Monthly Archives: May, 2014

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The Hobbit connection proves its worth as Tourism New Zealand and Air New Zealand renew their marketing vows
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While many Kiwis might be suffering from Middle-earth fatigue, Tourism New Zealand and Air New Zealand certainly aren’t, because, due to the rise in visitor numbers on the back of their recent marketing partnership—and in particular, the activity around The Hobbit movies—the pair have announced a $20 million extension to the deal. Plus: the airline also locks in a deal with New Zealand Winegrowers.

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Tickets for Fresh Marketing Summit up for grabs
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Today, the proliferation of online video, mobile platforms, online marketing, Google searches, and Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts has opened up a range of new digital doors that offer countless opportunities to marketers. But navigating through the potential pitfalls of each channel isn’t easy. So, in an effort to demystify some of the challenges surrounding digital innovations, the eighth edition of the annual Fresh Marketing Summit will be focused on the topic of connecting to customers in the digital age. PLUS: to win a ticket valued at $495, give us an example of a campaign that successfully uses technology to connect with customers.

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Rinnai rips the heatpump a new one, plays up fire’s snuggle-factor
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Heat pumps might be seen as an easy and efficient heating option these days, but perhaps because our ancestors spent much time roasting woolly mammoth on an open fire, our primal instincts mean many of us still have a predilection for flame. And Rinnai and Logan Brooke have played on those instincts—and played up the comfort factor of fire—with a new TV ad and special flickering billboard.

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Rebel Sport continues its brand story with poetry
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Rebel Sport is continuing to tell its brand story via a new poetic spot that’s narrated by the stirring voice of ex-All Black star Brad Thorn. Written by Ogilvy’s executive creative director Angus Hennah and directed by a Sweet Shop team headed by Joel Harmsworth, the one-minute spot couples gruff spoken word poetry with a gritty montage of sportspeople enduring the heaviness of playing a sport outdoors in winter.

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Inside: Touchcast
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Andrew Hawley won his first piece of business—Telecom’s youth-focused mobile brand Pulsate—in 1999 when he was still at design school at Massey University in Wellington. 15 years on and the executive creative director and managing director at 72-strong “digital experience agency” Touchcast is still working with his foundation client, albeit in a much larger capacity, as well as with a number of other big Kiwi companies that have been drawn to its attractive combination of speed and quality. He tells us how that panned out and what makes the full service digital agency tick.

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Surfing and beers: a content marketing match for Corona
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In an effort to attach Corona to a laid-back lifestyle, the team at MC Creative in Australia has created a content room on the Australian and Kiwi homepages of Corona Extra that features blog posts and videos of surfers, skaters, musicians and artists visiting idyllic stretches of the world.

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Bowl cuts everywhere in latest Vodafone spot
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Last month, when Vodafone launched its Gold Rush campaign for the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5, StopPress commented on how fortunate James Rolleston was to not have been given the same sadistic treatment as that thrown at Guy Williams for Telecom’s promotion of the snazzy phone. However, this observation may have been slightly pre-emptive because Vodafone’s latest spot, which although not resorting to physical abuse, will likely cause the actor a lingering sense of shame that can only come with seeing oneself—at primetime every night—with a bowl cut.

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Interislander’s grievous grammatical errors
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Interislander has been having a pretty rough time of it recently, with the Awatere losing a propeller in the Cook Strait, its replacement the Stena Alegra battling with a few issues of its own and Winston Peters making accusations about KiwiRail’s top brass covering up serious incidents. And it’s also struggling with its advertising.

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JWT goes back to school with University of Auckland win
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When the University of Auckland’s account came up for review last year, the general sentiment was that it was likely to stay with long-time agency partner King St. But, slightly surprisingly, it pulled out of the pitch and shacked up with the University of Waikato and JWT has picked up the slack.

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Chronicling history: a year of Kiwi journalism in video form
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Last Friday night, a good chunk of the nation’s newspaper and magazine community gathered at the Pullman to celebrate the best writers, photographers, cartoonists, publishers and—be still our beating heart—marketers and bloggers. And while the commercial seas have been relatively choppy in this industry of late, the Canon Media Awards are always a good reminder of the important role journalism plays in telling a nation’s stories. And the event’s opening video, which was put together by OnDigital, shows just how broad that remit has been over the past year.

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FCB and Colenso win at ORCA, but comedic trio steals the show with satirical analyses of ads
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In contrast to the major advertising awards shows that are typified by large round tables, three-course meals and formal attire, the ORCA Awards, held last night at the Nathan Club in Auckland, was a stripped down affair that took a tongue-in-cheek look at the ads created by the six finalists. Over the course of the event, the organisers released a series of videos of radio personalities Bryce Casey, Guy Williams and Dave Fane sharing their often hilarious thoughts on the shortlisted ads.

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APN strokes its INMA trophies lovingly
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While editorial and sales have long been uneasy bedfellows in the world of newspapers, they’ve been forced to get a bit cosier in recent years. That’s exactly what APN and Tourism Australia did for the ‘Explore Your Australian Passions’ campaign and the content-led initiative caught the eye of the judges at the International News Media Association Awards (INMA), winning first place in the ‘Best Marketing Solution for an Advertising Client’ category.

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A tale of rates and ratings: TVNZ and MediaWorks take divergent paths on price
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As Jeff Bezos says in his book The Everything Store, there are two types of companies: those that exist to raise prices and those to exist to try and lower them. Amazon is in the latter category, of course, whereas most media companies would be in the former. But Q3 has proven to be something of an anomaly, because TVNZ has decreased its ratecard prices while MediaWorks has increased them. So what’s the rationale behind those decisions?

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How to make marketing history: six hot tips for a quality TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards entry
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There are a whole heap of great marketing success stories in this country. But you’ve got to be in to win. And you’ve also got to craft a quality entry if you hope to stand out from the pack and win a TVNZ-NZ Marketing Award. So if you want to improve your chances, check out these six pieces of advice from past winners and 2014 judges Wendy Rayner, Ant Rainger, Jacqui Bridges, Michael Pryor and Bryan Crawford.

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Transformers on your phone
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With increasing numbers of eyes turning from televisions to consume content on mobile devices, advertisers are having to adapt and find new ways to promote their clients’ products or services. So, in an effort to take its content to those migrating eyes, the promotional team behind Tranformers: Age of Extinction has created a new app that features interviews, trailers and other teasers.

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Not your usual car ad
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The internet is awash with creative ‘for sale’ ads, but Swedish art director Christoffer Castor is being held up as a master of the art after releasing a ridiculous—and ridiculously entertaining—video for his bright orange 1993 Volvo 245GL, which, potential buyers will be impressed to know, is equipped with both an inside and an outside.

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Everything is connected
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By 2020 the number of things connected to the internet is expected to be around 40 billion and less than 20 percent of those will be smartphones, tablets or PCs. The data those things gather aims to make our lives easier or, in the case of a company like Nest, more efficient. And Cisco has shown that the internet of things can also be applied to outdoor advertising.

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Sweet and sour: .99 wins U20 FIFA World Cup account, but also confirms staff cuts
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StopPress understands that .99 has won the FIFA U20 World Cup account after a competitive pitch that involved what is thought to have been four agencies. But it isn’t all good news at the agency at the moment. It has also been confirmed that .99, like its fellow Clemenger-owned agency Colenso BBDO, is currently in the process of letting some staff members go. PLUS: TVNZ wins rights to broadcast 22 games during for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

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