Monthly Archives: January, 2013

News
M&C Saatchi stays on the guilt-trip tip with powerful fire follow-up
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Last year, M&C Saatchi and The New Zealand Fire Service decided to play the guilt card for the first time with an ad depicting the pain a father felt for having allowed his young daughter to be burnt in a house fire because he hadn’t installed smoke alarms. And, in a hard-to-watch continuation of the ‘Could you live with yourself?’ idea, it’s released a new campaign to show that “a house fire can harm you, long after it’s out.”

News
Dotcom scoops mega PR points
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Free ice cream, t-shirts, Kim Dotcom and the chance to attend the launch of mega.co.nz drew a crowd of more than 200 people outside of the Giapo ice cream parlour in Auckland yesterday.

News
Fairfax continues on path of editorial fusion with appointment of new Auckland chief editor
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After a restructure of the editorial department last year, experienced editor and journalist Garry Ferris has been appointed to a new role that will see him overseeing all of Fairfax’s print and digital products in Auckland, including the Sunday Star-Times and the Sunday News. PLUS: what’s happening in the marketing department and which agencies is it working with?

News
Saying it how it is
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In a world of mergers, acquisitions and acronyms, knowing your DDBs from your TBWA\s and Y&Rs can be tough going. And so, it seems, is knowing how to say them. Thankfully, some anonymous cunning linguists have come to the rescue with this slightly ridiculous agency pronunciation guide.

Opinion
The importance of being social
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Organisations that embrace the notion of a social business have the opportunity to gain loyal, engaged employees and find a competitive edge in recruiting, retention, talent development and business performance, writes Theresa Clifford.

News
Sky and DDB scare subscribers away from paper with creepy envelope licker
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Meet Lloyd. He’s got a tongue—and he knows how to use it. And, in this new spot by DDB and the Sweet Shop’s Damien Shatford, the rather weird Sky employee, who’s almost like a better-lubricated version of Fresh Up’s ‘Thirst is Creepy’ characters, is being introduced to the nation in an effort to convince the 800,000 Sky TV subscribers who receive their bill in the post to move with the times and sign up to email billing.

News
Wills slams Publicis Groupe for ‘cynical’ Mojo closure, Zenith Optimedia soldiers on
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The closure and voluntary liquidation of Publicis Mojo that was announced just before Christmas last year came as a shock—to the employees, to Mojo clients and to the industry as a whole. And in his many years in the ad business Graeme Wills, the ex-chairman of Publicis Mojo Australia and New Zealand and head of new agency Joy, claims he’s never seen a company behave as unprofessionally, nastily and cynically as Publicis Groupe has during this saga.

News
DraftFCB plugs a hole with Paper Plus win
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Earlier this week, DraftFCB announced it would be handing the Westfield baton on for ‘commercial reasons’. And a few days later it’s announced something of a replacement, as it has been appointed as the full service advertising agency for Paper Plus Group after a competitive pitch process that was thought to have involved the late Publicis Mojo, Hotfoot and the incumbent Hyde, which relaunched the brand back in late 2011.

News
TVCs of the Week: 15 January
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There still seem to be a few holiday tumbleweeds out there in marcomms land, but we managed to find a few contenders, with TVNZ’s colourful Seven Sharp promo, Animates’ accurate Doomsday prediction and nzgirl’s raunchy ‘regretgasm’ spot featuring in the year’s first round.

News
Wellington agency pinpoints 2012’s toughest PR gigs
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The modern world is quick to jump on PR fails, and they certainly make for good fodder in an age of rampant sharing on social media. But in an effort to get people to appreciate the complexity of PR issues, Wellington PR agency BlacklandPR has created a list of what it deemed the most difficult PR challeges of 2012. And the merging of Christchurch schools took top spot.

News
Westpac’s bickering oldies usurp the throne once again with Ad Impact win
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‘Flatties’, the entertaining home loan-related follow-up to Westpac’s ‘Start Asking’ brand campaign by DDB and Prodigy, managed to beat out its big brother in the Jan/Feb instalment of Campaign Review in NZ Marketing magazine after taking second place. And it’s followed that up by winning the November round of the Colmar Brunton Ad Impact Award.

News
Out of the ashes: Radio Hauraki ‘kills station in order to save it’
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“For the past few years, Radio Hauraki has been shit.” So says a very frank and rather Back of the Y-esque video clip involving petrol, a lighter and some hearty appliance violence. But with a new look, a new breakfast pairing and a new campaign via Saatchi & Saatchi, the Radio Network claims “things are changing” for the rock station in 2013.

Movings & Shakings
Movings/Shakings: 15 January
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The ham has run out, the afternoon naps are no more and the working masses are now mostly staring forlornly at their screens once again. Here are some of the moves and shakes that occurred before, during and after the Great New Zealand Slow Down, including new things for Guy Cousins, Renee Parsons, Kenny Yeon, Starseed PR, Bullseye, Senate, Mi9, and DB Breweries.

News
Third time’s a charm as Colenso takes another YoungGuns honour
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The YoungGuns awards aim to recognise the world’s best advertising and communications industry talent under the age of 30 and, after becoming the only agency in the world to win the YoungGuns agency of the year twice in 2001 and 2008, Colenso BBDO was named as the most awarded agency of the decade by the organisation in 2010. And it’s obviously no fluke, because it’s also been awarded the 2012 agency of the year prize after winning four bullets in total—one gold, two silvers and a bronze—with Contagion the only other Kiwi agency to take home a prize after winning bronze.

News
Planets set to align for cinema advertising, as Val Morgan rings some changes for 2013
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With a new measurement system that aims to shift the focus from buying screens to buying eyeballs, the rise of digital screening technology, an enhanced focus on cinema’s ability to add incremental reach, and a fully staffed sales team to show off its wares, Val Morgan’s sales director Natasha O’Connor says the issues that have hampered the growth of cinema advertising in New Zealand—primarily a perceived lack of accountability and additional production costs inherent in transferring TVCs to film—are now being addressed and it has taken steps to ensure cinema will be easier to plan, buy and measure in 2013.

News
Publicis Mojo leaves creditors $16m in the lurch
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Following news of its liquidation in a classic Christmas dump last year, a new report shows the agency owes its employees, the tax man, and trade partners a significant amount of cash – and it looks like it doesn’t have money in the bank to pay it all.