Monthly Archives: September, 2013

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Plastic Apple
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Apple found plenty of success when it added some colour to its iPods. And while some think Steve Jobs would be rolling in his grave over the company’s shift to cheaper handsets, that’s where the company is headed after it announced the launch of the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S. And it’s released an ad via TBWA\ to promote its colourful models.

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Eyes wide shut
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Just when we thought we’d seen the heights of interactivity with the online video Just a Reflektor, where you can control special effects using your phone, Virgin Mobile has stepped it up another notch with Blinkwashing.

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Beyond the Flickrverse: Getty’s top selling Flickr images
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Flickr and Getty Images joined forces a few years back to build a platform that would enable the creation of a first class collection of royalty free and rights managed photographs. Photographers can submit their efforts to the Getty Images Call for Artists group and the Getty Images creative team then reviews photos, looking out for images they feel are marketable based on their expertise and inviting new photographers to join. There are now more than 600,000 images (and counting) from over 115 countries available to license (check out the full gallery here) and Getty has compiled the top-sellers globally.

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NZ’s Got Talent ratings take a hit
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The season debut of New Zealand’s Got Talent got a less rapturous audience reception, with the 90 minute episode getting an average audience of 611,100 for those aged five plus watching live and played back on the same day, although consolidated Nielsen data wasn’t yet available.

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The Business goes ballistic for iSite Media campaign
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iSite recently launched its new highly targeted outdoor media planning service. And in an effort to show it off to media agencies and marketing professionals, its new agency The Business took a very literal approach to the concept of shooting an ad.

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Vodafone’s creepy ‘kidults’
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Vodafone has had a rough time of it in Australia recently, losing 1.5 million customers since 2011, facing the threat of a class action suit by unhappy customers and reporting a massive AU$899 million loss last year. Now it’s reintroducing the brand to the nation and asking consumers to ‘Discover the New’—and it’s done it by creating a fairly strange campaign that aims to get mobile phone users to see the world like a child again.

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Blazed as: NZTA and Taika Waititi get colloquial to target Maori drug-drivers—UPDATED
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A few weeks back NZTA and Clemenger BBDO launched the second phase of its drug driving campaign, ‘Shopkeepers’, which used humour to create awareness around the fact that having a toke before getting behind the wheel wasn’t safe, despite beliefs to the contrary. And, just as it did with Legend, it’s followed that up with an ad/short film aimed at the Maori community that shows how children view the behaviour of their blazed parents.

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Gracious in defeat … mostly
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Predictably, David Cunliffe won the Labour Leadership battle. Perhaps just as predictably, given the united show the party needs if it’s going to give National a run for its money at the next election, Cunliffe’s leadership rivals were gracious in defeat. The exception, perhaps, was dark horse Ned Stark.

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iHeartRadio app breaks 10,000 downloads mark
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The full launch of the Radio Network’s internet radio service iHeartRadio has had a boost from social media activity around the recent free concert featuring Kiwi artist Lorde. The app has clung to the top free music app spot in the Kiwi iTunes store since it launched.

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Toilet humour
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We’ve seen it before with Dollar Shave Club—both the blades and the wipes—and tampon subscription service Hello Flo. And now there’s a new entrant into the entertainingly crass and completely over the top online ad annals: Poo-pouri.

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Stone the crows
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Mexican restaurant chain Chipotle’s brilliant ‘Back to the Start’ campaign used animation, emotion and a celebrity cover to tell the sorry story of industrialised food production. It caught plenty of attention and won plenty of awards for its trouble, including a couple of Cannes Grand Prix in film and branded content. And it’s following the same strategy for the follow-up, The Scarecrow.

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Make your company a social animal
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Company leaders afraid of losing control by using enterprise social networks should know their company needs to communicate with networks as much as individuals using personal social media, says Yammer’s co-founder.

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Necessarily fresh
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Here we have the Old Spice guy riding a horse backwards – over the in the US the brand is getting fresh with a new series of commercials for its association with the NFL.