Monthly Archives: April, 2014

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Trustpower campaign opens full bag of tricks
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Trustpower has been offering phone and broadband services for eight years under a standalone brand, but its name naturally prompts an association with electricity. The company is out to change that with a campaign that reveals a full kit of services.

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Stepping out of radio’s dark ages: TRN rebrands Classic Hits and incorporates cross-channel content delivery
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At an ad-hoc conference held this morning at Ponsonby Central, TRN announced several significant changes to its offering. The key announcements, delivered via TRN’s chief executive Jane Hastings, chief content officer Dean Buchanan and commercial director Laura Maxwell-Hansen, were presented as part of the overarching ‘Change is Now’ campaign, which will serve to promote all the updates over coming months. In addition to rebranding Classic Hits, TRN has also invested in a multimedia studio and shuffled its staff.

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Fellet’s fake feistiness
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Sky’s chief executive John Fellet likes to keep a fairly-low profile. But he’s decided to play his part for a skit on The Crowd Goes Wild that indicates life at Sky is akin to The Office and shows Fellet giving Mark Richardson and “that other guy” a good (fake) bollocking for telling fans on-air that Kiwi fighter Brice Ritani-Coe could get a wild-card entry into Sky Arena’s Super 8 event.

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#Bringdowntheking brings home the bacon
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One of the benefits of social media is that, when used well, it can get punters to do something, unlike the vast majority of typically one-way commercial messages. And, as Simon Veksner wrote recently, “it’s well known that getting people to do something makes them more likely to buy”. To launch season four of Game of Thrones, Sky and DDB asked fans to tweet #bringdowntheking and help topple a seven-metre statue of the despised King Joffrey that was constructed in Aotea Square by Finch. And, judging by the big numbers, it would have to rank as one of the country’s most engaging social campaigns in recent memory.

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Horse’s Mouth: Jonathan Allan, Xero
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If, as suggested in the media recently, New Zealand is set to be one of the world’s ‘rock star economies’, then Xero would have to be the rightful lead singer. General manager of marketing Jonathan Allan talks about ‘doing beautiful business’.

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Radio survey results: the battle for ears continues across the radio divide
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The moment TNS New Zealand releases its radio survey results, the media industry generally buzzes in competitive chaos as everyone vies to get the often confusing statistics published as quickly as possible. Given that we all know that the storm is coming, this one of the few times when interviews are scheduled weeks in advance, questions are emailed pre-emptively and past results are collated in an anticipatory move. This year did not disappoint, and we were again given a fair dose of chaos. So without further ado, here’s a breakdown of some of the key trends recorded in the latest results.

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Hell brings new meaning to billboard skin for rabbit pizza launch
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We’ve seen see-through billboards, exploding billboards and bleeding billboards. And now we’ve got an animal-skin billboard, with Hell and Barnes, Catmur & Friends celebrating today’s launch of the new smoked rabbit pizza with an outdoor execution (perhaps quite literally) made entirely out of leftover rabbit skins.

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Vodafone goes for gold with Galaxy S5
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Vodafone is making sure it doesn’t miss out on its share of sales of Samsung’s latest generation Galaxy smartphone, the S5, with a hint of gold fever. It negotiated to offer the gold variant of the device and is putting up a bunch of swag to enthusiasts who can’t resist being first to get the new tech.

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Superlatives abound as Auckland Transport unveils electric trains via Work Communications
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Auckland Transport has rolled out the superlatives in a campaign for its new range of electric trains, which will start running in the Super City from 28 April. Developed by creative agency Work Communications in conjunction the production company Useful Films, the ‘Smarter, Better, Quieter’ campaign gives New Zealanders a sneak peek at the culmination of the $500 million project to electrify the city’s rail system.

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Put on your dancing … jeans?
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Sadly, a lot of the time content marketing is terrible. Marketers trying their damnedest to make something that will ‘go viral’ often miss the mark by a long shot. But when a brand gets it right, it’s awesome.

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Monetising slacktivism: how Colenso is making likes and shares count for something
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Abused animals, war-torn villages and malnourished, distended bellies have become common inhabitants on Facebook feeds, as increasing numbers of social media users share imagery of causes they supposedly support. The only problem with this approach is that it achieves little more than unsettling those that see these often graphic images. But rather than calling people out for their inaction, Pedigree has launched a new campaign via Colenso BBDO that makes video sharing central to raising funds for a good cause.

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ASB uses social starvation to aid St John
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Back in the day, giving up food or money was the ultimate sacrifice for a cause. But in an age when parents punish their children by taking away electronic devices, ASB is taking social media use away from its most avid team member for a week to help its sponsor organisation St John.

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Songs in the key of social
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There are plenty of songs that take the piss out of social media (one of the best in this category is College Humour’s ‘Look at this Instagram’). But you know what there aren’t enough of? Serious songs about social media marketing, like this one, which was performed at a conference and made us throw up in our mouths.

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C4 to make way for The Edge TV—UPDATED
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MediaWorks announced yesterday that it would be extending its radio brand The Edge onto television by launching a new TV channel on the Freeview and Sky platforms later this year. Described by The Edge programme director Leon Wratt as “radio with pictures on steroids,” the Edge TV will feature Jay-Jay Feeney, Mike Puru, Dom Harvey, Guy Williams, Sharyn Casey, Clint Roberts and other presenters on a daily basis. Updated with comments from MediaWorks group comms manager Rachel Lorimer and MediaWorks radio group programme director Andrew Szusterman.

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Smoked rabbit, smoking baby
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Hell is getting set to launch its new smoked rabbit pizza, just in time for Easter. And, like many companies launching new products, it sent out a goodie bag to selected media to draw attention to it. But, unlike many companies launching a new product—and in quintessentially controversial Hell fashion—it also included this unusual ceramic toy.

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