Direct mail doesn’t tend to get the same level of attention that other ‘sexier’ channels like online or TV get. But according to the ASA ad spend figures for 2012, it’s on the rise, with addressed mail up 16 percent to $58 million. So why the increase? And is it effective? NZ Post and Key Research attempted to find out.
Since the closure of Publicis Mojo at the end of last year, Goodman Fielder has been working with Joy, the agency set up by ex-Mojo chair and chief executive Graeme Wills. And, according to Goodman Fielder’s PR and communications manager Ra Fletcher, it continues to do so. But it also appears to be looking at its agency options.
Showing good looking human specimens in their undies is a well-proven advertising strategy. Often it’s all a bit OTT, with ridiculous smell the fart acting and liberal photoshopping. But Bonds has kept it casual, upbeat and slightly self-aware with its latest campaign, leading to a win in the May round of the Colmar Brunton Ad Impact Award.
There are plenty of changes occurring inside Telecom at the moment, and while some significant staff culling has led to an increase in the amount of out-sourcing in some parts of the business, Telecom Retail is relinquishing Contagion of one of its responsibilities.
How’s New Zealand doing when it comes to corporate social responsibility? Must try harder, says Interbrand’s managing director James Bickford.
Ogilvy & Mather has already got the Auckland Council business. And it’s happily suckling from the bureaucratic teat once again, after being chosen as the full-service agency for the 2017 World Masters Games, which is “likely to be the largest event hosted in New Zealand in the next decade”.
A few weeks back DDB launched a campaign for Instant Kiwi that featured streetwalkers in starring roles. And its latest effort for The Warehouse has taken a similar, but far cuter, approach by filming a bunch of Kiwi kids applying for a job as a toy tester.
According to the latest Paymark figures, DIY action as a result of the buoyant Auckland housing market and the Christchurch rebuild have helped boost overall year on year retail spending in New Zealand by 4.3 percent. And there’s also been a boost in the number of TV shows aiming to tap into this domestic fever, with Mitre 10 Dream Home returning to TV2’s screens last week after a four year hiatus and Aussie powerhouse House Rules starting on TV3 last night. But it’s the homegrown effort that’s so far luring the most Kiwi DIY lovers.
It’s been around ten years since Delmaine Fine Foods has advertised its wares on TV. But, in what national sales and marketing manager Nicky Morton says is an attempt to attract new users to the brand, it’s back on the box again with a campaign that features the line ‘it’s not easy being this good’.
There are many people in this world who assume those who work in the field of advertising are basically paid liars. But are they really? As part of a campaign to drum up interest in the Effies, TBWA\ has attempted to find out by filming a host of senior agency folk taking a lie detector test. And, as you’d expect, the results make for very entertaining and enlightening viewing.
After scanning the nation’s big and small data, the GCSB has decided that The Co-operative Bank’s ode to profits, Pio’s multiple personality disorder and ANZ’s moments of clarity are this week’s worthy winners.
The Co-operative Bank rebranded from PSIS after it got its official bank license last year. And while it kept pretty quiet about the change, it has come out swinging with a new campaign via Y&R that flips the typically negative response to the announcement of record bank profits on its head and aims to show it’s a bank that’s “driven by your prosperity, not our profit”.
In June last year, Pio Terei hit the screens as Freeview’s new mascot and, with the help of its agency True, he attempted to convince those Kiwi TV viewers clinging to their analogue signals to buy a box and get their content for free. And the man of many acting talents has channelled Eddie Murphy in a new ad shot by Greg Page of Flying Fish to showcase the kind of shows that are available on the platform.
Fisher & Paykel appliances has just launched 70 new and redesigned products across its portfolio and it’s got a new global campaign to promote them. New Zealand marketing manager Sonya Aitken, who’s currently in the midst of a national tour to show off the latest innovations to retailers and other partners, talks about being curious, changing consumers and the quest for quality.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
For the past few years, a major pillar of Countdown’s advertising strategy has consisted of lathering up the nation with the soap that was The Colemans. It may not have been lauded by the industry, but it seemed to do the job on the public, and the many executions by Chris Dudman of Robber’s Dog earned regular spots in Colmar Brunton’s top ten ads list. But now the Progressive chain has said goodbye to the fictional family and embraced reality TV.
One of the world’s great slogans—Nike’s ‘Just Do it’—recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Another similarly enduring slogan isn’t too far behind, with Dilmah’s ‘Do Try It’ coming up 20. But the catch phrase that is now used in 103 countries has a slightly surprising and little known New Zealand connection, with small Auckland agency Curtiss and Spence responsible for getting the owner of Dilmah, Merrill J Fernando, to utter the phrase on TV all those years ago.
Around two years ago, Nielsen, along with the three stakeholder groups in the Print Media Industry Research Review Group—magazines, newspapers and media agencies—were talking up the ‘Rolls Royce of measurement systems’. International guest Gary Yeo was too, saying its Consumer & Media Insights system was one of the best in the world. And now Nielsen has added a few new bells and whistles to give advertisers and media owners, as its tagline terms it, “an uncommon sense of the consumer”.
Town branding is a difficult nut to crack, with many attempts coming off as desperate and nigh-on dishonest. But for the past few years since launching its new gothic identity via Projector Media, Dunedin has been doing a pretty good job of it. And, as part of its new push to become ‘one of the world’s great small cities’ within ten years, the next phase of its campaign consists of showcasing some of the city’s under-the-radar business success stories.
Rialto is a slightly under the radar New Zealand media success story. And it’s coming up 13 years old. So to celebrate its transition into the teens, it’s been given a thorough going over, with a new look and feel created by Intebrand and a new self-aware print, radio and digital campaign via DDB that aims to attract a broader demographic and position Rialto as ‘The Storyteller’.
Powershop has managed to find a solid niche in New Zealand’s energy market as a cheeky challenger brand that gives its more than 50,000 customers additional information about their energy usage, lets them buy power online and shows them plenty of love. And now the Meridian-owned business is taking that model to Australia.
The New Zealand advertising scene is always pretty proud of its per capita hauls in the world’s big creative awards. And 2013 appears to be no different, with the combined awards won between Kiwi agencies—a record haul of 32—placing us 9th on the list at the 60th Cannes Festival of Advertising.
There’s been plenty of change at TBWA\ over the past few months, with Todd McLeay and Toby Talbot coming on board to take over from David ‘I’m not fucking retiring’ Walden and Andy Blood. And now there’s some more change, with Eleven PR’s founder and managing partner Kelly Bennett leaving to set up his own corporate public relations business.
.99 has continued its golden run of new business, winning the local L’Oréal business after a competitive pitch.
Retirement planning isn’t the sexiest of subjects. But AMP and Running With Scissors have added some human interest to the world of KiwiSaver schemes by conducting a psychological experiment to illustrate that a little bit of willpower now makes things all the sweeter in the future.
‘Creatively-led, humanity-obsessed’ agency/production company Augusto has done some good work for Adidas in recent times, like the 60-minute documentary on the history of the All Blacks jersey and the Supersounds campaign. And for its latest trick, it’s got Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Israel Dagg to embrace their domestic sides to promote the arrival of iron-on numbers on fan jerseys.
There’s been plenty of ink dedicated to Seven Sharp over the past few months—a bit too much in the opinion of TVNZ chief executive Kevin Kenrick. But far from free-falling, the more informal, magazine-style current affairs show has stabilised to an average audience of around 375,000 viewers. And, in an effort to get more New Zealanders to give the show a go, it has launched a new campaign via its inhouse agency Blacksand.
Condom-based promotions, racist ads for brownies, accusations of franchisee bullying, awarding sex crimes with prizes on social media … Hell Pizza has often been on the wrong side of the authorities over the years for its controversial marketing stunts. But the shoe is on the other foot now and, in quintessentially cheeky Hell style, it’s sent a “cease, desist and go sit in the corner” letter to one of its major competitors, Pizza Hut.
Our weekly wrap of good things, funny things, weird things and other things seen on the intertubes.
In November last year, 16 creative teams were given a brief, some sustenance and one hour to come up with an outdoor campaign for Surf Life Saving New Zealand as part of Adshel’s Creative Challenge. Colenso BBDO’s Ben Polkinghorne, Scott Kelly and Salah Ben-Brahim came out on top, and their concept has now migrated into the real world and forms the basis of the charity’s winter campaign.