InfoPages provides brands with profile pages which aggregates the content they release on Scoop. The profiles can include a logo, media and business contacts, and a description of the company.
Every year for the past eleven years, teams of furious filmmakers—some amateur, some professional—from around New Zealand have given up two days of their lives to partake in the Rialto Channel 48 Hours, “New Zealand’s largest guerrilla filmmaking competition”. 44 teams took part in 2004 and more than 800 took part this year. And a team with some strong connections to the world of marcomms were named as grand champions.
In a recent column in NZ Marketing (and again in StopPress) John Baker expressed some opinions on the recent launch of Standard Media Index (SMI) in New Zealand and on media agencies in general. Paul Head, the chief executive of CAANZ, responds to some of the specific comments on behalf of its member media agencies.
Yukfoo is now in its teens and all the pimply awkwardness it implies. To celebrate, the studio has released a showreel of its earliest works – including this infamous bunny-laden piece for Vodafone New Zealand.
Ex-Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide chief operating officer, STW director, Assignment Group don and butter aficionado Peter Cullinane offers up some hard-earned pearls of advertising wisdom.
Radio New Zealand isn’t known for being the hippest network on the airwaves, but the public broadcaster is launching a new brand aimed at bringing in the youth.
PopPress was quite partial to the recent poster campaign by New York PBS Station Thirteen that skewered the types of reality shows likely to be put on mainstream TV these days (and in so doing, show how it offers quality content and raise some money to create it). And after Knitting Wars (‘It’s Sew On’), Married to a Mime (‘She’s Got Plenty to Say’), The Dillionaire (‘Life’s a Pickle’), Bayou Eskimos (‘Their Life is Headed South’) and Big Bad Bag Boys (‘Clean up on Every Aisle’), it’s followed up with three trailers for fake shows Meet the Tanners, Clam Kings, and Long Island Landscapers.
Just as many writers are under the pump as editorial budgets shrink, many photographers are having a fairly rough time of it too, with the Chicago Sun Times’ recent decision lay off all its full-time snappers clear evidence of changing times. But it’s not all fire and brimstone, and the world still loves quality imagery, so in an effort to showcase the work of some of New Zealand’s best commercial photographers, the Advertising & Illustrative Photographers Association has launched a new platform called Cliq. PLUS: heaps of eye candy.
What would the iconic sci-fi classic Star Wars look like if George Lucas was an Australian (and a pretty hyperbolic stereotype of one, to boot)? Well now you know, thanks to this little spoof. Buggery wallabies, it’s good.
Pass The Idea, a cloud-based service that ‘helps everybody have more, better ideas’, has worked with local companies like DB, Frucor, Ara Wines and NZ Lotteries. It’s also got a few more big projects on the go, and, after receiving a grant from the Callaghan Innovation Fund, the two founders are planning on taking the upgraded platform to the world.
There are a rare few brands that have nailed the ‘commercial absurdity’ approach, chief among them Old Spice, Skittles and Tango. Many others have tried to replicate it and it often comes off looking slightly desperate, derivative and cringey, as evidenced by this spot from Coca-Cola, which is asking punters to explore the world of Ahh on a new website filled with a huge array of time wasting, fizzy beverage-related games.
When Time magazine chose ‘you’ as its person of the year in 2006, it featured a little mirror on the cover. And in latest edition of Next magazine—’The You Issue – What Every Woman Needs to Know’—Bauer Media has gone for the reflective approach as well.
Looking to attach another language to my resume, I found the language teaching service Duolingo. The website takes English-language-users through the basics of other tongues.
Yahoo’s new sales peeps, Ali Williams gets radio gig and more hip hop and RnB for the whole country.
The government recently gave SkyCity the right to operate a few extra pokies in exchange for building a new convention centre. More than a few commentators were aghast at the decision to increase the number of filthy money suckers and concerned about the impact it might have on low-income families. But please, won’t someone think of the rich people? What impact will more conventions have on them? Turns out there are some similarities between the two groups because in an article in Wired magazine about the rise of meditation and mindfulness in Silicon Valley, it described another, some might say even more insidious addiction that is becoming increasingly prevalent in some areas of the business community.
We at StopPress HQ are big fans of sandwiches. Footlongs, six-inchers, club, cucumber, PB&J and even the occasional Marmite one. Putting things between two layers of bread is the best way to eat them. Which is why we’re frothing at the mouth to be giving away two $50 Subway SubCards to our readers.
When it comes to calculating media spend, the elephant in the room might just be a mammoth. And it’s the traditional media agencies that have the most to lose, says John Baker.
Old Spice has gained a reputation for entertaining hyperbole. But an architect who gets his hands dirty? That’s taking things too far.
Direct mail doesn’t tend to get the same level of attention that other ‘sexier’ channels like online or TV get. But according to the ASA ad spend figures for 2012, it’s on the rise, with addressed mail up 16 percent to $58 million. So why the increase? And is it effective? NZ Post and Key Research attempted to find out.
Burrito connoisseur Ben Polkinghorne is tackling the appalling gaps in New Zealand’s education system by teaching untaught (but ever important) skills, such as opening beer bottles with seat belts and how to get free parking (note: this one might be illegal).
Since the closure of Publicis Mojo at the end of last year, Goodman Fielder has been working with Joy, the agency set up by ex-Mojo chair and chief executive Graeme Wills. And, according to Goodman Fielder’s PR and communications manager Ra Fletcher, it continues to do so. But it also appears to be looking at its agency options.
The people of New Zealand have voted and Telecom and The Warehouse’s latest TVCs do have the X Factor.
Packed full of bullet-time goodness, Telecom’s latest ad campaign for its Ultra Broadband products brings the anticipation of high speed antics, without having to show any of it.
At first glance it’s a photo so incredible it must have been made up. A Whittaker’s van crashed into Paeroa’s iconic L&P bottle monument. The positioning of the two iconic New Zealand food brands’ logos seem to be right out of a Hollywood movie product placement. It turns out it is too good to be true.
Lawyers are scary, especially for young startups looking to make it big in the world. Buddle Findlay’s simple lead generation tool helps it get infront of the next wave of Kiwi world-beaters.
Showing good looking human specimens in their undies is a well-proven advertising strategy. Often it’s all a bit OTT, with ridiculous smell the fart acting and liberal photoshopping. But Bonds has kept it casual, upbeat and slightly self-aware with its latest campaign, leading to a win in the May round of the Colmar Brunton Ad Impact Award.
Music streaming service Spotify recently conducted a dubious survey in a few different markets to find out the most misquoted song lyrics. Surprisingly, AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, which definitely features the words ‘I was caught in the middle of a rhino attack’, or the Aussie anthem, which definitely features the words ‘Australians all let us ring Joyce’, didn’t make any of the lists.
There are plenty of changes occurring inside Telecom at the moment, and while some significant staff culling has led to an increase in the amount of out-sourcing in some parts of the business, Telecom Retail is relinquishing Contagion of one of its responsibilities.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
How’s New Zealand doing when it comes to corporate social responsibility? Must try harder, says Interbrand’s managing director James Bickford.