Media multi-tasking is on the rise in New Zealand, with nearly a third of us consuming multiple forms of media simultaneously according to Nielsen’s Year That Was, a new report exploring the key consumer, retail, media and advertising trends that have shaped New Zealand over the past year.
It’s been a fairly exciting ride on the banking merry-go-round in recent times. ASB is now with Saatchi & Saatchi, BNZ is now with Colenso BBDO and we have it on good authority that DDB has won the Westpac account.
They say there’s no truth in advertising. But PlaceMakers and JWT flouted that rule with their fly on the wall campaign focusing on a team of tradesmen building a house in Huntly—and the role of PlaceMakers’ expertise to ensure it all happens smoothly. And while the campaign was aimed at the trade, consumers have given it the big tick as well because ‘The Job’ has taken out Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award for March.
When Kiwibank was launched in 2002, there were plenty of doubters. But, according to its new website, 804,221 customers have signed up to the bank in its first ten years and to celebrate the milestone it’s launched a new campaign featuring a few other adventurous and industrious Kiwi ten-year-olds.
In what’s being called a world first, Tequila\ is taking ANZ Bank’s fundraising campaign for the RSA into the realm of social media by allowing Kiwis to donate funds to the Poppy Day Appeal via SMS and rebadging their Twitter avatars with the familiar poppy icon in the corner.
The Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ) has announced the finalists in its annual industry awards, with category winners and the Supreme Award winner announced in Auckland on Friday May 11 following the close of the upcoming annual conference.
Bathed in the green hue of ’70s inspired laser body scanners and violated by the sight of Leigh Hart’s velour one piece, 750-ish adfolk ventured down to the Viaduct Events Centre last night to watch Colenso BBDO’s Doggelganger campaign for Pedigree repeat Yellow Chocolate’s performance last year by taking the Grand, Titanium and Interactive AXIS. But, as is usually the case, the awards weren’t without some controversy.
The rumour’s been doing the rounds for a good while, but it seems Fairfax is soon to take a leaf out of TVNZ’s book by decreasing its agency commission from 20 to ten percent.
The TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards turn 21 this year. And like all good 21-year-olds, it’s received an oversized key, downed a yardie, taken a good hard look at itself and emerged into adulthood with a snazzy new ‘Everything Marketing’ brand and eight new categories.
Who’s it for: HRV by Y&R Auckland and Curious Film
Why we like it: Comparing the quality of New Zealand with the poor quality of New Zealand’s housing stock is smart idea and offers a nice combination of pride and shame. Beautifully shot, a great song and …
The ad business regularly supports charities with pro-bono work. But Hamilton agency Bettle and Associates has taken that to another level by announcing part of its business will be run as as a not-for-profit model.
New Zealanders are well accustomed to seeing ads extolling the virtues of our country—and our character. And while the first piece of work for HRV by Y&R certainly shows its fair share of majestic landscapes and quintessentially Kiwi scenarios, there’s a darker, more honest side to the new campaign that references the fact the quality of our housing stock leaves a lot to be desired and aims “to reinvent the New Zealand home invironment”.
Skittles has been successfully playing the weird card in its ads for a few years now, Old Spice found huge success with the comical masculinity of Isiah Mustafa, and the viral power of Powerthirst has spawned more than a few homages in adland. Now there’s Moro’s new ‘Fistful of Awesome’ campaign by DDB, starring a man who can only be described as a blonde, bemulleted, moustachioed, deep voiced Asian Chuck Norris-a-like showing off his physical prowess in an extremely over-the-top fashion.
Since it was formed in 2003 and was quickly noticed for its stellar work on 42 Below, Consortium has been an ad agency happy to fly under the radar and steer clear of the media. But after finding some renewed vigour for the ad business and deciding to refocus his energies on the agency he founded, Paul Shale has decided to pin his more strategic colours to the mast by announcing a few changes, including the addition of former director of home at Telecom and director of Yahoo!Xtra Ralph Brayham as a 50 percent shareholder and director.
Tasti Products Ltd is celebrating 80 years of making bars and baking bits this year and to make sure it’s looking its best for the important milestone it has shouted itself a whole new brand wardrobe and appointed Contagion as its creative partner.
As part of the Ad Impact Awards, Colmar Brunton asked approximately 4000 Kiwi consumers for their thoughts on all of last year’s new brand ads and the top six were announced a couple of weeks back. But the big annual winner is 2degrees and TBWA\’s ‘Mission HQ’, which scored significantly above average across the board in all the key impact measures.
An old Minties ad featured in the Otago Daily Times
The New Zealand ad landscape is littered with interesting stories (and interesting storytellers). But the industry’s institutional memory often leaves a lot to be desired. So, in an effort to remedy that, Idealog editor and ex-NBR AdMedia reporter Hazel Phllips is currently writing a book charting the history of New Zealand advertising. The book will be published by Penguin next year and Phillips (email her here) is looking for interviews and information from people who worked in advertising and marketing back in the mists of time. She’s also looking to make contact with the marketing departments of major New Zealand brands that have iconic campaigns in their archives and would be willing to have the imagery used in the book or have information about the timelines of campaigns and their brands’ general history. To grease the wheels of history—and possibly dredge up a few classic local ads of yore—we have a D&AD 11 book to give away, so add your favorite New Zealand ad to the comment wall and it could be yours.
Who’s it for: NZ Tax Refunds by Special Group and Finch
Why we like it: Everyone loves getting an unexpected windfall. And they’ve captured the difficulty of internalising such joy so you can spend it all yourself pretty well. Humour and tax, who would’ve thunk …
In an effort to get St Paddy’s Day in the Guinness Book of World Records, Zephyr recently enlisted the help of Irish comedian Jimeoin for its outstanding Guinness campaign. And it’s kept the star-studded momentum flowing with the launch of a new campaign for McKenna starring David Duchovny.
Special Group won the NZ Tax Refunds account following a competitive pitch late last year. And it’s relaunched the brand with a campaign that celebrates the joy of an unexpected windfall and aims to differentiate it from the crowd of “me too” brands that now clutter the category.
The latest ASA figures showed the radio industry grew its ad revenue by 2.5 percent and maintained stable share of all advertising at 11 percent. And it’s good news on the audience front too, with the latest six-monthly audience research figures showing that commercial radio in New Zealand has more listeners now that at any time in the past decade.
.99’s had a very tough few months. It lost Air New Zealand and Vodafone to DraftFCB and, as far as we’re aware, it’s not on the pitch list for the brand work for Westpac, although whether it retains the retail business seems dependent on which creative agency the bank goes with. So a few alarm bells went off when we heard Colenso and Special Group were doing work for one of its remaining big clients New World.
Who’s it for: State by Colenso BBDO and Ruskin
Why we like it: It’s either brave or foolish for State to trivialise accidents with a jaunty sing-a-long, especially after the events that have befallen the country in recent times and the role insurance companies have played …
We heard a dirty little rumour yesterday that recruitment companies were on the loose looking to place some of Ogilvy’s digital staff because its entire inhouse development team had been shut down. This got the spidey senses tingling, so we had a chat with executive director Paul Manning, who called BS on it and, slightly ironically, took the opportunity to announce the addition of experienced digital creative director Andrew Berglund to the team.
The digital boffins/idiot savants at Resn in Wellington work for one of the rare few Kiwi companies that can claim to be based in New Zealand and do work for big brands all around the world. But now, after what they say was a formal approach from the EU to “help bail them out of their fiscal conundrum”, Resn has decided to go global and set up its first satellite office in Amsterdam.
Amazingly, the Mayans predicted Marmageddon would fall in 2012 (even though an internet myth claims they didn’t factor in Leap Years). And, in keeping with the modern trend of ‘Flawsomeness’, Sanitarium and Saatchi & Saatchi haven’t let the opportunity slip them by and have launched a new campaign featuring Sir Graham Henry asking New Zealanders not to freak out about the shortage of black gold and promising concerned residents that the yeasty meat-substitute will be back.
Yesterday, the Fijian government banned inbound tourists as flash flooding wreaked havoc. But, after a global pitch thought to have received more than 60 submissions, it’s thought Colenso BBDO will now be responsible for trying to get more of them to visit after beating out agencies from New Zealand, Australia and the US to become the new global agency for Tourism Fiji.
There are a few tried and true methods of catching the attention of fans of erotic content and they usually involve body parts and vaseline (on the lens). But Sky and DDB have taken a slightly more tasteful, self-deprecating and some might even say intelligent approach to promote its Adult Channel.
For many outside the ad industry, arguing over who was the first to come up with an idea could be perceived as petty. But when ideas are the lifeblood of this industry and often have a tangible effect on an agency’s reputation—and, if it helps to win awards, momentum—provenance is important. Recently we’ve seen some controversy over the creation of personalised OHBaby! magazines for Huggies. And it looks like we can add another interesting case to the list: Colenso BBDO’s Doggelganger website for Pedigree and Whybin\TBWA Sydney’s Dog-A-Like mobile app for the same client in Australia.
The retirement industry isn’t the most glamorous, but with our ageing population and the ‘pig in the python’ that is the baby boomer generation, there’s plenty of brass to be found in the muck. Typically, the big sell is all about the facilities on offer. But Summerset Group, which listed on the stock exchange in November, has taken a slightly different approach with its first national marketing campaign and is buttering up its residents instead.