Following on from its performance in the recent APMA Star Awards, marketing and promotional agency Belowtheline has won big at this year’s APPA Awards, taking home five awards including a gold, two silvers and two bronzes.
We’ll be showcasing all the winners of the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards on StopPress over the coming days. And we’re kicking things off with big winner Volkswagen, which invested heavily in indigenous research and advertising to better connect the brand with Kiwis, launched some very successful new products and quickly went from ‘niche street to main street’.
Alana Schultheis joins The Pond, Michael Cornwell takes Samsung NZ’s top marketing gig, Mango nabs a triple, Luke Shanahan goes global with Robber’s Dog, and VeNA looks on the Bright side.
Cops and robbers like you’ve never seen, overcoming a glassy affliction, how the iPhone5 will bring you true happiness, Old Spice flexes its musical muscles, Guinness paints it black, the Kia hampsters go to the opera, Louis Vuitton plays spot the difference, the trouble with two Armstrongs, a classic Freudian slip, a condescending corporate brand page, BBH’s sarcastic Cecelia prize, entertaining reviews of the Bic pen for ladies, and meat paintings.
2012 marks the 21st anniversary of the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards. And, in keeping with the traditions of the land, it emerged into adulthood this year with a new central theme of Everything Marketing and eight new categories, including financial, technology, automotive, utilities/communications, lifestyle/travel/leisure and sponsorship. And coming out at the head of the field with the supreme award was Volkswagen, with ex-Westpac and soon-to-be BNZ head of brand Ian Moody named as marketer of the year, Whittaker’s Jasmine Griffin named as rookie marketer of the year, Air New Zealand taking the marketing excellence award and Pfizer, Z Energy and Red Witch both picking up multiple awards.
They came, they drank, they feasted, they smiled for the cameras, and a few even marched up onstage to collect an award or three.
Haystac’s general manager Fleur Postill attended a recent trendwatching.com seminar in Sydney. And here are a few things that caught her attention.
Timing is everything in business and over the years Barry Colman, who has been publishing the National Business Review for 24 years, has shown that he has a deft touch. And, given the state of the newspaper trade at the moment, he may have just shown it again, selling the publication he bought from John Fairfax & Sons for $1 in the late ’80s to current chief executive Todd Scott, who will be the sole shareholder.
It’s a very competitive home loan market out there at the moment, but Westpac is hoping it can put a bit more of a gap between itself and the rest of the field with what it’s calling a New Zealand-first for homebuyers, a comprehensive online tool called www.homeclub.co.nz that enables users to collect, compare and store properties they are interested in by importing TradeMe watchlists and aims to smooth the often-frustrating purchase process by providing information like QV valuations, comparative sales in the area, multiple views of the location with Google maps, mortgage calculators and easy contact with Westpac loan specialists.
Despite the fact that Samsung has morphed from a relatively small player in the consumer electronics market into a globally respected brand in ultra quick time, it isn’t really renowned for the quality of its advertising and, in many cases, there’s a whiff of naffness about a lot of it. But as part of its Olympics sponsorship and to markt the opening of the Paralympics, it’s released a pretty amazing new campaign called ‘Sport doesn’t care who you are’—and it’s right up there in the spine-tingling stakes with Channel 4’s ‘Meet the Superhumans’.
In the past, the tobacco industry has largely acquiesced whenever regulation has been imposed on it—and whether it be forcing manufacturers to put health warnings or graphic images on packs, smoking bans, retail restrictions like those implemented recently or seemingly imminent tax hikes, there’s been plenty. But the threat of plain packaging, which has recently been given the go-ahead in Australia, has been something of a tipping point for the industry and, in an effort to convince Kiwis that doing the same thing here is tantamount to theft, British American Tobacco has taken the unusual step of launching an above-the-line campaign.
When we sat down for a chat with DDB’s new executive creative director Andy Fackrell a few months back (see full interview below) he said he was enjoying being back in the Kiwi countryside and was pretty keen to stick around if he was enjoying himself. And that’s exactly what’s happened, because he has signed on to become the permanent ECD eight months into his 12 month contract.
While most think of Isaiah Mustafa on a horse when they think of the Old Spice guy, Terry Crews was there earlier on, flexing his pecks and yelling a lot. And he’s back for more with a brilliant—and suitably surreal—interactive Vimeo clip made by Wieden + Kennedy called ‘muscle music’, where different instruments—including a “flame sax”—are played through Crews’ rather rhythmical flexing. Pfff, V Motion Project. But wait. There’s more. After the vid is finished users can perform and record their own song with the keyboard.
From NZ Life & Leisure’s Insider’s Guides to NZ Rugby World’s First XV, magazine publishers are creating more one-shots and brand extensions than they perhaps needed to in the past. And following on from the success of the 2011 special issue Everyday Dish, which has sold “heaps”, according to Tangible publisher John Baker, the Dish team has sifted a few more ingredients and moulded it into Baking Dish.
Another bumper edition of TVCs of the Week, with Tourism New Zealand, Unitec, AUT, Lotto, Telecom and Pak ‘n’ Save making it on to the (extended) dais.
With the country’s two biggest telcos each releasing big new brand campaigns at the same time, we thought we’d compare and contrast some of the follow up work. So, dear StopPress friends, who do you think is winning the communications battle at this early stage?
If Kleenex can do it with toilet paper, Kim Crawford can do it with wine. Well, kind of. As part of its Fashion Week sponsorship, the winemaker has launched a campaign in conjunction with The Business and MediaWorks where six teams of students from Whitecliffe’s Fashion School look for some inspiration in the bottle.
‘Tis peak season for academic institutions to try and convince prospective students to sign on the dotted line. Unitec has looked to the city with its new, very urban campaign, The University of Canterbury has looked to the future with Designworks, Lincoln has looked to the land and most of the other academic institutions are active as well. And now AUT University is joining in the fun, with a new brand campaign by Consortium that showcases the work of six researchers who are “helping define the future of our changing world”.
Just as New Zealand’s advertising industry is world renowned, so too is the local market research industry, routinely succeeding in the face of tight budgets, big tasks, and an ever-increasing need to do more with less. And the people and companies behind some of the industry’s recent achievements were acknowledged at the 7th biennial Market Research Effectiveness Awards at the Hilton last week, with Ipsos coming out on top as the supreme winner for the third time in a row.
Shine’s Julian Andrews goes free range, APN announces its new Herald line-up, DDB welcomes back a prodigal duo, Admission admits many, TradeMe seeks out Vivaki, DraftFCB activates a rising star, Komli launches its mobile ad network, Ngage gets its FIX and Steve Price spruiks Panasonic’s smart TVs.
Back in 2007, Radio New Zealand kicked off the Sounds Like Us campaign, which entailed creating ten radios in the style of iconic New Zealand cultural expressions, from wool sheds to gumboots to pavlovas (2007 was also the year its funding was frozen). Another five models were added in subsequent design contests in following years, constructed by the sharp tacks at Weta Workshop, and then exhibited at galleries around the country. It was a nice branding exercise on the part of the public service broadcaster, and it won an Axis Award last year, and now the concept is being extended into the wearable arts, with RNZ selling t-shirts at its new online store for $34.95.
In September last year, Coca-Cola Australia put people’s names on its cans and bottles for the first time in the company’s history. The campaign won loads of gongs at Cannes and its global marketing chief Joseph Tripodi said the idea would be exported to other markets. Now New Zealand is getting the personal treatment, with 150 of the country’s most popular names being put on millions of Coca-Cola bottles and cans “to remind and inspire people to connect”.
Around one year ago, Mi9’s Dan Robertson put his hand up to be a representative of the ‘dark side’ on the ASA complaints board. To his surprise, that label turned out to be bang on, with advertising that would in most cases generate complaints in other mediums often flying imperiously online. And, as online advertising takes a bigger slice of the pie, he thinks that needs to change.
Anyone who doesn’t use a high-rigidity 165g competition quality disc deserves to be ridiculed. And that’s exactly what Paul Henry has done in the local—and, in our humble opinion, slightly underwhelming—execution of Snickers’ ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ campaign.
Earlier this year, Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc issued a cease and desist letter to author Patrick Wensink regarding the cover design of his recent novel, Broken Piano For President, which closely resembled the Jack Daniel’s whiskey label. And, as AJ Park’s Damian Broadley and Jude Antony write, the company’s response is a great reminder that the tone and approach of any communication should be carefully considered.
Last year’s rather risky ‘Change Starts Here’ docu-ad campaign for Unitec Institute of Technology aimed to address some long-standing misconceptions about the institution among parents and potential students and led to a significant increase in enrolments. And now it is hoping to, ahem, build on that by celebrating the achievements of graduates of its Faculty of Technology and Built Environment with its new campaign, ‘We make the people who make it’.
Tourism New Zealand has just launched its 100% Middle-earth campaign in an effort to bask in the reflected glow of The Hobbit trilogy. Here’s what general manager of marketing and communications Justin Watson had to say about it.
Steph Pearson from DraftFCB and PHDiQ’s Brendan Hewitt have been named winners of the inaugural Yahoo! New Zealand Digital Stars Awards, beating out 16 other young digital media exponents.
New Zealand advertisers’ love affair with digital continued in this quarter, with the total in Q2 2012 hitting $91 million, up 16 percent from Q1. But as more local eyeballs head to international sites and more ad spend heads overseas with them, is the level of digital expenditure actually being underestimated?
Bolt-related bragging, Jack Bauer’s secret shame, certainly not your typical Toyota ad, the language of sport, Volvo goes slacklining, VW’s Shark Week tie-in, sick poultry-based beats, classy serenading and the wonder of water wigs.