Monthly Archives: May, 2015

News
Trade Me Property celebrates 10th anniversary, showcases weird and wonderful homes sold over the years
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Much like our taste in shoes, haircuts and dairy lollies, our understanding of constitutes the ideal home is very much a matter of personal preference. And although rising house prices has made it quite difficult for homebuyers to afford that perfect abode, Trade Me Property has over the last ten years connected various Kiwis with their dream homes—and, as it turns out, Kiwi tastes can at times be weird and wonderful. So, in celebration of its tenth anniversary, Trade Me Property has launched a digital campaign that showcases six of the most memorable houses that have been sold via site over the last decade.

News
Sparking change: five jobs to go at Rapp, Dynamo investigates new location
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Following on from the report of two departures at DDB earlier this week—and what DDB says was the unrelated resignation of Chris Riley—we followed up on comments suggesting there were more departures than DDB chief executive Justin Mowday was letting on. He referred us to Rapp managing director Robert Limb, who confirmed the staff count on the third floor of the building would also be going down. PLUS: what changes to the Spark roster might mean for Dynamo.

News
Hilarious fake Tweets from the NZ Radio Awards
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During the New Zealand Radio Awards, hosts Andrew Mulligan and Bryce Casey shared a series of faux Tweets supposedly posted by a series of celebrities during the event. Prime minister John Key, X Factor NZ host Dominic Bowden and even Queen Elizabeth (or Lizzie as she refers to herself) were victims of Photoshopped Tweets on the night.

News
Meet the Mighties: Vaughan Schwass
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The 2015 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards are ready to be collected. So if you feel you’ve performed heroic feats of marketing over the past year, take a leaf out of Vaughan Schwass’ book, submit an entry before the deadline of 5pm today and you could also be Mighty Marketing material. NOTE: Last day for entries.

News
Big interactive wheel keep on turnin’ as sector charts another major rise
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According to Mary Meeker’s latest report, online attention minutes continue to grow in the US (with mobile now accounting for over half the time spent online). And the gap between attention and ad spend is also starting to close. That trend is evident here too, and the latest IAB/PwC Online Advertising Report showed that the sector generated $180 million in the first quarter of 2015, a 53 percent increase year on year.

News
Vespa: the answer to traffic woes
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In an effort to show drivers that they have an alternative to breathing in exhaust fumes for hours a day, Vespa has released a clever campaign via Y&R Ecuador that feeds an ad onto the Waze navigation app, telling drivers how much faster they would reach their destination if they were on two wheels. While the campaign certainly does make the point that it might be time for drivers to invest in an alternative mode of transport, it will probably also contribute to road rage levels—because let’s face it, there’s nothing quite as annoying as watching motorcyclists effortlessly weave their way through traffic. And knowing that they are reaching their destinations about three days before you do makes it all so much worse.

News
IAB NZ looks to establish some ground rules on native advertising
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Content marketing and its dodgy cousin native advertising are big areas of focus for brands and media owners at present. And they’re also big areas of confusion, with no set rules on disclosure and very little data for this market. The IAB NZ’s Standards & Guidelines Council is aiming to change that and has set out on a mission to gauge the level of activity, build a resource on the topic and help educate and showcase what is currently being offered in New Zealand.

News
Spark expands its partnership portfolio, looks to solve SME headaches with apps
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To simplify the process of scouring through apps to find the best ones, Spark Digital has introduced a new offering called Spark Digital Apps that gives small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access to the core digital tools they need to run their businesses. StopPress chatted to the recently appointed Spark Digital marketing manager Mark Redgrave about the thinking behind this move.

News
Kapja’s Biz Brand Cam app lets punters share the love, opens up experiential opportunities
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We live in visual times. We also live in an age of showoffery, where the experiences we now seem to crave over material goods are enhanced through sharing (and social validation). Brands and agencies have figured out a few clever ways of getting in on the rise of user-generated content, whether it’s Instagram printers at events or social media-enabled photobooths, but Hamilton-based app developer Kapja has launched a new app called Biz Brand Cam, which it says is the first fully customisable app of its type available to download directly from the Apple App Store.

News
200,000 Kiwis are using Adblock Plus; should advertisers be concerned?
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Ad avoidance software provider Adblock Plus recently announced that it would be extending its service to mobile devices, leading Sarah Kavanagh, the acting chair of the IAB NZ Mobile Council, to raise a series of concerns about the increasing use of tools designed to dodge ads in the online space. And the extent of the issue on a local level has now been revealed, with Ben Williams, the spokesperson of Eyeo (parent company of Adblock Plus), saying that the company already has 200,000 active users in New Zealand. And, if international trends are anything to go by, then this is only set to increase over the next few years.

News
Cutting out the crap
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The vast majority of ads are an annoyance, and that seems particularly true of the largely ad-funded online realm. How else do you explain the fact that several hundred million people use ad blocking software? But D&AD and BETC Paris have tried to prove that people don’t hate advertising, they just hate bad advertising, with a web browser extension called the Ad Filter.

Opinion
Stay up with the payment play or watch the millennial money go elsewhere
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As Mary Meeker’s presentation showed, modern consumers have become accustomed to getting what they want, when they want it—and modern businesses are using technology to cater to that need. Young Male Entrepreneur of the Year, law student and New Zealand representative in business strategy, Jesse Medcalf, gives a personal account of why retailers that don’t keep up to date with technology might fall out of favour with millennials.

News
Data dump: the state of the internet
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Venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s annual State of the Internet presentation has become required reading for those interested in how the online era is affecting human behaviour—and so business, transport, security, healthcare, education, communication, regulation and pretty much everything else. And the 2015 version once again condenses the major tech-inspired trends in one handy slide deck.

News
Study shows that trendy office spaces keep employees happier
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A nationwide survey of office workers conducted by research agency Perceptive shows that 81 percent of Kiwi office workers believe the physical environment at their workplace has an impact on their happiness and job satisfaction, while nine out of ten workers agree that if they are happy at work, they are more productive. So StopPress looks at a few examples that are getting spatial design right. PLUS: galleries of hip office spaces from ad land and beyond.

News
The Harcourts ‘he said, she said’
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While the era of managed corporate communications and non-disclosure agreements means pitching is far less public than the days of clients announcing how much their business was worth and which agencies would be fighting for it, the process is still all about competition. There is a winner (and occasionally winners) and there are losers. And in the recent Harcourts pitch, which was won by Contagion, it seems no-one wanted to be a loser.

Movings & Shakings
Whybin\TBWA says goodbye to two senior staffers, says hello to Starseed PR—UPDATED
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Whybin\TBWA’s chief executive Todd McLeay had a go at industry rumourmongers telling tales of senior departures in a story in the NBR last week, and while he told StopPress he definitely wasn’t doing that in an interview in April, it has lost a couple of other senior staffers: executive creative director Dave King and client service director Jodi Willocks. But it’s added around eight more after a merger with Starseed PR.

News
A sad day in the life of a Mumbai stray
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The sad lives of India’s street dogs were highlighted in this clever clip by Ogilvy Mumbai for Mumbai-based animal welfare organisation World for all Animal Care and Adoptions. The video follows a day in the life of a stray dog, which has a camera mounted on its body. It runs through the streets of Mumbai, digging through rubbish and drinking dirty water while cruel locals kick at it and taunt it.

News
MPA embraces modern magazining with awards refresh
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The magazine industry, like all other ‘traditional’ media, is adapting to a very different environment. And so are the magazine industry’s awards, with The Magazine Publishers Association adding new categories, simplifying entry, changing the judging process and renaming it the Magazine Media Awards for 2015.

News
Lost in translation
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Local publications have been filled with all the typical Argentinean features, including glorious steaks, fanatic football scenes, and elegant tango steps. And one article in the Herald honoured the street art of the nation by using the colourful splash of some graffiti as its leading image. And while this piece of street art is eye-catching, the text featured on it is incongruous to say the least.

News
Banger baron Ben Polkinghorne puts agency life on hold, wins thing, gets set to take his meaty idea to the world
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Ben Polkinghorne had an odd hobby: burritos. When he wasn’t writing copy and winning various awards at Colenso BBDO, he sought them out, reviewed them, experimented with new varieties. Then last year he met a guy with another odd passion: sausages. And the burrito-flavoured sausage was born. Now the entrepreneur has quit his day job to take the Bangerrito to the world —and, in a nice send off, he also won IdealogLive’s Pitch Circus last night.

News
Inside: The Spinoff
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Whether it’s the dormant corporate blogs, the desolate Facebook/Tumblr/Pinterest pages or the media start-ups that kick off with a hiss and a roar, are temporarily fuelled by enthusiasm but end up falling over, the internet is littered with good intentions. But Duncan Greive, founder and editor of TV-obsessed website thespinoff.co.nz and Barkers’ magazine 1972—is confident he’s found a model that works. And it’s all based around content marketing.

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