Monthly Archives: March, 2016

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Outdoor advertising: will there ever be too much?
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Take a look outside and you will see the outdoor advertising industry is booming. Traditional billboards are now competing with digital displays for attention and OMANZ is celebrating a record year. However, is there, perhaps, too much outdoor advertising cluttering public spaces? We chat to OMANZ chair and iSite CEO Wayne Chapman about whether there might be a case of too much of a good thing in the outdoor industry.

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The human perspective
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Getting people to care about the Arctic isn’t easy. It’s far away from pretty much everywhere and very few people will ever visit it in there lifetimes. This disconnect is something that Greenpeace tries to overcome every time it releases a new ad campaign. And in an effort to drum the message home, the oraganisation’s latest campaign tells the story of someone anyone could connect with: a young, creative child.

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Adios amigo
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Since 2006, the actor Jonathan Goldsmith has graced Dos Equis ads as ‘the most interesting man in the world’. However, his influence has now gone intergalactic as he has taken a one-way trip to Mars.

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Uniting against ad blockers
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The growing prominence of ad blocking is proving a major headache for online publishers that rely on advertising to finance their businesses. And with every new person that downloads an ad blocking software, the problem only becomes bigger. Well, Swedish publishers may have found a means by which to stop the software from undermining their ability to sell ads—and it comes in the shape of teamwork.

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Contagion @ SXSW: Fritha Hookway on key trends, Kiwi innovation and what we can learn from China
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In what has been something of an annual pilgrimage over the last few years, Contagion’s social influence director Tom Bates headed to the SXSW festival again this year. And during the early part of his visit, he caught up Contagion alumus Firtha Hookway for a brief chat on what she’s been up to and what she thinks marketing and advertising types should be focusing on in 2016.

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Child Cancer Foundation calls on Kiwis to help kids fight the big C monster
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We often use the phrase “fighting with cancer” to describe cancer patients’ battle against the disease. And that’s because it’s perfectly accurate. These people are fighting for survival, which is one of the biggest and most important battles anyone could fight. The Child Cancer Foundation has rendered the idea of a fight as literally and creatively as it could in its latest campaign, featuring brave children battling a representation of their cancer for the Child Cancer Foundation’s annual appeal.

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Cluedo and Boobs: ‘FCBoob’ wins the Axis agency challenge
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For this year’s edition of the Axis Agency Challenge, ad folk were asked to click on the online Rand-O-Matic machine, which served up random couplings of words that had to be combined into a creative idea. An opportunity of unbridled creativity is not something agency folk shy away from, and few creatives across ad land dedicated some of their already packed schedules to finding amusing ways to combine the incongruous words spat out by the Rand-O-Matic. Of all the bizarre ideas that emerged, none entertained the judges quite as much as FCB’s titillating reinterpretation of Cluedo.

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The movement against outdoor advertising
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In both the real world and online world, advertising is rife. Billboards block the view of public spaces while pre-roll ads stand between audiences and their videos. But is there a way to stop it? A public access project, the law and even an app suggest there is.

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The dark side of SEO: reputation management, article spinners and ethical dilemmas
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In 2008 Canadian musician Dave Carroll was travelling with United Airlines. During a layover he heard a fellow passenger remark that baggage handlers on the tarmac in Chicago were throwing guitars. He arrived at his destination only to discover his $3,500 guitar was severely damaged. After an unsatisfactory response from the airline, he used his musical talent to create a song he dubbed ‘United breaks guitars’ with a music video and all. The song went viral and the incident created a PR disaster for the airline. But now, when Googling the airline, there is no mention of the incident. This is an example of the power of search engine optimisation (SEO) and its role in protecting brand reputation. We chat to Pure SEO’s Richard Conway about this idea and the threat of negative SEO.

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Borat vs. the iPhone
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In the same way Apple aims to revolutionise the world with its products, Sacha Baron Cohen wants to revolutionize the world with his characters.