Author Ben Fahy

Annual reports are usually about as exciting as a packet of ready salted chips, so we were impressed with Z Energy’s interactive effort, which saw Assignment Group and Heyday add a few bells and whistles in an effort to get people to actually pay attention to it. Investment statements are also pretty staid, but Moa certainly isn’t, so as part of the company’s forthcoming IPO, Geoff Ross and co. have tried to create a document people will want to read—and keep. And, in what it believes is a world first, it also includes paid third party advertising for Aston Martin, Working Style, Partridge Jewellers, Ecoya and Beretta.

After a tender process that ended up attracting over 50 submissions, Sydney agency Iris was chosen to lead Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism’s push to bring Aussies back to the region after a 43 percent decline in visitor numbers since the earthquake. And it has launched a campaign based around a series of long-form mockumentary episodes, with Mayor Bob Parker playing on Australia’s love of oversized novelty structures and real-time images used to show how far the city has moved on.

Smaller, independent agencies are often going on about their nimbleness and agility in comparison to the big, internationally-owned full-service shops. And smaller, independent financial institutions are always going on about the level of service and local ownership compared to the big, foreign-owned banks. And the two things have collided with TSB and Special Group’s new campaign, which aims to make hay after the black horse has bolted and offers its support to soon-to-be ex-National Bank customers.

The vultures have been circling for a while now, and the official announcement that the National Bank brand is finally heading for the knacker’s yard and will be folded into its Australian-owned parent bank ANZ over the next two years, with remaining branches rebranded at an estimated cost of $100 million, marks what will be one of the biggest changes to the financial marketing landscape in over a decade. NZ Marketing ran a cover story on the looming disappearance of the black horse and what kind of treasures were up for grabs back in May. Here’s an edited version of that story.

There is perhaps no greater force in the online world than cat videos. Wired recently delved into what it called the online cat-industrial complex, ad agency John St spoofed the feline fascination brilliantly with the world’s first cat advertising agency, and a recent cat video film festival in the US drew 10,000 people (it was won by Henri 2: paw de deux). Now Orcon is embracing the zeitgeist with a new campaign starring animated cats Daisy and Gav.