Author Ben Fahy

News
The bread of life: Tip Top and DDB spread the good word on new charity programme
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Tip Top bread, a George Weston Foods brand, gained a few fans when chief executive Greg Coffey announced the establishment of its Nourish Our Kids programme on Campbell Live in February. The new initiative is a long-term commitment to work with Kidscan and help alleviate child hunger—and it fitted in nicely with Campbell Live’s quest to bring attention to and create solutions for child poverty. And now it’s promoting the programme with a simple but effective TV ad showing two very different worlds colliding.

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Hubbards looks to regain its mojo with TV dalliance
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While visiting New York in 1987, Dick Hubbard told his wife Diana about his idea to start a cereal company that would “make New Zealand proud and healthier at the same time”. Since then it has grown into a sizeable business that continues its breakfast battle with big beasts like Sanitarium and Kellogg’s. But it’s trying to up its game with a new integrated campaign via Hunter.

Movings & Shakings
MBM heads further down the digital road with Delany in tow
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Independent media strategy and management agency MBM, which was started in 2010 by Sean McCready and Matt Bale, has been quietly—and fairly successfully—going about its business for the past few years. But it’s got something to shout about now, with ex Sparkie Alysha Delany signing on to become managing partner and shareholder.

News
In with the old
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The digital realm offers a boatload of exciting opportunities for marketers and advertisers. But don’t forget your old shipmates.

News
Mercury takes step in more useful direction with Good Energy Monitor—UPDATED
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Despite the huge amount of customer data energy companies have at their disposal, not many of them have used that data well to create useful tools for customers to manage their power consumption. Some might say that’s because it’s in the interests of energy companies for their customers to use more energy, even though it might not be in the best interests of society as a whole. But following in the footsteps of Powershop’s useful online usage meters and hints on how to reduce consumption, Mercury Energy has also come to the utility party with a new product called the Good Energy Monitor, or GEM.

News
Shine and GE Money launch campaign of few words
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GE Capital, the mothership for brands such as GE Money, Gem Visa, Custom Fleet, Equipment Finance, Pacific Premium Funding and Distribution Finance, reportedly had a changing of the marketing guard late last year and, after a brief dalliance with Y&R, moved in permanently with Shine. And the pair have launched the first major piece of work after that relationship was cemented in the form of a campaign for GE Money’s personal loans that focuses on one word: really.

News
Lies, damned lies: the obligatory April Fool’s round-up —UPDATED
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Some might argue there’s a degree of trickery every day of the year in the world of marketing and media. But it’s taken to much more preposterous levels—and is almost actively encouraged—on April Fool’s Day. So here’s a collection of the best pranks, fakes and subterfuges from New Zealand and around the world.

News
Rebrand brings about a new Union
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Full service digital agency Federation Media has rebranded as Union, a change that “reflects the company’s focus on the strategy, delivery and analysis of insight-led digital campaigns” and also aims to remove a bit of confusion in the market about its offering.

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Carl’s Jr and Special Group explore radio loophole, embrace theatre of the mind
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There was a bit of kerfuffle recently when Carl’s Jr. had its American television commercial promoting its new Memphis BBQ Burger banned from television in New Zealand by the Commercial Approvals Bureau for using sexual appeal in an exploitative and degrading manner to sell an unrelated product. It responded by running a digital campaign driving people to view the ad on its YouTube channel. And it’s continued to embrace the controversy, with Special Group letting imaginations run wild by repurposing the TV commercial for radio.

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Taxi Impact gets tracking with new GPS tech
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Accountability is often seen as an achilles heels of the out-of-home industry, and with no measurement system like Australia’s MOVE, it seems to be becoming an increasingly thorny issue in New Zealand. But Taxi Impact is trying to improve the situation through the use of GPS technology.

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Saatchi & Saatchi and Media Design School embark on a mission to discover ‘digital Columbuses’
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A collection of bureaucrats, educators and ad folk gathered together in an old building on the corner of Halsey and Packenham Streets in the Wynyard Quarter this afternoon to eat chicken sandwiches and hear about a new partnership between the Media Design School and Saatchi & Saatchi that will see the creation of a new Graduate School focused on digital innovation—and hopefully add some fuel to the ICT fire in Auckland’s innovation precinct.

News
Agencies’ rural research blasts a few stereotypes out of the water
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The image of the staid, forelock-tugging old-school soul of the land who only reads things on paper and drinks beer in front of the races still has a degree of truth to it. But things are changing quickly and King St and Tracta are hoping the results of two research projects might help clear up a few misperceptions about the rural market, both in terms of media usage and the role of women.

News
Fonterra shuns the sun with ‘game changing’ new innovation, Colenso rounds up a herd of vampire cows
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Fonterra, in what it’s calling a game changer for the dairy industry, the most significant innovation project Anchor has ever undertaken and a world-first, has launched a light-proof three-layer bottle that claims to improve the taste of milk. And the campaign by Colenso BBDO uses a herd of magical, sun-avoiding glass cows to promote the benefits of the new technology.

News
Mac’s pushes the craft connection, Speight’s looks to the past
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There’s been plenty of chat about craft beer recently, with the ‘craft beer you can actually drink’ campaign for Lion’s new Crafty Beggars range—and what some see as its duplicitous brand wank—ruffling a few feathers. Lion-owned Mac’s also sits in the ‘popular craft’ category and it’s also aiming to firm up its association with the term through its Craft Collective promotion.

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Marmageddon comes to an end, Henry congratulates Kiwis for enduring crisis—UPDATED
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Sanitarium and Saatchi & Saatchi made the best of a bad yeast-based situation by creating the Don’t Freak Out campaign and focusing on the brand’s ‘flawsomeness’. And, not surprisingly, it’s also making the most of Marmite’s long-awaited comeback, with a Facebook countdown, a bit of a PR offensive and another rousing speech from the father of the nation, Graham Henry, congratulating Kiwis on getting through these dark days.

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Brewed in the future, causing confusion in the present
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A couple of years ago Barnes, Catmur & Friends employed the services of some LED lights and a thermometer to rub salt in the wintry wounds of Kiwis and draw attention to the temperature in Fiji. And now, to draw attention to the fact that Asahi has been ‘Brewed in the Future since 1987’, it’s added a digital clock to a billboard in Ponsonby Road that, as Paul Catmur says, has been “causing a wee bit of confusion all around” and keeping revellers on their toes.

News
Y&R ends drought with Westfield win—UPDATED
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DraftFCB resigned the Westfield account at the start of the year and took up the Paper Plus business soon after. And after a competitive pitch, it’s thought Y&R has finally put one in the win column and taken over the account.

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From the stage to the streets: Adshel dresses up for WOW
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There’s always a whole heap of creativity on display when the amazing outfits competing for the World of Wearable Art Awards hit the stage in Wellington every year. And now there’s some creativity on the streets as well, with Adshel and True joining forces to create a specially built shelter on Ponsonby Road to promote the ‘Off the Wall: Wearable Art Up Close’ exhibition currently featured at the Auckland Museum and drive ticket sales for the 2013 show from 26 September – 6 October.

News
Google’s dual screening research sees VivaKi put its money where the eyes are with big YouTube buy up
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When we spoke with Google’s country manager Tony Keusgen last year, he was openly beating the white coat marketing drum and said the New Zealand industry had a long way to go when it came to properly embracing evidence-based marketing. And he seems to have found an ally in that crusade in Vivaki, which has signed up for one of the biggest YouTube inventory deals in the company’s history on the back of a research project that looked at the prevalence of dual screening in New Zealand.

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