Monthly Archives: May, 2015

News
Harcourts gets hashed
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Real estate is regularly in the news, especially given the massive price increases in Auckland. But real estate conferences generally aren’t. That changed today because while the real Harcourts conference was going on at Sky City, its #harcourtsconference hashtag was hijacked by a range of Twitter users (led by Guy Williams) who all took their frustrations out on Australia’s third most dishonest profession. Here are some of the best.

News
Colenso BBDO and My Dog make sure our canine friends aren’t forgotten with airport campaign
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Often when we travel abroad we tend to bring back some kind of gift or souveneir for our loved ones (for those who have children it is often unquestionably expected) but the ones who miss out tend to be our faithful canine companions, who are often first to the door. Colenso BBDO and My Dog channel this idea in a new campaign called ‘The one who misses you most’ which allowed travelers to purchase a bit of a treat for their dogs on the way home.

News
TubeMogul report shows rise in mobile and pre-roll ad inventory, but viewability drops
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As advertisers continue to shift more of their ad spend online, they are looking for ways to ensure their messaging reaches the desired target audiences in the swirling mass of zeroes and ones that make up the interwebs. And given that there are more places to advertise than ever before and that audiences seamlessly shift from local to international sites, this has led the the growing popularity of programmatic ad-buying platforms. Over the last few years programmatic platform provider TubeMogul has been tracking the growth of programmatic ad buying, and the company has recently released its first quarter statistics for Australia and New Zealand.

Opinion
And another thing: how to win an award at Cannes
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Advertising awards are very important. We know this because there are a lot of them and agencies spend a fortune entering them. Almost all of this money is wasted, says Paul Catmur, so here are some are some insider tips for those wishing to improve their odds.

News
Devise documentary, win tickets to Documentary Edge
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Now in its tenth year, the Documentary Edge Festival kicks off in Auckland next week and in Wellington in early June. As per usual, the festival offers a range of audio-visual delights from here and around the world to whet creative appetites. So suggest a topic in the comments that deserves a documentary—such as the untold story of how long pies spend in the warmer at the dairy, the secret history of prime ministers and ponytails or a sordid expose on the media industry’s descent into click-fuelled madness—and we’ll give the best effort two tickets to a screening of their choice.

News
‘This is not my photo!’
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Sadly, hair doesn’t just reappear on bald heads, but in this clever campaign called ‘The Hair Giveback’ for Regain it does, albeit in photo-form. The agency behind the campaign, Grey Advertising Bangladesh, sneakily collected photos of the baldies who headed into a local shop to have their passport pictures taken and then digitally added a full and naturalistic crop of hair to the images whilst secretly filming the whole shenanigan.

News
Hi ho silver anniversary
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While Sky was incorporated in 1987, its social channels were drawing attention to its 25th birthday yesterday. The remotes have changed a lot in that time, as has the broader media market, and while it still counts over half of the country’s 1.6 million households as subscribers and raked in record profits last year, there’s no doubt the competition has ramped up significantly in recent years. So, in honour of this milestone, here’s a story we wrote last year about Sky’s fruitful relationship with its long-serving agency DDB.

News
MediaWorks has Dancing with the Stars contestants shimmying their way across the cityscape of Auckland using some clever visuals
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Dancing with the Stars, the show that seems to be made up of Shortland Street actors, radio presenters and politicians and is renowned for its second series where Rodney Hide dropped his partner during his cha-cha-cha performance is back again this year after a six-year hiatus and MediaWorks has whipped out some convincing projection (pun intended) techniques to get us interested.

News
Meet the Mighties: Kevin Bowler
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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 Kevin Bowler’s book, submit an entry before the deadline of 5pm Friday and you could also be Mighty Marketing material.

News
Brake and Y&R engineer some emotional reunions to draw attention to the impact of dangerous driving
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The ageing process is an area of fascination for many (as evidenced by a recent Getty Images campaign showing the ravages of time on four celebrities). And Y&R found some success with its last reunion campaign for Land Rover. So in a powerful illustration of the fact that that crashes don’t just cost lives, they can take futures, road safety charity Brake, Y&R NZ and Weta Digital brought some joy to five grieving families by showing what young crash victims would look like if they hadn’t been taken early.

News
From falling down a hole, literally, to developing a mobile game with William Trubridge: GameStarter’s story
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Sometimes people find inspiration in the strangest ways, for GameStarter’s founder it was by falling down a 9-metre hole in Beijing which inspired him to create a free-falling mobile game. Now the young company has teamed up with free-diving champion William Trubridge to create a new game inspired by the urge to raise awareness about the dwindling population of Maui’s dolphin.

News
Watch out Kev, there’s a new carpet mascot in town: Godfrey Hirst sends Dai Henwood on its own regional tour
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As well as being popular with the viewers, the 7 Days gang are also popular in commercial circles, with Paul Ego voicing ads for Pak ‘n Save, Guy Williams fronting campaigns for All Good and HPA, Ben Hurley MCing cricket games and Dai Henwood voicing Mitre 10 ads, spruiking fires and taking the Eddie Murphy approach for Toyota. Now Godfrey Hirst, Australasia’s biggest carpet manufacturer, has employed Henwood’s services and taken viewers on a trip around the country to announce its nationwide flooring sale.

News
Ghost chips, anyone?
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The Jono and Ben team penetrate layers in a recent skit about New Zealand drink-driving ads, which becomes a parody of a drink-driving ad of a parody of a drink-driving ad (we could go on).

News
With this rose, I give you … increased e-commerce sales
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Contestant Matilda Rice may have won the heart of bachelor Arthur Green on The Bachelor NZ, but online clothing retailer The Iconic won the eyeballs of the hit show’s viewers. In a clever retail marketing strategy, the Australian site was the exclusive wardrobe provider of dresses for the rose ceremonies.

News
A painful countdown
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Game of Thrones is a show largely built on political intrigue, the dynamic between good and evil, the horror of war and ambition, giant dragons, the always-approaching threat of winter and the gratuitous chopping off of appendages. Of all these possible areas of interest, Denmark-based creative agency Seligemig decided to focus on the last one for its campaign leading up to the release of season five of the hit show.

News
Westpac Chopper Appeal shows the horror of waiting to be rescued
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During Chopper Appeal month, Westpac in partnership with with DDB, Facebook and Starcom released a series of four confronting videos that show the horror of a woman trapped in a car. Shot by the Sweet Shop, the first three videos play out over the course of an evening, providing a glimpse at the claustrophobia and loneliness that typifies a car crash along one of the many remote roads in New Zealand. PLUS: a look what motivates people to donate.

News
An ethical bunch: Guy Williams congratulates/violates All Good Banana buyers
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Fairtrade sales increased by 28 percent in 2014, reaching $89 million in sales as a result of more availability of chocolate, coffee and bananas, which grew the most with a 78 percent rise. And, as part of a campaign to thank Sunday morning shoppers for taking the ethical option and supporting farmers in developing nations, All Good Bananas has employed the typically over-enthusiastic services of Guy Williams.

News
Marketing needs a memory
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Rapp’s Andy Bell argues that many organisations suffer from a version of global amnesia, which means that customers constantly have to re-tell the same stories.