Mass market weeklies have had a rough time of it in recent years. But ACP has opened an early Christmas present in the form of the recent double issue of Woman’s Day, which clocked in at over 200 pages and took the title as biggest ever issue.
After kicking off its ‘Same Power, Different Attitude’ campaign with a few friendly dictators, Powershop and DoubleFish then moved into fictional territory with ads featuring Jaws, Daleks, Darth Vader and Frankenstein. A cease and desist letter from LucasFilm moved the campaign back in the direction of well-known humans, such as a free-lovin’ Margaret Thatcher. And now the brand has either bravely or foolishly taken things in a much more controversial direction with a new ad that wouldn’t be out of place on a St Matthew in the City billboard and features Pope Benedict XVI presiding over a same sex marriage. We predict fire and brimstone Powershop’s way cometh. And, if we’re lucky, maybe even @pontifex’s first Tweet.
As expected, there was a fair bit of discussion on StopPress after Localist’s decision to shift away from print and focus on mobile. And, with the help of Projector Media, 8com’s Paul Jones and Will Hall, it’s created an entertaining, innuendo-heavy ad featuring B&D, full bodied bears/beers and artistic bollocks to show that the app learns to love the same things you do and can also help you avoid things you don’t like, such as Huntly or drinking tea with mimes.
After a competitive pitch involving six agencies, Owen Glenn has appointed Naked Communications to join the team of the ‘Glenn Inquiry’, an initiative funded by the businessman and philanthropist to address child abuse and domestic violence in New Zealand.
A number of recent studies show women in New Zealand are paid on average ten percent less for doing the same job as men—and the pay gap is widening. To draw attention to this inequality—and hopefully grease the wheels of new legislation to better address the issue—the YWCA Auckland and DDB NZ have decided to turn the tables and, through TV, print, online and experiential, including male-only surcharges at coffee carts and sausage sizzles, show men how absurd it is for the two genders to be treated differently when it comes to money. Plus: ASB’s Barbara Chapman on the glass ceiling.
YWCA’s turning of the tables, Igloo’s double Ohs, 2degrees’ Christmas push and Telecom’s mistaken identity get the vote this week.
It’s been a rough few years for Christchurch, but when we spoke with Harvey|Cameron’s managing director Neil Cameron for NZ Marketing magazine a few months back (see interview below), he said the agency had managed to come through relatively unscathed after moving out of the CBD and into its new Merivale offices just before the Earth shook. He also mentioned the fact that a few curious souls were being drawn to the area as a result of the city’s potential and now, with Iain Harvey pulling back from the business slightly, “brand builder” Cam Murchison has added his name to that list of imports to become managing partner.
In a world where digital trickery is de rigueur, ‘traditional’ mediums like magazines are often seen as offering fewer creative opportunities. There are restrictions, of course, but great ideas often emanate from restrictions (Steinlager’s ‘We Believe’, for example). And to celebrate its 20th anniversary—and to show the level of engagement it has with its readers—Wired created a brilliant Easter egg hunt.
Humans are into some strange things. Extreme ironing, scrapbooking, My Little Ponies, and slightly masochistic long-distance running, to name but a few. And now New Zealand’s trail runners have their own dedicated publication with the launch of NZ Trail Runner.
We’ve seen some pretty creative ideas used to increase pet adoptions and gather donations in New Zealand in recent years, with Colenso’s Doggelganger and Donation Glasses standing out in that regard. And now DraftFCB and Mini have joined the furry fray with a so crazy it just might work campaign for the SPCA that will see Porter, a 10 month old Beardie Cross from SPCA Auckland, attempt to drive a car live on TV.
3 Wise Men has found a good aerial niche with its entertaining long-copy ads in Air New Zealand’s inflight magazine Kia Ora. And in the Hobbit-heavy December edition of the mag, Assignment Group has used that niche to great effect with a novel campaign that aims to make the back of the plane slightly more appealing to fliers.
Wellington/Amsterdam digital agency Resn is renowned for pushing the envelope online, with the likes of Face Arcade, Rhizopods or the world’s first crowd-sourced feed. But it’s not all fun, games and weirdness. There are some serious issues currently bubbling away in the halls of power around internet freedom, so, along with a couple of its fellow digital dab hands rehabstudio and Stinkdigital, it has created a site that aims to get the internet to stand up for itself by threatening to take away the thing it loves most: a kitten.
New Zealand’s Got Talent launched with plenty of fanfare and massive ratings back in September, and, with Marlborough teenager Clara van Wel announced as the winner last night, it finished on a high note as well, cementing its place as the most watched show of 2012 and the biggest show of the past ten years.
Almost one year after it was officially announced (and a bit longer after it was unofficially announced), Sky and TVNZ’s joint venture Igloo has finally got its googly-eyed mascots to deliver its set-top boxes into the wild. And it’s also launched its brand campaign, via Sugar&Partners.
Avanti Bikes, which celebrated its 25th birthday last year, is renowned as a design-led company, as evidenced by the gold it won at the Best Awards this year for its sexy Corsa DR. And that focus on design is helping it move into other overseas markets. Now it’s added another technology-driven advantage to its arsenal in the form of its multi-lingual, responsive website, which was built by Auckland digital agency Salt Interactive.
There was plenty of discussion about James Bond adding Heineken to his list of favoured tipples in Skyfall. But product placement/branded content/integration/cap in handing is an accepted part of the film and TV business these days (as Daniel Craig told Moviefone: “The simple fact is that, without them, we couldn’t do it. It’s unfortunate but that’s how it is. This movie costs a lot of money to make, it costs as nearly as much again if not more to promote, so we go where we can”). And the tie-in appears to be working for the brand because Heineken’s ‘The Express’ ad, which features the raspy tones of own Gin Wigmore, has won Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award for October.
After an industry-wide review, The NZ Direct Marketing Awards had a big refresh this year, with a new name, a new judging process and a number of new categories and individual awards resulting in a 12 percent increase in the number of overall entries. And those entries have been whittled down to the finalist stage, with justONE leading on 16, DraftFCB on 12, Colenso BBDO on eight, Loyalty NZ on six, Affinity ID, Federation Rapp Tribal on five, and Twenty and ANZ/National on four.
APN’s NZ Magazines has embraced the freemium model with the launch of a new responsive design website for the New Zealand Listener that combines free and paid content and enables subscribers to read the magazine on any device.
Instant Kiwi’s instore luck pushing and ASB’s retro vibes take the biscuit this week.
Here in the expansive and luxurious StopPress towers, Instant Kiwi’s ‘It Pays to Push Your Luck’ campaigns ranks as one of the funniest of the year, which isn’t entirely surprising given the comedy-loving combination of NZ Lotteries, DDB, Jesse Griffin and The Sweet Shop’s Stuart McDonald, he of Summer Height’s High fame, was involved in its creation. And after the first instalment, which saw the Alibi spot make it into the good bit of the Fair Go Ad Awards, it’s followed up with some entertaining/violating instore luck pushing that could almost be likened to the advertising equivalent of Trigger Happy TV.
There are a few major trends in TV consumption at the moment and they seem almost diametrically opposed, with second screening leading to an increase in the popularity of programmed ‘event TV’ that can be discussed with the community, and technology that allows viewers to watch content on their own terms. TVNZ is tapping into the former with its range of existing shows and its new branded content initiative, and, as TVNZ’s general manager of digital media Tom Cotter says, the latter is being taken care of with some big changes to its Ondemand platform, including a Samsung Smart TV solution and the region’s first ever iOS and Samsung apps.
In the quickly evolving digital sphere, it’s pretty tough to keep up. And while Yahoo! New Zealand has been tweaking its homepage regularly over the years in order to do just that, it hasn’t made any major changes since 2008. But now, after a year-long project, it’s launched its new, simplified, longer and de-cluttered version.
Entertainment has long been part of advertising, as evidenced by the (paraphrased) old Saatchi & Saatchi mantra of ‘if it’s interrupting you in your living room, it better be good’. But that idea has evolved over the years, to the point where Cannes added a branded content category into the schedule this year and Mumbrella recently held its inaugural Australasian Branded Entertainment Awards. And Special Group managed to take home a silver for The Gravity Coffee Run in best integration of brand story-telling (non-fictional) and a gold for The Smirnoff Night Project in transmedia. Air New Zealand’s Kiwi Sceptics campaign by Host Sydney took two bronzes in the same two categories.
At this time of year, many university students are looking forward to heading back to the family ranch, regularly opening the fridge to marvel at all the food inside and, possibly, attempting to dry out after a torrid year of mind expansion/erosion. They—and their secondary school friends who are about to embark on the next phase of education—probably aren’t thinking too much about banking. But ASB and Saatchi & Saatchi are dangling a few carrots with a new 50’s-inspired online video campaign to promote its tertiary accounts.
One fairly accurate definition of a brand is the sum of all conversations it has with its customers, from the advertising to the call centre and everything in between. And Chemistry, a new agency launched by Joseph Silk from Silk Communications, Andrew Mitchell from Magnet Customer Attraction and Mike Larmer, formerly head of marketing at Mercury Energy and before that managing director of Whybin\TBWA’s direct and digital arm Tequila, thinks there’s a gap in the landscape for an agency that understands the confluence of creativity and technology and can help clients take customer experience marketing to the next level.
As consumers continue to find ways to avoid commercial messages, TV networks, brands and agencies are increasingly trying to make them unmissable by putting them inside some of their most popular programmes rather than inbetween, with the likes of MasterChef, The Block or the raft of talent shows all aiming to take things much further than a traditional sponsorship. And, as TVNZ’s head of sales Jeremy O’Brien announced at the network’s new season launch last week, TVNZ is trying to become more pro-active about cementing these relationships with brands with the creation of a new branded content initiative set to launch in 2014.
Father Time gets with the programme, John Lewis and the Kiwi connection, AA Insurance keeps on sorting, Dulux channels Muto, Mountain Dew goes 3D, and Freeview shares some love.
AA Insurance and Special Group took the opportunity to remind the nation about the positive aspects of insurance with the launch of its big 90 second brand ad a few weeks back. And now it’s following that up with a series of 30 and 15 second product ads—once again nicely crafted by Special Problems—and an attention-grabbing outdoor campaign that aims to communicate the new ‘Let’s get things sorted’ positioning and showcase the various facets of the business, from tailored car insurance to personal case managers.
When David Walden left the relative safety of the multinationals to set up the Auckland office of Whybin\TBWA back in 1997, there were more than a few doubters predicting its swift demise or claiming it would simply be a postbox for the international network. Those doubters were wrong, of course, and the agency has become firmly ensconced in the upper echelons. But he’s not going to be around forever, and Walden, one of the most enigmatic characters in the ad industry, is making preparations to hand over the reins. PLUS: Vincent Heeringa’s NZ Marketing profile republished.
Anyone got Warren Buffett’s number? APN New Zealand Media has announced it has made a strategic decision to put three regional publishing businesses—The Star in Canterbury, the Oamaru Mail and the Capital Community Newspaper group in Wellington—on the market.