Last week, radio personalities PJ Harding and Jase Hawkins introduced the world to a culinary abomination called Sushiwi, a disturbing conflation of a pie with a sushi roll. So in light of this unorthodox use of the humble pie, we look at some other examples of pies appearing in unexpected places.
In a new series, StopPress talks to a range of newsmakers currently trying to shine lights into dark places while also keeping their own lights on and looks at whether commercial realities are leading to editorial compromise. Next up, Damien Venuto talks with Bernadette Courtney, Fairfax’s editor in chief for the central region, on the thinking behind the recent revamp of the community papers.
Google has released its half-yearly list of the most watched YouTube ads by New Zealanders, with Hyundai being the most eyeballed by us. An ad by FCB New Zealand also made it onto the list with its ad for Sony featuring Rambo the ‘octographer’.
Kiwibank has released a new campaign with Assignment Group and OMD for its Kiwi Wealth KiwiSaver product which targets women, and to get their attention it has channelled the Magic Mike XXL frenzy creating a special instalment ‘Indepen-dance’ videos to screen in cinemas nationwide before the film.
Brands are always pissing people off whether intentionally or unintentionally. One only need look at Hell’s Pizza’s or Tui’s advertising to know that. But as that old saying goes “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”, and in light of Burgerfuel’s billboard being taken down recently, we thought we’d look into whether that’s really true. Here are a few case studies and some insights from a PR company’s perspective.
Every once in a while, brands jump onto their promotional soapboxes and take aim at what they see as their competitors’ flaws. And while this type of comparative advertising has existed for as long as competing brands have been being sharing shelf space, the Kiwi advertising space has served up a few interesting battles over the last few months.
Behavioural economics is an increasingly popular topic of conversation, but marketers are only dancing on the periphery of its potential, says Jeff Malone.
Honda has tested our limits with a new ad called ‘Keep Up (faster)’ which literally makes the viewer keep up.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Industry happenings at Radio New Zealand, Icebreaker, Big Mobile, KOR Creative, Greater Group and Hypermedia.
“It’s not digital vs newspapers,” says NZME commercial director Sandra King. “It’s about the client having as many touch points as possible. If you miss the newspaper pipe, you’re actually missing a great deal of reach and frequency.”
The All Blacks brand has become a huge commercial force in recent years and the players are regularly wheeled out to participate in campaigns for New Zealand Rugby’s sponsors. While there a whole host of fairly strict rules around those appearances, those campaigns still have an agenda attached. And while we’ve seen work like Telecom/Spark’s Backing Black or, further back in time, Steinlager’s Stand by Me aiming to galvanise fan support around the team, New Zealand Rugby hasn’t done a campaign for themselves (aside from a few Super Rugby efforts). But as the All Blacks prepare to defend the Rugby World Cup, that’s changed with ‘Belong’, an initiative aimed at getting fans to show their love for the team and join the “online clubroom” Team All Blacks.
Upon the launch of the alcohol-free TAP bar in Auckland recently, we wondered how far other bars and restaurants go around the world in order to stand out. And there were some truly bizarre hospitality joints. A bathroom-themed restaurant? Check. A natural-disaster-themed café? Check. A bar where monkeys serve you? Check.
We’re sure by now many must be aware of Cadbury’s new fusion with its other product offering, Jaffas, as the new chocolate currently appears to be advertised in every supermarket aisle. And now a new TVC has been released by DDB promoting the chocolate which shows the mixing of the two products, but not in the way you might expect.
Damien Venuto chats to the team in the capital about what this win means for a brand moving away from its previously conservative image.
While Sky was officially founded 28 years ago in 1987, it was first beamed into New Zealand households 25 years ago. And to celebrate the silver anniversary it’s got a bunch of artists to capture the essence of why we watch TV. And it’s also repaying the loyalty of subscribers by offering them an opportunity to win one of 25 fan experiences in New Zealand and around the world.
To promote the Samsung Smart TV range, Grey Argentina registered the domain name lgsmarttv.tv. And in doing so, came to the realisation that .tv doesn’t stand for television as they initially thought. It’s actually the domain address for the small South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu. Having serendipitously been made aware of the existence of the island, the creatives at the agency centred the entire campaign on the island, drawing attention to how its very existence was threatened by climate change.
The Matrix made hackers cool while The Big Bang Theory made neurotic scientists slightly less weird. And now, it’s the coders’ turn, with the rise of the ‘Hackathon’. One guy wants it to go big – so big it’ll be the “sporting” event of the year for tech nerds everywhere. And it could help local businesses find the nerds they need.
Snapchat was an unofficial star of the annual Social Media Awards last night with many brands citing it as a great marketing platform to engage with their audiences, including the Blogger of the Year and People’s Choice Award winner NZGirl.
Digital piracy has certainly had a good run, but it now seems that it might be on its way down. A nationwide survey of 1,650 movie watchers commissioned by Flicks.co.nz, shows that the proportion of respondents who usually watch from an illegal source has declined from 87 percent of online content viewers in 2011 to just 43 percent this year—and this has nothing to do with Kiwi audiences being struck by a sudden bout of piracy guilt. In fact, the study showed that the percentage of people completely opposed to piracy has dropped from 40 percent in 2011 to 33 percent in 2015. So StopPress looks at how streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify are driving legitimate content consumption.
It’s no secret Fairfax is reorienting its business around digital—and, specifically, mobile—with Stuff as the central pillar of that strategy. And while managing director Simon Tong recently told us in a fairly candid interview that the magazine division had largely been left to its own devices, its main magazine brands have now been swallowed by that content-hungry beast stuff.co.nz.
This week Bloggersclub.com launched a temp division for social media management called Social Media Mentors aimed to give brands that “extra pair of hands” needed to voice themselves, and though its only early days, there has been plenty of interest so far.
Programmatic is on the rise all around the world, and across many different media channels, with a recent Business Insider report saying programmatic transactions will make up 52 percent of non-search digital-ad spend growth in the US this year. Programmatic is growing at 20 percent a year, with real-time bidding growing even faster. And while most of the ad networks claim they have checks and balances in place to ensure no dodgy ads show up and harm publishers’ brands, or no ads show up on dodgy sites, there will always be a few that slip through the cracks.
Given the growing willingness of Kiwis to pick the fruits offered by international e-commerce, NZ Post has developed YouPost as a means to enable shoppers to get their hands on items even if the stores don’t deliver to New Zealand. And to promote the offering, the organisation has now released a 45-second TVC that tells the story of Dan, a stringed instrument enthusiast, who managed to get his hands on a rare banjo even though the store, located in New Orleans, didn’t deliver to New Zealand.
While digital billboards and ad shells are slowly becoming more common in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, we don’t yet have any that can see us and talk to us. But Graubünden Tourism does.
Ahhhhh, the desk. That thing many of us spend far too much time sitting at (and slowly dying). And that thing that has been completely transformed by the technological revolution of the past few decades, as a clip from the Harvard Innovation Lab shows.
Internet users’ unbridled—and growing—love of ad blockers is one of the biggest concerns for the advertising and online publishing industry. So Google proposed a new initiative – called Contributor, which launched last year – for internet users who hate ads so much, they would pay to avoid them. So does it have legs?
For better or worse, the gravitational pull of the mobile phone has become remarkably strong. That has its drawbacks, of course, and, in a recent US study on nomophobia, the clinical description for the fear of being out of mobile contact, 63 percent of respondents said they checked their phone for messages or calls once an hour, nine percent said they checked their phone every five minutes and 63 percent said they would be upset if they left home without their smartphone. Now Spark is ensuring that those tethered to their phones don’t have to shower without them either after announcing a prototype dock designed to work with Sony’s new waterproof Xperia M4 Aqua.
Today Spark Home, Mobile and Business appointed Clive Ormerod as its new general manager of marketing.
