Monthly Archives: January, 2017

News
Colonel Sanders goes for gold
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Perhaps best known for playing Kate Winslet’s smouldering and snobbish fiance in James Cameron’s Titantic, Billy Zane takes on a whole new role in this latest spot for KFC.

News
Why The Spinoff needs an app
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Last week, online magazine The Spinoff launched its new app, which has since seen nearly 700 downloads. And while introducing an app may seem a natural move in today’s one-click-away society, editor and publisher Duncan Greive says the move was sparked by Facebook’s algorithm changes. We talk to him about creating an alternative distribution channel and the decision to put a price on it.

News
BMX star Sarah Walker muses on failure for Samsung
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Samsung has become well-versed in the narrative of failure over the last year, with its product malfunction costing billions. However, rather than veering away from the F-word, the brand is embracing it in a new Colenso BBDO campaign, featuring Kiwi BMX star Sarah Walker.

News
Selling what doesn’t exist: the potential of VR
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Whether it’s a door-to-door salesperson or a multi-national retail firm with an intricate online store, the basic principle of selling remains the same: you show people something that you have and ask them to buy it. However, with the advent of virtual reality, it’s becoming increasingly common to sell things that don’t yet exist.

News
Taking on the world: Together Journal’s founder on breaking into the international market
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The print industry has been through tumultuous times lately, so to most, it might seem like an unwise idea to start up a magazine. Together Journal founder Greta Kenyon thought it was a risk worth taking, and the gamble paid off – the design-driven publication created in New Zealand is now stocked in stores globally, including over 300 Barnes & Nobles stores in the US.

News
Make milk great again: Fonterra trumpets the sound of science
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After spending the early part of the summer weathering an onslaught of anger from the Lewis Road Creamery army (along with the wider dairy industry getting a smackdown after unsuccessfully complaining about a provocative Greenpeace campaign), Fonterra is trying its best to get past the white noise and get back to the facts. Not ‘alternative facts’, to borrow a Kellyanne Conway-ism, but the cold, hard, scientific ones.

News
Terrifying TV
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To promote the new film Rings, set to hit the big screen in February, a US TV store pranked its customers by bringing one of the characters to life.

News
The Netherlands gets chummy with Trump
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While many around the world watched in fear as Donald Trump was sworn in as president, The Netherlands—well it’s satirical news show Zondag met Lubach—decided it was best for both countries to get along, so it made an introductory video that speaks to Trump in his own language.

News
Paper Plus challenges millennials to get stuck into books
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Paper Plus has launched a sarcastic new ad campaign, via FCB, that’s a dramatic shift from its previous marketing. With no blobby green alien mascot in sight, the stationery retailer is engaging with the millennial market by taking a shot at their addiction to social media sharing.

Opinion
Head to head: art trumps numbers
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In this bout, our contenders bob and weave around the ever-present question of whether research or creativity is more important. Chemistry Interaction director Joseph Silk takes on Y&R planner Craig McLeod.

News
Kevin Hart goes running mad
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What at first starts as a standard celebrity endorsement video for a new product quickly descends into one man’s—completely unhinged—obsession with running in Nike’s new video series, featuring comedian Kevin Hart (and his glorious beard). The series is introduced via a short clip, showing Hart excitedly unboxing the new product. From there, the madness ensues, with Hart putting on his best impersonation of Forrest Gump crossed with the protagonist from Into the Wild.

News
Auckland Transport unravels the mystery behind unexplained traffic back-ups
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Anyone who has crawled along one of Auckland’s motorways in bumper-to-bumper traffic will know the confused—albeit elated—feeling that comes when the traffic just starts moving again. As you accelerate out of the jam, a few questions are invariably left unanswered: What was the hold-up? Where was the accident? And why did the traffic just start moving again? Well, Work Communications creative Marco Ermerins took it upon himself to find a few answers to these pressing questions.

News
From TVC to TV series: Kiwibank, TVNZ and Nigel Latta join forces to bring financial advice to primetime
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Our relationship with money is typically something of an afterthought, generally restricted to advice columns and finance pages. However, Kiwibank is taking it mainstream in a new series called Mind Over Money with Nigel Latta, a fully funded series centred on the psychology of money. We talk to general manager of marketing Regan Savage and TVNZ general manager of content solutions Lyndsey Francis about the series and Kiwibank’s decision to take a leap.

News
Horse’s Mouth: Doug Hastie, Chanui
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Breaking into a well-established market is no easy task. But by coupling a strong product with the some-might-say mad decision to front his own advertising, Doug Hastie has made Chanui one of the more recognisable brands on the supermarket shelves. And for him, this is only the start of much bigger things.

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