Monthly Archives: April, 2014

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Inside: BKA Interactive
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BKA Interactive kicked off when HTML was newfangled and Webmonkey was the only way to search the net for how to code. 
Now CEO Barbara Anderson, creative director Maak Bow and the team are mining their diverse base of work for nuggets 
to turn into products that could be used across industries, companies and the globe. We take a look behind the concrete curtain at this innovative company.

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Mad Butcher turns cleaver toward bullies—UPDATED
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A recent submission made by the Dunedin Social Services Council and Community Law Centre said that as many as nine out of ten teenage girls in counselling had been encouraged to end their lives via social media. Add to this the fact that New Zealand still grapples with a disproportionately high suicide rate among young people, and it becomes evident why the Mad Butcher has decided to back a new anti-bullying campaign that was launched by Pead PR. From now until 23 May, high schools around the country nominated by the Mad Butcher will produce two-minute anti-bullying videos, which will then be posted the company’s Facebook page. PLUS: see which celebrites have gotten involved. Updated with additional comments from Mad Butcher chief executive Michael Morton.

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PlayStation on the lesson plan at MDS
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Auckland’s Media Design School (MDS) expects its students to be producing PlayStation games by the end of this year now it’s offering the PlayStation First Academic Development programme.

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Meet the Glassholes
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‘Wearable technology’ is quickly become the latest marketing buzzword, with many expressing their love or hate for this emerging trend. With advertisers scrambling to figure out how they will best utilse wearable tech, FirstBank has taken a slightly different approach with the latest ad for its banking app.

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‘Wearable technology that a gentleman would actually wear’
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For generations, the wallet bulge has protruded, somewhat erroneously, from the side of a men clad in their slim-fit suit trousers. So, in an effort to solve this unsightly problem, the Heritage Bank, Eleven PR and tailor M.J. Bale have colluded in a new spot via Whybin\TBWA Sydney that introduces a suit that removes the need to carry a wallet.

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Sick as
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‘This is a generic brand video’, which took aim at naff corporate messaging, went off recently. And now nsmb.com has done the same for mountain bike films.

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Pandora’s founder Tim Westergren on entering the Kiwi market—and what it means for Spotify and iHeartRadio
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Only a few hours after stepping off a plane at Auckland Airport on 7 April, Pandora founder Tim Westergren sat down with us for a quick chat at the Generator, the New Zealand headquarters of the company. Although Westergren’s arrival in the country came as part of a promotional push to officially introduce the music-streaming platform to the New Zealand market after its release late last year, Pandora is by no means new to the Kiwi market. PLUS: a look at how Pandora’s offering compares to Spotify and iHeartRadio.

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Pocket money 2.0: Postr opens up smartphone screens to advertisers
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According to Telecom’s annual report, an average smartphone user reaches for their phone 150 times per day. For some, including Banksy, whose latest piece is a commentary on the scourge of mobile addiction, that’s a bit sad. But that level of interest makes it an appealing place to be for advertisers, so local start-up Postr is hoping to get brands into consumers’ pockets by serving ads on their smartphone homescreens.

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The power of one
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Big sporting events bring them a flood of commercial messages and advertisers are starting to release their work for this year’s Football World Cup in Brazil. But Powerade’s short documentary on Nico Calabria, who hasn’t let the fact that he only has one leg stop him from becoming an amazing footballer, will be hard to beat.

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How brands celebrate reaching one million Facebook fans
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The McDonald’s Australia Facebook page recently reached the milestone of one million Facebook fans and, to celebrate this milestone, the fast food chain produced a quirky ’80s-video-game-inspired cartoon that succinctly relays the full range of common interactions that brands have with consumers via social media. It also seems that McDonald’s is continuing its trend of honesty by including various references that allude to complaints from fans. PLUS: see which other brands also celebrated reaching this milestone.

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Sky and DDB celebrate 20 years of ad marriage
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In an industry renowned for its chopping and changing, there aren’t too many agency/client relationships that can claim to have lasted 20 years. But Sky and DDB have found their happy place and they’re breaking out the china to celebrate one of the country’s longest-running—and most successful—unions.

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One Show finalists announced: Kiwi agencies up for 20 awards, Colenso and Clemenger lead the charge
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The finalists for the 41st edition of the annual One Show Awards, regarded as one of the most prestigious in the world, have been announced, and Kiwi agencies have been acknowledged as finalists in 20 of the categories listed. This year, the show received almost 22,000 entries from 63 countries, and these were then whittled down to 1,229 finalists (from 463 agencies) by a panel of international judges. Each of these finalists will now have to wait until 9 May, when the winners will be announced during a ceremony at Lincoln Centre in New York City. As was the case last year, Clemenger and Colenso received the most nominations among the Kiwi agencies.

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Owner/Marketer: Otis and Sarah Frizzell
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Much like a great wagon trek during a gold rush, countless food trucks have arrived in Auckland in an effort to snatch a piece of the fast (but gourmet) food market. Standing out in this increasingly crowded space is no mean feat, but this is exactly what husband-and-wife duo Otis and Sarah Frizzell have managed to do with their technicolour food truck business, The Lucky Taco.

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Smoking hot?
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Sometimes smoking is cool on TV and in movies, sometimes it’s not, and brands move with the trend. Action for Smoking and Health (with the cunning acronym ASH) is on a mission to find out if teens think their peers are hotter with a cigarette in their hand and dating app Tinder is the tool of choice.

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To infinity with AT&T
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AT&T is showing it has a sense of humour and a personality with its recent parody of the drama True Detective. Matthew McConaughey’s character Rust Cohle is the one to get a spoof, complete with drawl, a juice box and a group of kindergarten kids.

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You say biscuit, I say cookie
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British brand McVitie’s has declared all out war on cookies and not just the baked things that come out of the oven. It’s released a Chrome plugin that will detect cookies on your computer, the data that tracks internet visitors, and blow them into oblivion.

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