Author Ben Fahy

News
Changing world, changing university: AUT looks to enhance reputation with new focus on research
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‘Tis peak season for academic institutions to try and convince prospective students to sign on the dotted line. Unitec has looked to the city with its new, very urban campaign, The University of Canterbury has looked to the future with Designworks, Lincoln has looked to the land and most of the other academic institutions are active as well. And now AUT University is joining in the fun, with a new brand campaign by Consortium that showcases the work of six researchers who are “helping define the future of our changing world”.

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Coca-Cola to the nation: “This time it’s personal”
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In September last year, Coca-Cola Australia put people’s names on its cans and bottles for the first time in the company’s history. The campaign won loads of gongs at Cannes and its global marketing chief Joseph Tripodi said the idea would be exported to other markets. Now New Zealand is getting the personal treatment, with 150 of the country’s most popular names being put on millions of Coca-Cola bottles and cans “to remind and inspire people to connect”.

News
Keep cool till after school: Unitec and Special Group celebrate the urban creators
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Last year’s rather risky ‘Change Starts Here’ docu-ad campaign for Unitec Institute of Technology aimed to address some long-standing misconceptions about the institution among parents and potential students and led to a significant increase in enrolments. And now it is hoping to, ahem, build on that by celebrating the achievements of graduates of its Faculty of Technology and Built Environment with its new campaign, ‘We make the people who make it’.

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TBWA\ stamps its fantastical mark on New Zealand with 100% Middle-earth
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The 100% Pure New Zealand campaign is now in its 13th year, is held up as a master-class in tourism marketing and has helped turn New Zealand into one of the strongest country brands in the world. And Tourism New Zealand is aiming to replicate the international influx of visitors following The Lord of the Rings trilogy with the release of a new global campaign by the Sydney and Auckland offices of Whybin\TBWA and Curious Film that “invokes the magic of Middle-earth”.

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Perennial performers Colenso and DraftFCB on top of Effie finalist table, BC&F and DDB hot on their heels
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As the bean counters might say, if advertising doesn’t improve the bottom line, it’s really just art. And expensive art at that. And the agencies that improved their clients’ businesses the most this year have been announced, with perennial Effie performers Colenso BBDO and DraftFCB on top with 22 and 16 finalists respectively, followed by the bolter Barnes, Catmur & Friends on ten and DDB on nine.

News
TVCs of the Week: 21 August
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‘Tis a tussle of the telcos this week, with Vodafone’s ‘Do Your Thing Better’ and the return of Tommy and Boris for Telecom scooping the prize.

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Telecom puts Tommy and Boris to work
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We had a chat with Telecom’s chief marketing officer Jason Paris yesterday for a profile that will feature in the next edition of NZ Marketing magazine and he said one of the best things about the new Tommy and Boris work is the fact that everyone thinks it’s a brand campaign. That’s understandable, given the set-up ad is the only one that has been released so far. But it’s actually a retail platform that’s being used to promote different aspects of the Telecom business. And the first examples of that strategy were launched last night, with one spot focusing on ‘New Zealand’s best pre-paid pack’ and another classy number showing some of the lesser known benefits of broadband.

News
Vodafone and DraftFCB focus on the doing, ramp up Kiwi factor with Boy star
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Last week we welcomed Telecom’s new mascots Tommy and Boris, which took the telco steaming back into its heartland territory of New Zealandness and connectivity. Vodafone has long played the exotic foreigner role and, for obvious reasons, hasn’t really played—or needed to play—the patriotic card. But that’s all changed now, because it’s gone the whole Kiwi hog for its big new brand campaign, which features the tagline ‘Do Your Thing Better’ and celebrates the fact that New Zealand is a nation of doers.

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Puns unavoidable as Avigra extends reach with TV thrust
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The profitability of Big Pharma’s brands can collapse suddenly when patents expire and generic ‘knock offs’ flood the market. When this happens, the accepted norm is for up to 90 percent of an originator brand’s volume and share to be lost almost overnight and it’s an issue the industry hasn’t yet been able to resolve, so, typically, blockbuster compounds and their brands are simply written off or retired. But the local Pfizer branch wasn’t going to take the early patent expiry of Viagra in New Zealand lying down, so to speak, so it took the very unusual step of launching its own generic brand called Avigra and trying to migrate consumers to the cheaper, Pfizer-made alternative. And now, after a pun-laden press campaign and a bit of TV masthead activity, it’s stiffened its resolve by creating a new TVC.

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Jason, Tommy and Boris
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It would seem only those with a heart of stone could fail to be swayed by Telecom’s latest brand campaign starring excitable eight-year-old Tommy and his new turtle friend Boris. We reckon it’s one of the best ads of the year and it sees Telecom heading back to its heartland territory of connectivity and New Zealandness. Here’s what chief marketing officer Jason Paris had to say about the thinking behind the campaign—and the state of the company.

News
Telecom comes out of its shell, calls on T-U-R-T-L-E power
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Around this time last year there was a glut of ‘manvertising’. And this year it seems as though cute kids are de rigueur, with Civil Defence, Z and Pink Batts all recently enlisting a few young’uns to tell their stories. Now Telecom can be added to that list, because it’s gone back to what it knows best with a great ode to connection featuring a lovable frontman Tommy and his ‘turtle of few words’ Boris.

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Annnnnnd action: Y&R pushes play on new Quickflix campaign
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There’s been plenty of action at Y&R recently, with Jon Ramage departing and James Hurman cutting short his OE to join executive creative director Josh Moore at the top table alongside non-executive director Ross Goldsack. It also won the the ASX-listed Quickflix business for Australia and New Zealand in March and, with the help of Finch, it’s just launched a campaign starring two aspiring actors/film buffs discussing the merits of the streaming service between takes.

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Numbers games: traversing the choppy social media seas
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Last week, the Twitterverse was abuzz after questions were raised about the legitimacy of follower numbers and whether the system was being gamed by some to increase the perception of influence. And we’ve heard from a couple of people since who want to alert brands to what they believe is a social media scam—and a completely over-hyped metric.

News
To protect and serve (on toast): Sanitarium and Saatchi & Saatchi fan the Marmageddon flames
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Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. And, after the Sanitarium factory was knocked around by the Christchurch earthquakes, passionate yeast spreaders have been pining for their regular slathering of Black Gold. So, in what most see as a company making the best of a bad situation and what some cynics see as a stunt to raise the profile of the brand, Sanitarium and Saatchi & Saatchi launched the Don’t Freak Out campaign to assure eaters Marmite would be back. And it’s continued that approach with a competition asking Kiwis to prove how far they’ll go to protect their stash.

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The Choco-ade chronicles: how Griffin’s, Assignment Group and Amber Johnson created a monster
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Nostalgia’s not what it used to be. But when it comes to biscuits, it’s obviously still a very powerful force, because the decision to get behind a campaign started by Upper Hutt-based biscuit crusader Amber Johnson to bring back Choco-ades has well and truly paid off for Griffin’s, with AZTEC scan data figures showing it set a new benchmark as the top selling product by value in supermarkets in its first week of sales, beating the Avatar DVD.

Movings & Shakings
Prodigal planner returns from the Orient for senior Y&R role
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When Colenso BBDO’s head of planning James Hurman decided to expand his horizons and take a role as planning partner at Ogilvy Shangahi, he said he’d probably be back in the homeland eventually. But he’s returned much sooner than expected, with the bearded one cutting short his OE to take up the role of managing director at Y&R, where he will be working alongside one of his old cohorts Josh Moore.

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NIM wits: when is a magazine not a magazine? —UPDATED
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September is shaping up to be a watershed month for APN NZ—and, more broadly, New Zealand’s newspaper publishing sector. The New Zealand Herald is set to reveal its new compact weekday edition on 10 September and the newly redesigned nzherald.co.nz site will go live around the same time. There’s also a new Newspaper Inserted Magazine (NIM) on Mondays about food, health and well-being and readers will also be treated to a one-off premium glossy magazine on launch day called, appropriately enough, The Magazine. But what exactly is a magazine? Why are NIMs so appealing for newspaper publishers? And why is ACP’s Paul Dykzeul so fired up?

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AMI rallies the troops to help move the dial
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It’s been a difficult 18 or so months for AMI, which required government assistance to stay afloat after the quakes and was eventually bought by IAG. But it isn’t taking the negativity surrounding it lying down and it has launched a new campaign from DDB and Flying Fish that focuses on the fact that its staff are still committed to the cause.

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ASB’s new mobile app: creating digital gimmickry or creating the future?
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ASB has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative banks, as evidenced by its inclusion on the Financial Brand’s list of ten brands to watch, the Top 35 Banks on Facebook and Top 35 Banks on Twitter. It was the first to launch internet banking in New Zealand in 1997, its virtual ‘Facebranch’ was an award-winning world-first, and its latest development has followed that trajectory by letting users pay Facebook friends through its updated mobile app. So is it digital gimmickry? Or is ASB adhering to its slogan and creating the future? We chat with general manager, brand experience and digital channels Anna Curzon.

Movings & Shakings
Moore replaces Ramage as Y&R NZ’s top dog
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After a bit of a rough patch, the newly rebranded ‘global boutique’ Y&R NZ has been slowly getting back on the good foot, with some nice work for the likes of HRV, Shapes Roadies and ACC, and some big names being added to the staff roster, among them Josh Moore as executive creative director, Ross Goldsack returning as non-executive director and Scott Henderson manning the fort in Wellington. And now there’s another big change to announce, with the chief executive of seven years Jon Ramage stepping down and being replaced by Moore.

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A bit sheepish: Cavalier Bremworth promotes ovine versatility with new animated campaign
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Back in the day, as a young lad living with a flat full of horrible men in Dunedin, we (mostly jokingly) discussed the idea of investing in a flat sheep because it was such a versatile animal, providing warmth, a footstool, lawnmowing services, fertiliser, ‘comfort’ (for the Southlanders) and, eventually, food. And Cavalier Bremworth is equally fond of the humble sheep’s versatility, because they’ve launched a new campaign to remind Kiwis that wool is the best choice for carpet as it has already passed the toughest tests when it was on the beast’s back.

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