by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the business and economics research arm of McKinsey & Company, social technologies have the potential to raise the productivity of knowledge workers by 20 to 25 percent, as information is made more accessible and searchable and communication streamlined.

News
Attack of the fakebots: are your social media followers real?
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Over the weekend, we received a message from Facebook’s account manager Adnan Khan asking us to consider adopting Facebook’s Social Plugin commenting system on StopPress, as it would increase the authenticity of the conversations and reduce the number of “faceless trolls” and offensive comments (if you’re so inclined, you can comment on StopPress stories through Facebook, Twitter or Google by logging-in to Disqus). So we couldn’t help but revel in the irony when ComputerWorld published an article yesterday about the fact that, according to social media management tool Status People, 94 percent of Khan’s almost 30,000 Twitter followers were fake.

News
When life gives you lemons, redesign your packaging
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L&P is a much-loved Kiwi brand. Many of its ads are classics, its Facebook page has over 184,000 likes and the recent Reader’s Digest survey listed L&P the seventh most trusted brand in New Zealand. But sales were simply not matching the affection and loyalty the brand enjoyed. So the packaging has been given a spruce up by brand design specialists Dow Design in an effort to make it more contemporary—and more compelling for the younger generation.

Opinion
The Facebook fallacy and the problem with personalisation
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I remember when Michael Wolff was very bullish about the internet in the 1990s, so when he starts sounding warning bells, we had better take heed. And the way he paints Facebook—and a belief that its advertising model will eventually collapse for being so limited—is not unfamiliar to anyone who ever wondered, during the dot-com boom, just why those companies were worth that much.

News
It’s a kind of magic: Rinnai and .99 master the dark arts
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Back in the day, those with the ability to control fire were likely to be run out of town—or put in the old ‘let’s see if they’ll drown’ chair—for “being conversant in the dark arts”. But, as a new campaign for Rinnai by .99 shows, these days it’s something to put in your brochure.

News
CAANZ calibrates industry’s moral compass with new ethical guidelines
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According to CAANZ, one of the big challenges facing the communications industry is the way it is sometimes perceived by clients—and society more broadly. So, in an effort to address this and show that it is in fact what chief executive Paul Head calls a reputable and professional industry that adds value to businesses, the communications industry will be governed by a formal set of rules after CAANZ introduced its new ‘Code of Ethics, Practices, and Obligations of CAANZ Members’.

News
Sporting greatness! DP&V! Or! Lefty! Pus fest! Cat herding! Catchy wee ditty! Dreams! Letters! Linkage!
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Nike’s ode to greatness, quite possibly the best Olympic video ever made, a male response to the Carefree ad, Coke Zero and Ken Jeong massacre a classic, men throwing things with the other hand, what some believe is a contender for the most disgusting ad ever, cat herding: it is possible, how to capture people’s dreams, a catchy wee Japanese ditty, some pretty cool lettering, 50 Shades of Angela Merkel, what the Fox, 36 things for the ultimate opening ceremony and the Chrome Web Lab.

News
Digital and physical collide as Saatchi & Saatchi launches first major piece of ASB work
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Given Facebook’s pervasiveness, it’s not entirely surprising to learn the ‘Facebook in real life theme’ is already pretty fertile comedic territory. And ASB’s new agency Saatchi & Saatchi, with Thick as Thieves on production duties, has tapped into that idea for its first major piece of work for the bank, an online-only campaign to promote the new Facebook payments platform that shows what such a transaction might look like ‘IRL’.

News
.99 starts spreading Fairfax’s news—UPDATED
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.99’s win of the Tower business was a much-needed fillip for the embattled agency. And the good news has continued after it was handed the reins for a range of through-the-line communications for Fairfax Media’s Sunday Star Times newspaper after winning a pitch against Y&R Auckland and Christchurch agency Simpatico.

News
Explain Olympic favouritism, win another MyFreeview box
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Freeview, True and Flying Fish launched the new ‘To be fair, it’s got to be Free’ campaign in June and, more recently, Pio has been explaining the joys of its personal video recording system MyFreeview. After the response to the last competition we ran on StopPress to celebrate the coming of the digital switchover, Freeview has offered us another Panasonic DMR-XW380 MyFreeview HD recorder valued at $800 to give away. So tell us what Olympic event you would record and why and the most creative answer will get the spoils.

News
The sound of music—and inter-agency banter—is back with BOTAB
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Music is a powerful force in advertising. Jingles are thought to be the leading cause of ‘song rash’ among New Zealanders, choosing the right backing track can sometimes mean the difference between ‘meh’ and magnificent , and, due to the creative proclivities of those working in this industry, many of those who inhabit it are annoyingly talented musicians. And the advertising event that many jokingly (or, in some cases, not-so-jokingly) refer to as the year’s most important is back for 2012. So let the inter-agency banter for the Battle of the Ad Bands commence.

News
Let the light games begin: Resn shines with ‘Olympic first’ online gaming experience
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The interactive smarty-pants at Wellington agency Resn have forged a global reputation for awesomeness with its work for a range of big global clients including Puma, Domino’s and Toyota. And now, as the London Olympics get set for blast off, it is claiming an ‘Olympic first’, with an online experience created with Paris agency CLM BBDO for French energy company EDF that claims to have reinvented the way the humble computer mouse is used for gaming.

News
Clems pair win June Orca with clever dual-direction NZTA campaign
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There’s nothing like leaving on a high note and Clemenger BBDO’s Jon Pickersgill and Sarah Jackson have done exactly that because, just before they jet off across the ditch for new creative adventures at Sapient Nitro in Brisbane, they scooped the June ORCA with their back to front/front to back anti-drug-driving campaign for the NZTA.

Opinion
Who cares about Cannes?
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Claudia Macdonald, managing director of Mango and founding member of the CAANZ Marcomms Leadership Group, was the first New Zealander to be a juror for the Cannes PR Lions in June. Here she reflects on the experience and what she learnt.

News
Banking mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest spender of them all?
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Bankland is never short on action and rumours of National Bank’s shaky future look set to be fuelled by the latest Nielsen AIS figures on advertising spend by New Zealand banks. The ANZ NZ-owned brand spent the second lowest amount on advertising in the first half of this year compared to the other five banks, its $3.5 million paling in comparison to ANZ NZ’s ANZ brand, which clocked up the largest bill of all the banks at $15.3 million.

News
OMANZ ups the visual cues as it launches second phase of outdoor campaign
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In April this year the outdoor sector industry body OMANZ launched its Step Outside campaign using its own medium to reel in advertiser and media agency interest. And with phase one of the campaign safely tucked away in the past, phase two has kicked into gear, this time adding visual cues in an attempt to drive home the message of how powerful out-of-home advertising can be.

News
Whybin \ TBWA and OMD young’uns take out Fairfax Spike glory
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Six teams teams of young media and creative agency whippersnappers were named as place getter in last night’s inaugural Fairfax Media Young Spikes Media and Integrated Competitions, but it was the Whybin \ TBWA and OMD teams that took out the winning spots, and each will now represent New Zealand at the Young Spikes competition held in Singapore in September.

Movings & Shakings
Movings/Shakings: 24 July
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APN shuffles staff into senior appointments thanks to sales restructuring, M&C Saatchi’s hire at first sight, Wright Communications acquires a new trio, The Research Agency expands by two, Fairfax feels Droga5’s creative spirit and Dentsu eyes up Aegis.

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