Monthly Archives: September, 2012

News
Fairfax Digital looks to harness the wisdom of the crowd—and its data—with user-generated content hub
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Not surprisingly, the relaunch of the New Zealand Herald as a tabloid and the redesign of the nzherald.co.nz website have dominated most of the attention in the newspaper sphere in recent weeks. But Fairfax has a few tricks up its sleeve as well and it has announced the launch of Stuff Nation, a repository for user-generated content and a more personalised news experience that promises to “transform the landscape of New Zealand journalism”—and the way Fairfax Digital delivers media packages in New Zealand.

News
TVNZ and Contagion mix it up for My Kitchen Rules campaign
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TVNZ is currently revelling in some massive numbers for New Zealand’s Got Talent, which went from an average 5+ audience of 935,000 in its first episode to 975,000 last night. It’s got another ratings tiger by the tail with My Kitchen Rules on TV2 and, in an effort to emphasise that it is less like a simple cooking programme and more like a character-driven, drama-filled reality show, it developed a campaign in conjunction with Contagion based around the idea that ‘Some things don’t mix’.

News
Fly Buys and Clemenger BBDO tap into the ‘animals in advertising’ zeitgeist with shopping-related take on the Butterfly Effect
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The recent Why Telecom campaign recorded a series of curly customer questions and then, to make the whole thing slightly less boring, decided to employ the services of a range of talking animals. And the new Fly Buys campaign by Clemenger BBDO has also gone heavy on the creatures—and on Butterfly Effect references—to show that “Every time you swipe, something a little bit good happens”.

News
Dry your eyes mates: Lindauer and DDB fight for female freedom by showing hapless, weeping men
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In the world of advertising, the portrayal of men often tends to be split into two major categories: the hyper-masculine, sex-fuelled, beer chugging, sport-loving creature or the hapless, helpless dunce incapable of doing even the simplest of tasks without the help of a female. Of course, there are many exceptions to that stereotypical rule, but both ends of this spectrum are often seen as being low hanging fruit. But, as part of Lindauer’s Girl’s Night Out campaign, Lion and DDB have picked that fruit, put it into a bottle and given it a good shake with a 90 second TVC by the Roadmap Institute called ‘Don’t Worry Boys’.

Opinion
Influencing the influencers
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We have seen marketing messages evolve from “Hey! This is what I want you to think about my product” through to the modern day nirvana of having citizen marketers doing our advertising for us. The shift has been from the brand as the story teller to having stories told about the brand. And who better to tell these stories than the fabled mass influencer?

News
‘Deep in your plums’! More cats! Bus love! Rick Rolling! Keys! Pass me a beer! Planes! Self-promotion! Ikea gets fruity! Self-promotion! Linkage!
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Quite possibly the funniest bloopers you’ll ever see; cats get their cream—and their milkmen; you’ll never see more passionate bus lovers; Mad Men gets Rick Rolled; driving with the dogs; hey, pass me a beer; Grandads have the best tricks; Ikea embraces colour—and the power of dance; some smooth agency self-promotion; Intel follows up the Museum of Me with the musical of you; Facebook isn’t manly; the search for the Higgs Boson; how going slow is a good business model; Simpsons chairs; and more billboard tomfoolery from St Matthew in the City.

News
Friends Electric ends on a high note, finally hits BOTAB pay dirt
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The shots were downed at the door, the undies went flying onto the stage regularly and the screams were deafening last night as seven bands came together and rocked the hell out of the King’s Arms for the fifth annual Battle of the Ad Bands, a night that some jokingly—or not so jokingly—call the most important in advertising. And after being there or thereabouts in previous years, the worthy rock gods and goddess in Barnes, Catmur & Friend’s Friends Electric finally took the top prize, prying it from the cold dead hands of TBWA\, which had won it for the past two years but didn’t feature in this year’s festivities.

News
Word up: Kiwi slebs talk dirty to draw attention to blood cancer
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The Cure Kids charity song ‘Feel inside (and stuff like that) by The Flight of the Conchords and their Kiwi musical counterparts was quite possibly the best thing ever made. And to draw attention to World Lymphoma Day on Saturday, .99 and the Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand have created something pretty good too, with a two minute video fronted by TV3 newsreader Hilary Barry and comedian Jeremy Corbett that asks a range of New Zealand celebrities to name a word they hate.

News
Sustainability: Ecostore
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From the start, Ecostore has had social and environmental responsibility at its core. And even though it has undergone a complete marketing transformation over the past three years, its ethical DNA remains firmly in tact.

Movings & Shakings
Movings/Shakings: 13 September
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Changes afoot for ZenithOptimedia, Vivaki takes flight, local McDonald’s man receives top burger honour, Firebrand skims The Pond, The Press announces its new editor, George Mackenzie gets an international call-up, Waitemata smells the roses, the downlowconcept gets it Phil, The Sweet Shop nabs a New Yorker, Spikes Asia entries on the upward trajectory, We Can Create announces its line-up, and the end of an era for TVNZ.

News
Experienced campaigners think local, act global with new creative consultancy
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Well-established indie players like Special Group, Barnes, Catmur & Friends, Shine, Federation, Affinity ID, justONE, Sugar and a few others have been around for a while now, but there haven’t been too many newcomers in recent years. Well, John McCabe and Mel Turkington have added their names to the list by opening the doors of Einstein’s Hairdresser, an Auckland-based “creative consultancy” with a slogan that says: “You’re the genius; we just make you look good.”

Movings & Shakings
Stone switches sides, joins Telecom’s connection crusade
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The news that Andrew Stone had departed his post at Droga5 came a few weeks back, with consultancy, fishing and family time taking precedence over his position with agency he helped set up with Mike O’Sullivan and Jose Alomajan in 2010. And his consultancy work has taken him back to a client he knows very well from his time as chief executive at Saatchi & Saatchi: Telecom.

News
Air New Zealand and Saatchi & Saatchi tell passengers to take a hike
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A few months back Air New Zealand announced its partnership with the Department of Conservation, which is in keeping with the need DoC now has to align itself with the corporate sector and fill the financial void from ongoing budget cuts, and in keeping with Air New Zealand’s continuing environmental push. And now it’s launched a new website and video to be played on selected flights that implores Kiwis to head outside and take in some of New Zealand’s Great Walks, which the airline is the sole sponsor of.

News
Information superhighway robbery: Flip and Sugar & Partners assume the juxtaposition to point out New Zealand’s pricey broadband stats
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All-you-can-eat broadband packages are common overseas, though local ISPs are slowly ratcheting up their data offerings. But Flip, which launched a few weeks back as part of the Callplus/Slingshot network, is playing down at the other end of the spectrum, targeting students and casual users with a small 5GB and home line plan for under $50 a month. And it’s ventured to Eastern Europe in an effort to show Kiwis they’re paying too much.

News
Genesis Energy powers up for a pitch
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Genesis Energy has put out an RFP for advertising and media buying services and, given Nielsen AIS figures show it’s the biggest spender in the electricity sector, with ratecard spend of $4.4 million in the past 12 months, there will presumably be plenty of interest from the major players.

News
Study shows New Zealand’s most social—and socially engaging—brands
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According to marketing nerds, content isn’t king, engagement is. And much of the engagement between brands and consumers is taking place on Facebook these days. So, Socialbakers, a global social media and digital analytics company, has come up with a formula, crunched a few numbers and compiled a list of New Zealand’s top ten Facebook pages by size and engagement, although a few big names are missing.

News
New Zealand Weddings swaps down the aisle for up the runway
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New Zealand Weddings claims to be the country’s most stylish bridal magazine. And it backed up what it says on the tin last week—and showed that magazines can and should be much bigger than the paper they’re printed on—by putting on two shows for eight designers at New Zealand Fashion Week, with each show drawing upwards of 1000 people.

News
Tell bee-related tale, win bee-related whiskey
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Jack Daniel’s recently launched its new Tennessee Honey variety and gave bar-goers the opportunity to stick their hand in a ‘hive’ to celebrate (and it was also recently applauded for sending a more human cease and desist letter). We’ve got a couple of bottles of the new elixir to give away, so tell us a moderately entertaining story involving bees and you might get the goods.

News
TVCs of the Week: 11 September
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A plethora of televisual commercial messages that caught our attention this week, with New World, TAB, New Zealand Herald, Alzheimers New Zealand, Freeview and Max all receiving a metaphorical $20 meatpack.

News
DraftFCB backs its benefactors, Stickman aims small
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We’ve already written a fair bit about the strangely unusual approach of DraftFCB, that rare breed of advertising agency that actually advertises. And the agency behind APN’s campaign to launch the new compact Herald took an opportunity to put itself out there once again with another good full-page print ad in the ‘collector’s edition’ yesterday. And, not one to miss an opportunity for a few laffs, Pak’n’Save’s spokestick Stickman also got involved with the relaunch and featured in three contextual ads, which were also created by DraftFCB.

News
The stuff of nightmares: Ogilvy duo takes August ORCA with Consumer NZ campaign
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Two winning campaigns from the same agency fold this month, with Ogilvy Wellington’s Nigel Richardson & Steve Cooper scaring the bejesus out of the judges—James Mok and Regan Grafton from DraftFCB, Phil Yule from Voicebox and Kate Humphries from Media Design School—with their Consumer NZ campaign ‘Appliance Nightmares’ and Adam Barnes & James O’Sullivan taking the merit for their KFC ‘Facebook/Double Down’ campaign, which was written at Ogilvy just before they popped over to join DDB.

News
Utilities/Communications: Four
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As Deep Throat said in All The President’s Men: “Follow the money”. And by doing that back in 2010 when MediaWorks relaunched its underperforming niche youth channel C4 as an edgy, mainstream entertainment channel called Four, now the money is following it.

News
Retail & Emerging Business/New Brand: Z Energy
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Buy the assets of one of the world’s most respected brands. Then throw that brand equity on the scrapheap and start from scratch. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but for Z energy, the decision to create a new, more localised, customer-centric brand was a master-stroke.

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