Monthly Archives: January, 2016

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Briscoes claims Christmas victory in latest Ad Impact round
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The Briscoes Lady, known to her loved ones as Tammy Wells, has become something of an advertising legend, appearing as the face of the retailer for over 25 years. And despite spending so much time in front of the camera, it appears she hasn’t lost her touch, winning the latest round of Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Awards.

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Separated at birth
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Mark Weldon has been busily shaking MediaWorks’ tree since taking over the role of chief executive and some of that shaking—from the decision to can Campbell Live and 3D Investigates to the creation of Scout to the most recent decision to rebrand all of its news operations as Newshub—has earned the ire of viewers, commentators and, in some cases, his own staff. Despite the fact he’s doing what a whole bunch of other major media companies are doing and integrating like his life depends on it, he seems to have received an inordinate amount of negative press for his efforts so far and some competitors appear to be joyously dancing on the grave with their coverage. We aim to provide a mix of light and shade here at StopPress, so we’ve covered plenty of positive MediaWorks stories during his tenure, but we can’t resist a good lookalike and, while we don’t mean to link their ‘management styles’, we couldn’t help but notice the facial similarities between the charismatic wine-making media chief and the charismatic assassination-loving Russian dictator.

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Is Coke’s global approach bad for Kiwi audiences?
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It took creative minds from 10 different agencies across the Coca-Cola marketing network to develop the global campaign for 2016. The result is a collection of 10 TVCs, over 100 campaign images, a new visual identity system and the introduction of a new tagline: Taste the Feeling. But some argue that this global approach may alienate local audiences that are already disengaged from the brand?

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Twisting perspectives: Kiwi brands dive into 360-degree video
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360-degree video, which has been described as the next big thing in tech for 2016, is slowly gaining traction in New Zealand as brands begin experimenting with it in creative ways. Here’s a rundown of how a few of them have been using it so far. PLUS: a first-hand account of Augusto’s experience with the technology.

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Wikipedia has the answer
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While the encyclopedia has been banished to conversations starting with “back in my day…”, Wikipedia is still going strong as it celebrates its 15th birthday. Here’s a quick look at how it’s celebrating the event.

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‘Netflix can’t buy all the content out there’ — Lightbox’s Kym Niblock
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In 2015, the maturation of New Zealand’s SVOD market was tracked in the column inches of media journalists across the industry. And this trend has already continued this year with Netflix making headlines by extending its service to 130 countries across the world and then saying that it was looking into clamping down on VPN users to ensure they can’t log into global content. We chat to Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock about what’s likely to happen in the SVOD market in 2016.

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Bigpipe continues to trumpet its speed, but is this still a point of difference?
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For many, choosing an internet service provider (ISP) is about ensuring streaming will not be interrupted by buffering. And to help consumers make their decision, Netflix releases a monthly ISP leaderboard that tracks how the various providers are performing in the local market. However, as the numbers indicate, the difference between the top six players isn’t all that significant. In fact, the average users should be able stream quite comfortably regardless of which provider they use. So, we ask Bigpipe’s Oliver Smith why his ISP continues to focus on speed in its marketing.

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What hiatus? Shortland Street fans stay hooked during the break
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Over the last two years, TVNZ has invested significantly in large-scale campaigns to keep Shortland Street fans engaged with the show during the summer hiatus. And as was the case last year, the strategy has paid off with the latest campaign resulting in over 410,000 interactions. PLUS: Shortland Street fan dresses in black to mourn the passing of Dr Wendy Cooper.

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Music maketh the film
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Imagine Rocky without ‘Eye of the Tiger’, Apocalypse Now without Wagner, Saturday Night Fever without the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’. It all looks so good visually might look nice visually, but there’s just something missing. Using this as its premise for a series of idents in the lead up to its soundtrack-themed movie lineup, on-demand platform UPC illustrates that the scene Ghost, Foot Loose and 2001: A Space Odyssey become quite different without their brilliant backtracks.

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MediaWorks finalises its executive team for 2016, appoints chief commercial officer, head of revenue and head of integration
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MediaWorks has announced via a release the appointment of Mark David as chief commercial officer (centre), a position that will see him oversee the commercial remit of the group. This appointment follows on from last year’s unexpected departure of head of revenue Liz Fraser to Air New Zealand, which left an empty seat around the executive table at the media company. In addition to announcing the appointment of David, Weldon also comfirmed that Paul Hancox (previously commercial director – pictured right) has shifted into the vacant group head of revenue role and that Alana O’Neill (with MediaWorks since 2013 – pictured left) has taken a new role as head of the newly merged integration and branded content areas.

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Can we trust research funded by brands?
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Following on from the recent controversy regarding Lion’s funding of research conducted by anthropologist Dr Anne Fox, we take a look at whether we can trust research funded by coroporations (or anyone for that matter).

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Checkpoint with John Campbell kicks off with ‘good problems’
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RNZ’s long-awaited multi-platform Checkpoint with John Campbell debuted last night, and the show caused so much buzz that RNZ’s website crashed from all the traffic. We chat to RNZ head of content Carol Hirschfield about the teething issues, the benefits of multimedia broadcasting and the overall response of the show.

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The life and times of Lemmy the Karma Cola drink lid
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When life gives you lemons, take them on fun adventures. That’s what a Marlborough schoolgirl did with the lid of a Karma Cola ‘Lemmy’ drink, which she shared on a dedicated Instagram page. Lemmy has been surfing, singing, gone on a safari, cycled and made art, and all this happened with no prompts or knowledge (initially) from Karma Cola; but, as to be expected, the brand is pretty stoked Lemmy’s living the good life.

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Bauer gives Bowie fans something to hold onto
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Last week’s passing of David Bowie revealed how popular the star was across generations, with tributes streamed in on every social media channel.This outpouring of emotion got Bauer’s custom publishing team at Bauer thinking that it presented an opportunity to give local Bowie fans something tangible to remember the legend. And this week, the publisher announced the release of a special magazine filled entirely with rare photography of Bowie taken over the course of his life.