Whether it’s booking flights, deciding where to stay or finding your way when you’re on holiday, the internet era has turned the travel industry on its head. Jessy Edwards looks at how some of the traditional businesses like Destinations, For the Love of Travel and House of Travel are transitioning and how new businesses are profiting.
New World, Colenso BBDO and Finch recently shot an ad illustrating just how far—or not—the supermarket would go to support netball and mixed in a bit of sponsorship-based madness to add to its brilliantly bonkers brand ads. And here’s a behind-the-scenes clip that shows how it all came together.
OK Go has produced some phenomenally creative music videos, from treadmills to Rube Goldberg machines to visual trickery (that Apple seems to have been ‘inspired’ by). And its latest effort adds to that ouevre.
The elusive Honey-billed William is like catnip to brands (and media). And after he announced his return to rugby earlier this year, Adidas swooped in and signed him up as an ambassador in May. Now it’s released a short clip telling his story as part of its #leaveyourmark campaign. PLUS: exciting jersey-related news.
ANZ holds around one third of the country’s home loan market and it’s made a concerted push to retain that—and presumably improve that—recently with a new campaign showing the frisson of buying property at auction. Last year it put its name beside TVNZ’s Art of the Architect and now it’s backing the other team, signing on as a production partner for the upcoming New Zealand version of Grand Designs New Zealand.
Like beards and Jennifer Lawrence, customer centricity is having a bit of a ‘moment’ currently. But in this rapidly changing nation, we’re not listening hard enough to what customers actually want, says Andrew Lewis.
In times of crisis, the media is meant to serve as helpful tool in keeping the public informed. However, with the recent increase in the number of ebola cases around the world, some arms of the American media have seemingly lost their minds and resorted to blatant fear mongering instead. Here’s what a few comedians think about the ebola madness going on at the moment.
We live in increasingly visual times. And no-one’s got time to read those pesky words anymore. So every week we’ll choose a few of our favourite graphs. In honour of the heated discussion around magazines on these pages in recent days, here’s a couple that show what’s been happening to magazine circulation in New Zealand over the past ten years.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Travel review website Trip Advisor is the king of user-generated content, and it’s recently backed that up by running a competition for fan-made ads.
Between Two Ferns is a big favourite of those who prefer their chat shows awksome, and it hit the big time when president Obama stopped by to talk about the affordable healthcare act a few months ago. Now, after a bit of a break, Zach Galafianakis has returned ans his latest victim is Brad Pitt/Bradley Pitts/Bart Pit. And there’s even a cameo from Louis CK.
Industry happenings at TVNZ, EstarOnline, Postr, Trilogy International, Affinity ID, New Zealand Direct Marketing Awards, Zomato and Porter Novelli.
Earlier today, Sky officially announced it has signed another five year deal with Sanzar and NZ Rugby, giving it the rights to the precious code until 2021. And at its AGM at the Langham, it had more good news for investors and subscribers, announcing some impressive numbers, detailing how it will soon be embracing internet-delivered television and launching its SVOD offering Neon.
After a competitive pitch, Meridian Energy is thought to have given its business to Barnes, Catmur & Friends, bringing an end to a four-ish year relationship with Assignment.
Z Energy has followed in the footsteps of New World and Countdown by launching a campaign that gives customers the opportunity to collect a series of collectibles when spending a certain amount of money. Dubbed ‘Blokhedz’, the campaign features a series of 16 stackable figurines, based on superheroes and villains from the DC comic franchise, which consumers can collect if they spend more than $40 either in-store or on petrol (purchases of tobacco products cannot be used to redeem BlokHedz).The campaign—which was created by JWT as the lead agency, MBM and Mediacom for media, and Heyday for digital—is currently being promoted via a short YouTube clip and a specially dedicated section of the Z Energy website, which features profiles of all the characters available for collection.
On 19 October, the NZ Herald ran a story promising Kiwis a long, hot summer Labour weekend. And if the modern art of divination known as weather reporting is anything to go by, then this could signal the start of the warmer months to come. And given that Kiwis are likely to spend more time outside over the next few months, Stihl, Ryobi and AEG have launched campaigns on the range of products that Kiwis might be inclined to use during their gardening endeavours under the summer sun.
McHugh Media’s Mindfood is getting set to celebrate its seventh birthday next year and it’s been one of the local publishing industry’s great success stories. Now it’s welcomed its first major brand extension to the family: a bi-annual glossy fashion magazine called Style.
In 2009, at the age of 43, well-regarded suit and strategist Andy McDowell was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and, over the last two years, his condition has deteriorated substantially, making it difficult for him to continue working. As an industry stalwart, who launched The Department of Marketing in 2008, previously worked at FCB and Ogilvy & Mather, and also owned Nebula Marketing, McDowell has left an indelible mark on the lives of many in the Kiwi advertising space. And for this reason, a collection of advertising agencies have grouped together to raise funds to support him.
Known for bucking against the trend of plain-as-Jane packaging for grocery house brands, Foodstuffs’ latest investment into the design of its Pams flour range is proving to be a winner, with Auckland-based agency Brother picking up a gold award at the 2014 Pentawards, a global competition which recognises the best of packaging design.
Steven Adams’ entertaining teaser video ‘Secret Codes’ for Spark’s mysterious basketball-related campaign clocked in with over 72,000 views—and all without any paid media support. Now he’s back for the second instalment, once again alongside Reggie Jackson, and it looks like he’s planning on doing something about the poor state of New Zealand’s outdoor courts *wink, wink*.
Following on from the NZ Herald and Fairfax, MediaWorks has now improved its mobile video capabilities by launching MVOD, an offering billed as “a social, local, mobile-friendly video” service that is available across channels. This means that, in addition to the content available on 3Now, users can also easliy access the quirky videos produced on a daily basis for MediaWorks’ other media properties, including radio and news personalities.
Despite the ongoing hoaxes over the years, the date of the future that’s shown on the DeLorean in the 1985 movie Back to the Future 2 is around one year from now (check out the countdown clock if you need to check). And in a case of life imitating art, there has been much frothing at the collective mouth over the past few days on account of a Kickstarter campaign that claims to have invented the world’s first real hoverboard.
The founder of The Warehouse, Sir Stephen Tindall, is putting plenty of energy into philanthropic causes these days. And the chief executive of The Warehouse Group, Mark Powell, has given the brand a boost with the promise of a living wage for some staff and discussions about the size of his own salary. And, as part of the company’s communities and environment strategy, it’s also built a high-tech truck for Noel Leeming that promises to bring the wonders of technology to New Zealand’s most remote and least advantaged communities.
YouTube is continuing to push the massive appeal of its online personalities and the possibilities that exist for advertisers to get involved with them as part of its Google Preferred plan. Last year, it took to TV in the US to promote the channel with ads featuring Michelle Phan, Bethany Mota and Rosanna Pansino and it followed that up with ads starring Epic Rap Battles of History and Vice News. Now it’s employed the services of The Slow Mo Guys, who have 4.5 million subscribers and have clocked more than 438 million views of their videos to date.
The competition for Kiwi listeners, artists and advertisers is on, with music streaming companies like Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio innovating rapidly to out-do each other down under, with analytics offers, better content and new ad units. StopPress looks at what tunes the providers are playing to try and increase their numbers. PLUS: Lorde-related stats!
To target young males for the upcoming release of Kiwi film The Dead Lands, Mobile Embrace has created a mobile game that features the protagonist Hongi, played in the film by actor James Rolleston, travelling along a green landscape.
The three-year epic journey of collaboration that Air New Zealand and The Hobbit series have undertaken is finally being concluded with a blockbuster of a safety video filmed by Taika Waititi that features cameos from Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Dean O’Gorman (Fili the Dwarf), Sylvester McCoy (Radagast) and Sir Peter Jackson. PLUS: how the campaign has impacted visitor arrivals.
Late last year, Bauer launched its Woman’s Day recommended extension, with food columnist and past MasterChef NZ (RIP) winner Chelsea Winter wheeled out in an attempt to transfer some of her cachet to advertisers. And after launching the womansday.co.nz website last month, it’s taken that idea into the digital realm for the first time, with Unilever’s Persil brand the first beneficiary.
At over $400, the Oculus Rift headset isn’t exactly something that most Kiwis would be willing to splash out on. Fortunately, there is an alternative option for those who want the virtual reality experience without the hefty pricetag attached. For the sum of US$24.95, those who don’t want to incur credit card debt can get the virtual reality experience via the DodoCase, a virtual reality headset made almost entirely out of cardboard.
Spark is on a mission to win over the Kiwi masses by offering deals that match the changing habits of its audiences. This started with the telco giving its subscribers access to Spotify Premium, and it is now being continued with a new offer, dubbed Socialiser, that gives social media consumers one gig of free data per month to use via the Twitter and Facebook apps.