Last year, to launch the Madden 15 video game, EA went to town with a fantastic three-and-a-half minute clip featuring a slap-happy Kevin Hart and Dave Franco battling it out. And to launch the 2016 version, it’s taken it up a notch with a completely over the top fake movie trailer that’s riddled with stars of screen and field.
Auckland’s been the City of Sails and the Big Little City. Aucklanders have been JAFAs and (long before that) Rangitoto Yanks. But none of these holdovers from the good ol’ days of the share market boom, the America’s Cup or the John Banks mayoralties work for the diverse ‘super city’ of 1.5 million people that Auckland is becoming. And after a comprehensive review of Auckland’s economic development strategy, Auckland Council’s economic growth agency Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) is undertaking Global Auckland, a rebranding project chaired by NZME’s chief executive Jane Hastings.
With a print run of 220 million copies, the Ikea catalogue has a distribution level that any author would be proud of. And it’s only fitting then that legendary German literary critic Hellmuth Karasek should be given the opportunity to analyse the pages and share his opinion on the narrative development, characters and language used in the book. Over the course of about five minutes, the critic pages through the catalogue, delivering a very dry analysis.
You notice you are feeling a little bit moodier than normal. Irritable and a bit down, with a hot feeling in your chest that you cannot extinguish. The smallest things annoy you. Your flatmate forgets to wash their dishes, someone forgot to buy milk, you drop something on the floor twice in a row, this goes on for a few days. And then you feel it, the dull ache deep in your lower stomach, which becomes more and more intense like that feeling you get from a dead arm, but transferred to your lower abdomen. You’re also breaking out and you feel bloated, fatigued and genuinely sick. Then, as you curl up on the couch in foetal position with a hot water bottle nursing your tummy, cursing mother nature for dealing you this monthly slap in the face, you switch on the television, and what do you see? An attractive lady in a pad/tampon ad, looking at the camera, sensually even, muttering something about absorbency as she proceeds to strut down the street in a mini skirt, and you think to yourself, ‘I hate this woman’. Period.
Benevolent dictator John Key has been on a mission to convince New Zealanders that we need a new flag—from the big ($26 million for the flag consideration project) to the small (writing columns)—and he has said he favours the fern and southern cross combo. Gareth Morgan also wants a change and has pinned his four colours to the mast after running his own competition. And Peter G Deakin from Turangi (if that is his real name, eh John?) has also taken out an ad in The Sunday Star Times explaining his views and showing his penchant for the silver fern.
Malcolm Phillipps joined 2degrees just a few months after it launched in late 2009 and he’s been a key figure in its evolution from a cheap and cheerful challenger brand to a grown-up, full-spectrum telco. Now he’s set to chuck it in and head to the Waikato.
Over the last seven weeks, the DB Export ‘Brewtroleum campaign’ has been encouraging Kiwis around the country to help save the world by drinking variants in the brand’s range. The only problem with the message was that the world-saving action was that it was limited to times generally considered appropriate for beer drinking. One could not, for example, open a DB beer at 11am in the morning and persuasively argue that this was an essential act. So, in an effort to overcome this problem and enable any person to lend a hand to the Brewtroleum cause at any given time, the brewery has created DB Export 0.0% Citrus—a lemon-flavoured lager with zero alcohol content.
In an ongoing 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 the NZ Herald’s data editor Harkanwal Singh about turning big data into accessible journalism.
A timelapse video of luminescent glow worms, delicate frost crystals, a blue shark emerging from the water and a jellyfish the size of a dinner plate are among the 28 finalists of the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year, selected from a whopping 5,800 entries.
Early next month Kiwis will be celebrating Father’s Day. The one time of the year where dads (if they’re lucky) they will get toast in bed, maybe some chocolate and hopefully a lashing of affection and appreciation from the family. This is also the time when a lot of dad-inclusive advertising comes out, often promoting things like lawn mowers and DIY renovation equipment. But the idea of the dad is changing, and gradually this is being reflected in our advertising. Dad is no longer just into power tools, he also likes staying in and reading books with the kids, cooking and taking on what has traditionally been considered ‘feminine’ roles. Here’s Getty Images’ vice president of creative content’s take on the evolution of the dad and what this shows about our shifting perceptions.
Brace yourselves, parents (and weird people who like to collect things from supermarkets). New World has launched an updated version of its ridiculously popular collectables line. And it’s aiming to inspire some food science with the Little Kitchen.
NZME contributed AU$203.7 million revenue and a net profit of AU$30.7 million to APN’s financial figures, but the performance of the various arms—publishing, radio and ecommerce—of the organisation was relatively flat when compared to the figures posted in the previous year. And while Hastings confirmed that digital registrations for the Herald were going to be launched, she said that there were no plans to introduce a paywall this year.
Tourism activities are always better in the mind than in reality. And Banksy, one of the most subversive artists in the world, has flipped the capitalism-fuelled, often rather empty, completely over the top fun of the modern amusement park on its head with the opening of Dismaland, a “bemusement park”/major art exhibition on the sea in England that’s definitely not suitable for children.
Hubbards Muesli is showing a preference for the digital after launching two new social media-based campaigns: one in celebration of its 25th birthday next month where it asked Kiwis to submit their own muesli recipes on its microsite, and then share the recipes on Facebook for a chance to have their concoction hitting the shelves. The other to promote its latest ‘Outward Bound’ range of muesli, calling upon New Zealanders to share their own ‘Outward Bound’ moments.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
We’re all used to Barbie clothes and makeup, Transformers colouring books, and Disney characters emblazoned across anything made for children. But the newly-released Star Wars-themed make-up from cosmetics company CoverGirl had us scratching our heads.
In a world where search engines are increasingly becoming the first port of call to find information, Colin Kennedy says serious, rational messages compete poorly with more emotive, conversational and down-to-earth content offered. But content marketing could help change that.
Since its launch in 2007, Tumblr has spawned over 248 million blogs that today reach an audience of more than 500 million people worldwide, of which 750,000 are located in the local market. And yesterday, at launch event in Sydney, Tumblr’s parent company Yahoo announced the commercial launch of the platform across Australia and New Zealand. Tumblr founder David Karp chats about his baby going international.
Industry happenings at Ebiquity, Chemistry Interaction, Thick as Thieves, bcg2, Bauer Media, Sky and VeNA.
Lotto Powerball’s poignant tale about a boy’s relationship with his father has pulled at the heartstrings of enough Kiwis to earn the spot Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact award for last month.
Many of us have experienced late night/early morning sports games, either first hand or by association: the blue light flooding in from under the bedroom door, the sound of a crowd cheering, an enthusiastic commentator, and finally, the more familiar yell of a relative or friend who pretends the television screen is some kind portal by where the little men or women running on the field can hear them. Though these sounds should be obnoxious to anyone trying to sleep, much like heavy rain on a tin roof they are weirdly soothing. Sky TV has channelled this nocturnal nature of dedicated sports fans with its latest ads, made with DDB and Robber’s Dog, which promote its round the clock sports coverage of the upcoming Rugby World Cup 2015, and the lengths fans go to, to make sure they’re supporting their team.
Research by the US Wine Society has shown the single biggest thing you can do to help people enjoy wine is to tell them it’s expensive. And while we like to believe we’re rational creatures, a huge number of our decisions are made unconsciously. So, as our understanding of the way the brain works improves, Ben Fahy looks at whether marketers and agencies are effectively making use of this knowledge.
As the host of Seven Sharp, a columnist on the Herald, a talkback presenter on Newstalk ZB and a generous giver of opinions, Mike Hosking has reached saturation levels across Kiwi media channels. And the frazzle-haired media machine has in the last week extended his brand’s reach across social media, with his likes on the official Mike Hosking page increasing by 90,000 in the space of a few days. So what exactly drove all this engagement?
As visitors flocked to an exhibition, which displayed over-sized sculptures of hyper-real human beings, one boy looking downcast on the street was barely noticed, but this quickly changed.
Auckland street artist Paul Walsh has achieved internet fame after his transformation of the city’s utility boxes.
Half-a-dozen Kiwi Property shopping centres will soon be getting massive state-of-the-art digital screens, reminiscent of Times Square in New York. Not only that, selected centres will also be getting interactive, touch screen panels. The screens, called Evoke screens, can play high definition, full-motion video.
Idealog’s Jonathan Cotton on our oft-misplaced enthusiasm when overhyped technology doesn’t deliver what it promised and why from now on he’ll be taking the next big technology launch with a grain of salt.
At a time when new technology is increasingly presented as the answer to every problem, Damon Stapleton argues that we still need innovators and creatives to think up solutions for the problems caused by the technology we often revere.
I was once gifted a cell phone by my Dad when I was about eight or nine around the year 2000. The phone was nothing special, it was what people would call a “brick” by today’s standards (though in saying that phones are now bigger than they ever were). It was given to me because my Dad was paranoid about my safety and wanted to stay in contact with me. I hardly ever used the phone. The games on it were crap, it was in an ugly case and its functionality was limited (though my friends thought it was pretty cool). Now every eight-year-old their dog seems to own some sophisticated piece of tech. Whether it be a smartphone or a tablet of some variety. And according to a New Generations survey kids have an annual spending power of $257 million and are more tech-savvy than ever.
Australian lifestyle brand Urban List is expanding into the Auckland market and is looking to establish partnerships with businesses on this side of the ditch. The website, which was first launched in 2011 and provides content on dining, shopping, health and beauty, has grown quickly in the Australian market, attracting a following of 1.2 million unique visitors per month across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.