When something has been banned it immediately becomes that little bit more alluring. Why else do teenagers sneak into their parents liquor cabinets and haphazardly smoke cigarettes. Recently Kiwi novel Into the River was banned by the Film and Literature Review Board, so we thought we’d look into this and other outrageous bans and from a marketing perspective, is a ban such a bad thing?
Rugby rash is spreading quickly among the marketing community, with tournament sponsors, team sponsors and filthy ambushers all riding that World Cup train like Tom Cruise in an action movie. We’ve already seen plenty of local activity and here are a few from the host countries.
Being a master in the kitchen requires a bit of creativity – a sprig of this and a pinch of that. IKEA has transferred this idea to its buy and assemble model in its new quirky ad, which shows the core ingredients it takes to create a tasty kitchen.
The New Zealand Defence Force, Western Sydney University, Farmers and Bayleys step up to the podium this week.
Real estate is, typically, all about the money. How much it costs, how much the prices have risen, how ridiculous those prices now are (in Auckland, at least). And there’s been plenty of money around for the real estate companies during a period of high growth. But Bayleys believes “that the true value is in the people and the relationships forged” and it’s trying to illustrate that with its new brand campaign.
You would have to try very hard not to bump into some kind of All Blacks-related product these days, particularly with the Rugby World Cup 2015 drawing closer by the day. One of these brands is Treasures, which has relaunched its ad promoting its All Blacks themed nappies, which screened during the last Rugby World Cup.
In an ongoing series, StopPress talks to a range of newsmakers to find out how those trying to shine lights into dark places are keeping their own lights on and whether commercial realities are leading to editorial compromise. Next up, Ben Fahy talks with Bauer Media’s chief executive Paul Dykzeul.
Whether its the release of the latest version of Call of Duty or a news report on a war, the representation of the military in popular culture is regularly limited to shooting an assault rifle at some or other enemy. And yet, particularly in the New Zealand context, the role of military personnel is more often associated with helping those in need, whether local or abroad—and herein lies the primary focus of Saatchi & Saatchi’s new campaign for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). Featuring scenarios based on real experiences in the forces complemented with behind-the-scenes online films explaining more of the story behind each event, the new campaign makes the point that helping comes naturally to Kiwis. And this message is particularly pertinent at a time when the Syrian crisis is the focus point of local and international debate.
The Block NZ will be returning soon to TV3 for its fourth season ‘The Block NZ: Villa Wars’, which means a new campaign, and as part of it, an ad has been released which is akin to an action movie trailer, with the contestants entering their designated neighbourhood, ready for a DIY war.
Structure, planning and order aren’t words often associated with student radio. And why should they be? The raw spontaneity of these services is exactly what makes them so appealing to the university students who intermittently tune in to listen to ramblings of young radio jocks cutting their teeth on the airwaves. And it was this rawness that FCB aimed to tap into with a series of radio ads and online videos created to promote local documentary Radio Punks: the student radio story, which recently aired on Prime TV.
Subway has released a new campaign via Ripe Solutions about how you get out of your body what you put in, as well a ‘Sub builder’ an online calculator tool designed to help Kiwis make healthier decisions around their sub fillings. Along with a new ad, Subway is also giving consumers some good—albeit obvious— advice via its new slogan, ‘Eat well, go live life’.
Visible across almost every media channel, the name Annabel Langbein has become a brand in its own right. We chat to the woman behind it to find out how she created a media empire that now has its eye on the US market.
Industry happenings at Marketing Association, MediaWorks, TVNZ, Snakk Media, Intelligent Ink and Envy Studios.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
The corporate world has long looked to professional athletes and coaches for guidance on how to perform better, how to create a positive culture and, if they’re being honest, how to grind their opposition into the dust. And ASB has looked to the All Blacks—or, more specifically, the team behind the All Blacks—to provide some pearls of wisdom for Kiwi businesses.
Last year, Tui celebrated its 125th anniversary. And it appears that the celebrations got so rowdy that DB didn’t quite get around to releasing its anniversary book memorialising the history of the brand. So to fill the book-shaped space on coffee tables throughout New Zealand, Tui has now released a book for its 126th anniversary.
A few months back, Radio New Zealand embarked on a bit of a public/private partnership and put its content on NZME’s iHeartRadio platform (before also snuggling up with MSN). Radio Rhema followed suit. And the National Business Review, which moved into online radio in February and added a personalised ondemand option in March, is the latest to add its name to the list.
While most retail advertising released today features little more than price, product and sale shouted through every available megaphone, there are also some examples of retailers returning to a more creative approach when it comes to their advertising. And the most recent example of this is the new Farmers brand ad. PLUS: should marketers focus on the emotional or the rational? Should they be doing more brand or retail ads?
VNO has launched a thermo label on its white wines that that tells the consumer when it’s the correct temperature for drinking. And to give its thermo-labelled wine some personality, it’s released a radio ad where the wine is personified by a breathy, sultry man urging the VNO owner to drink the wine.
Everyone who attended the 2015 Magazine Media Awards last night was privy to a number of glitzy frocks and suits. Here’s some pictures of the attendees working it on the red carpet.
Last night, laptops across the magazine industry were closed a little earlier than usual as journalists, publishers, editors and sales people headed to Shed 10 to attend the 2015 Magazine Media Awards to celebrate another year of storytelling across print and online. 44 awards were handed out over the course of the event, and it was a particularly good night for NZ Life & Leisure and StopPress/NZ Marketing’s Ben Fahy.
The country’s best marketing thinking and execution was recognised last week at the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards. All subscribers to NZ Marketing magazine should have received their personalised copy of the latest edition (and hopefully popped out the perforated ‘collectables’ featured on the cover). Inside you can find out why Jules Lloyd-Jones, Sam Forrest, Theresa Gattung, Chorus, Data Insight, Douglas Pharmaceuticals, Farmers Trading Company, Health Promotion Agency, Independent Liquor, Land Rover New Zealand, MediaWorks, Mitre 10, New Zealand Automobile Association, World Vision, Refresh Renovations, Sky City Auckland, Slingshot, Tait Communications and Westpac/Air New Zealand were victorious. And these case studies offer marketers of all stripes plenty of lessons worth replicating.
Korean car manufacturer Hyundai has made an impression on the Instagram scene with its latest marketing attempt. A quiz spanning 18 accounts and close to 400 images determining which vehicle best suits the user’s lifestyle, the Tucson, Santa Fe, or Santa Fe Sport.
The rise of the digital has disrupted many aspects of life: from the way we research, to the way we contact one another, to the way we lock our houses. The disruption of newspapers and magazines is common knowledge, and this in turn has affected the way cartoonists work. Over the years the Sunday funnies page has had less space allocated to the funny and often thought-provoking illustrations and many cartoonists have headed over to the digital realm. One of these is Toby Morris, a cartoonist for RNZ and The Wireless. He tells us how his craft has changed, and how this isn’t such a bad thing. We also chat to fellow cartoonists award-winning Anna Crichton and long time cartoonist Brendon Boughen for their perspective.
Through new content partnership between Marketo and StopPress, we look at how technology is being used to automate marketing processes and what this means for industry. First up, Marketo’s Rob Cooke discusses how the previously disparate worlds of brand and direct marketers are coming together.
Designworks chief executive Sven Baker was at good odds to get one of his designs through to the final four of the Flag Consideration Project given he had five make the first cut. Alas, it was not to be, and after the decision was announced a few days ago, there’s been no shortage of commentary about the chosen options, with ‘lost opportunity’ being the prevailing theme among the design community and the opinionated folk of social media. But rather than wallow in self-pity at the injustice of it all, he decided to make the best of a bad situation. And what better way to drown a few design-related sorrows than with a nice vintage.
Just over a year ago, various journalists across the industry had a TV dinner delivered to to their homes. In addition to providing a night off cooking for many, this unusual delivery served to announce the launch of Spark’s subscription video on-demand streaming service Lightbox. Since then, TV dinners have been removed from the menu, and Kiwi viewers have instead been feasting on the content offered by service, clocking in 12 million hours of streaming time via the service. The company’s chief executive Kym Niblock talks about the journey thus far.
Seeing someone smile at you is one of life’s great pleasures. And those who can see take that completely for granted. But Listerine and JWT London wanted to find a way to give those who can’t see warm fuzzies (and sell more mouthwash), so it created an app that plays a sound or vibrates when it detects a smile.
McDonald’s is having a reasonably rough time of it at the moment, with falling sales in some of its bigger markets and more trouble brewing with those pesky, transparency-seeking, provenance-loving, fast-casual fans known as millennials not really lovin’ it as much as they once did. But it’s trying to change and, as a recent campaign in Australia shows, it’s trying to be ‘very unMcDonald’s’, whether it’s through the launch of premium burgers, new branding, clever packaging or global days of creativity. It’s also looking to recruit digitally savvy staff as it aims to bring “a start-up mindset to one of the world’s largest and most iconic brands” and, in an ad on LinkedIn, it seems to have attempted to illustrate what it thinks those staff might look like.
For those of you who spot an alien-like, mirrored box structure that has planted itself in Auckland’s Britomart preccinct, do not fear. It isn’t a UFO, a force field, or time machine (although that would be pretty cool), it’s The Heineken Light Club.