Monthly Archives: June, 2014

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Art meets advertising: Y&R commissions LA artist for new Blunt campaign
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The debate as to whether advertising is art isn’t new. The lines between these two disciplines are so blurred that Proctor and Gamble has donated over 5,000 of its advertisements (dating back to 1882) to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. And now, Y&R NZ has further contributed to the conflation of these disparate worlds by commissioning well-known and well-moustached LA artist Michael C Hsiung to illustrate the imagery for a new range of posters for a Blunt Umbrellas campaign.

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Hell launches its next wild pizza, embroils Aussies in kangaroo hostage drama
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When Hell launched its rabbit pizza a few months back, Barnes, Catmur & Friends created the world’s first rabbit skin billboard to promote it. That caught plenty of attention and helped generate some impressive sales stats and now Hell is back with its next wild pizza, the kangaroo-laced Boomer. And this time its marketing campaign consists of holding Australia to ransom.

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Skinny Mobile gives DNA the keys to its consortium
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Telecom-owned Skinny Mobile has had a fairly schizophrenic first few years, shifting from a youth brand with a big focus on events and social media to a value brand with more focus on traditional channels. It’s also had a few different big cheeses and launched a number of different brand campaigns through Saatchi & Saatchi and, most recently, Young & Shand. But now it’s appointed DNA as its lead brand and marketing agency after a “thorough review of its business and brand strategy”.

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TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards finalists announced
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Now that the Cannes hangovers have subsided and that the lions have been placed on the mantles, attention can shift to the local awards scene, which is currently gearing up for the 23rd edition of the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards after last week’s announcement of the finalists.

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MediaWorks unveils The Edge TV
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The creative team behind The Edge TV were in the MediaWorks offices until the wee hours of Friday morning, putting together the final pieces for the Edge TV, a project that was first announced in April. PLUS: the network stoush continues.

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BrandWorld joins forces with Niche Media to reach more ethnicities
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Advertising solely in English just doesn’t cut it anymore, Aucklanders. The city has the highest percentage of overseas-born residents in the country – 2013 census data says it’s a whopping 40 percent. Over 1 in 5 people are Asian in Auckland, and Hindi is now the fourth most common language in New Zealand, after English, Maori, and Samoan. And don’t breathe easy, Wellington – 25 percent of you were born overseas, too. That’s what Brandworld noticed, and so the content marketing company signed an agreement to work with ethnic media specialist Niche Media to get to work on this diverse audience.

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Author of ‘The Little Prince’ remembered in poetic TVC
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Before Antoine de Saint-Exupéry penned the widely loved novella The Little Prince, he worked as a pilot at the airline that would come to be known as Aerolíneas Argentinas. Using this fact as a premise, Buenos Aires-based creative agency Madre has created a poetic spot that’s driven by the actual words of the author, who is disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1944.

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APN and Fairfax near printing agreement – are there job cuts on the horizon?
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Earlier today, Fairfax Media Limited and APN News & Media Limited announced a proposed printing agreement that will see a consolidation of the pair’s printing processes in the upper North Island. Under the arrangement, APN will provide printing services to Fairfax in New Zealand for several newspapers at its Ellerslie facility, including the Waikato Times, Sunday Star-Times, Sunday News and other community titles. “The deal has not yet been finalised although the high-level terms have been approved,” says an APN spokesperson.

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Cannes 2014: Getty broke visual stereotypes with #RePicture
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The #RePicture hashtag was in fullforce at the Cannes Lions 2014. It was Getty Images’ way of getting people re-thinking the way they look at the world, to let go of stereotyped visuals that are usually used to describe people and concepts. As Getty Images says, “It has often been said that if we can visualize it, we can create it, including a better world. And we can – using pictures, platforms, and influential channels such as media and advertising to ignite important cultural shifts.”

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Skinny Mobile and DNA relaunch website targetting mindsets
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Last year, Skinny Mobile’s selfie-billboards and teen stock imagery were kicked to the curb, when the company rebranded itself to appeal to a wider (and more lucrative) audience than 16-25 year olds. A year in the making, Skinny has now also reskinned website – and, unlike a recent TVC, the new skin has a slick design and user experience journey.

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Torture pays: Hell Pizza’s ‘Angry Dragon’ leads to sales surge
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In a 2008 paper, neuroscientists Siri Leknes and Irene Tracey concluded that pain and reward processing involves many of the same regions of the brain. And while this doesn’t necessarily make us all sadomasochists by biological obligation, the success of Hell Pizza’s ‘Angry Dragon’ campaign suggests that there certainly is some truth to this. Over the course of the campaign, a total of 3,526 pizzas were attempted in under two weeks, resulting in the use of 63.25 kilograms of ghost peppers, which measure one million Scoville heat units, and 87.1 litres of Dragon’s Fury Sauce.

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Success follows Kiwis from Cannes to Palm Springs
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Only a few days after picking up a few lions at Cannes, Saatchi & Saatchi’s creative director Corey Chalmers found himself among the winners at the Palm Springs Film Festival. Pitted against over 300 entrants from across the world, Chalmers’ film ‘Whisker’, which tells the story of man trying to win a beard-growing competition, walked away with the prestigious Future Filmmaker Award. The film was a collaborative effort, in the sense that it was written by Chalmers and then directed and produced by Steve Saussey and Yoland Dewey of Stuff and Nonsense Ltd.

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Colenso and Barnes, Catmur and Friends lead Kiwi charge in the Global Effie Effectiveness Index
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Earlier this week, the 2014 Global Effie Effectiveness Index results were released and, for the third time in a row, Colenso BBDO has been listed as one of the top 10 most effective agencies in the world. The results also came with good news for Barnes, Catmur and Friends, which finished fourth in the world among independent agencies and first in the Asia Pacific region.

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Big brands jumping on the Suarez biting bandwagon
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There has been a crazy number of brands trying to associate themselves with the World Cup in any way possible. What is awesome to see is brands using social media to jump on all things World Cup related as soon as they happen and put their own, brand related spin on them.

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3D printing gives trash a second life
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Last year, Hallenstein Brothers partnered with Ekocycle, to produce a range of suits made entirely out of recycled plastic bottles. Now, the Coca-Cola environmental initiative is being taken a step further thanks to Cube, a small-scale 3D printer that transforms plastic Coke bottles into a range of different items. In a short video uploaded onto YouTube earlier this month, Ekocycle co-founder and ambassador will.i.am delivers a short presentation on some of the items that the 3D printer can be used to make.

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A shirt that moves while watching a footy game
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In a new way of engaging sports fans, the Foxtel Alert Shirt lets wearers feel the footy game as its being played, creating fluttery movements when players are nervous, and a feeling of impact when they’re struck. Does this mean we’ll soon be able to feel Luis Suarez’s bite for ourselves?

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Lifting the Lightbox lid: a look inside Telecom’s new digital venture
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Ever since Telecom was legally precluded from using the ShowmeTV name, the industry has been curious as to what moniker would be introduced as a replacement. Since that debacle three months ago, Telecom’s digital ventures (TDV) unit has been very cagey about releasing any further information about its online TV offering. But now that all has been revealed, we sat down with head of programming and local content Maria Mahony to find out more about what Lightbox offers.

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Parking spots on demand
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Theres an app for everything these days. From one that tells you the best time to go for a pee during a movie to an app that prevents embarrassing drunk dials, it’s amazing that we don’t have an app that reminds us to blink. Now, adding to the list of ridiculous apps, theres one that sells public parking spots.

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WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg on taking over the world one blog at a time
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WordPress has become synonymous with blogging and online writing. And while there’s no guarantee of the quality of the content released via the interface, Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg has effectively democratised online publishing, making it possible for everyone from the emo teen to the food-loving grandmother to share their thoughts online. The tech entrepreneur recently stopped off in New Zealand, and Idealog sat down to with him to find out a little more about what makes him tick.

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Are these the end times of the traditional media agency?
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With the emergence of channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, the role of the traditional media agency is being challenged, changing and by some predicted to crumble completely. ZenithOptimedia’s business director Alex Lawson questions whether we still need a media agencies when everything can go out digitally and for free.

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TRN launches Auckland radio station, extends ZM brand onto TV
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TRN has announced the launch of a new Auckland-based radio station and the extension of the ZM radio brand onto TV in the same week that MediaWorks is set to unveil the Edge TV. We chatted to chief content officer Dean Buchanan about these moves. PLUS: Radio Sport relegated to AM and TRN crashes The Edge TV launch party.

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