Author Ben Fahy

News
Colenso ties up McLeish
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Colenso’s ex head of planning James Hurman sailed away to China recently, and Colenso BBDO has named Andy McLeish, who has been acting head of planning over the past month, as his replacement.

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State and Colenso sing in the face of adversity
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State Insurance went large in 2010 year when it launched its ‘Love your Stuff’ positioning with the ‘My Favourite Things’ campaign. And Colenso BBDO has taken that musical approach even further for the next iteration with a big new TV and radio campaign showing how quickly State can get things back on track. 

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Hairy nek dumpling minnit: Mojo tyros win annual Orca gongs with low-fat Subway spots
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A galaxy of stars/people with faces for radio gathered at Atico Cocina in Auckland yesterday to listen to the year’s best radio ads. And, like last year, when Murray Watt from DraftFCB took both the Grande Orca and the people’s choice awards, and the year before that, Publicis Mojo’s Hadleigh Sinclair and Jack Delmonte walked away with both prizes, a giant cheque and a trip to the Cannes Lions for a very funny Subway campaign that detailed fat-related afflictions such as double chins, cankles and bingo wings. 

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Suits off, grooves on: Hallensteins and Mojo raunch it up with new campaign
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Hallensteins has been trying valiantly to add some coolness to the brand in recent years. And, if the much improved first half results for parent company Hallenstein Glasson are anything to go by, that approach is working. But its latest ad, The Power of the Suit, which was made by Publicis Mojo and directed by new Thick as Thieves recruit Jae Morrison, is easily its edgiest yet.

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What’s your beef, vegos?—UPDATED
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Pak N Save’s Stickman is a cheeky wee chappy. And he recently peeved off a few militant vegetarians and upholders of political correctness with a recent Meat Week ad. But rather than bow down to the vocal minority, as often seems to be the case these days, DraftFCB and Foodstuffs had a bit of fun instead and decided to placate the flesh avoiders with a modified version.

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Brace for impact: it’s consumers vs the industry in Annual Ad Impact vote
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In an effort to reward the ads that worked hardest—and the agencies responsible for them—we kicked off the Ad Impact Awards with Colmar Brunton early last year. Between February 2011 and February 2012, approximately 4000 Kiwi consumers were asked four key questions via an online panel about the new TV campaigns that had aired that month: did you notice it? Did you know who it was for? Did it engage you, stand out and arouse your interest? And how did you feel or act after seeing it? We focused on brand building ads, rather than those communicating special offers, and the results were then compared to Colmar Brunton’s vast normative database, which is based on the more than 72,000 ads that have been tested around the world over the past 30 years. The six ads below were at the top of the pile, and we will announce the overall winner next week. But we thought we’d try a bit of an experiment first to see if the opinions of the industry folk matched the opinions of the consumers. So help us out and pick the ad you think got the most bang for the advertiser’s buck.

News
The gears of war—and mortgages
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Who’s it for: Fiveight/Turtle Beach by Droga5 and Goodoil Sydney

Why we like it: Tricking viewers, journos and even actors in an effort to drum up some interest in a new campaign is a pretty risky strategy. It can also be very rewarding if it works …

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TVNZ banishes ghost of TiVo past with big profit
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TVNZ was left to lick a few wounds after its $15-ish million TiVo blow-out. And there’s also been plenty of movement among senior staff since then, with the broadcaster still operating without a chief executive or a head of news and current affairs. But despite those difficulties, it’s managed to turn things around, with a half year unaudited net profit after tax of $19.2 million, an increase of $14.3 million on the prior year. 

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Affinity ID cleans up Dog’s breakfast—UPDATED
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Back in July 2010, we wrote a story about a merger between Advocate Advertising, Wag the Dog and MediaR. At the time, Andy Taylor, co-founder and director of the three-pronged entity that called itself Wag the Dog Agency, waxed lyrical about the new set-up, but according to a story in the NBR yesterday, it has a date in the Auckland High Court on Friday after the IRD applied to have the company liquidated. And New Zealand’s biggest indie Affinity ID has swooped in to snaffle the existing business. 

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From beyond the grave: BNZ and Sugar’s last stand
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There’s been plenty of chatter about the BNZ of late after a regional realignment meant it parted company with Sugar and, rather unexpectedly, shacked with Colenso BBDO. But before that all kicked off, the old pairing had time to come up with a new campaign pushing the bank’s offset mortgage product TotalMoney. 

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Pro-beer campaign gives wine a dose of print-based grief—UPDATED
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Whenever a slightly controversial/deliberately antagonistic campaign is released, many would argue that the campaign gets a tick when those who are bound to be outraged by it come out and show their outrage. Almost without fail, St Matthew in the City’s ‘progressive’ billboards roil the religious types. And DB Export Dry’s ‘Great Wine Depression’ TV ad, a light-hearted parody of the beginnings of New Zealand wine snobbery that was made by Colenso BBDO and The Sweet Shop, also appeared to have its desired effect when a couple of wine lovers took the wine-bashing to heart. Well, now they’ve got a few new print ads to get up in arms about as well. 

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She’s a beast: Pine Tree shacks up with SsangYong
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Korean carmaker SsangYong had 300 percent growth in New Zealand last year. And it’s confident that signing up one of New Zealand’s great hardmen, Colin Meads, as the face of its new Actyon Sports Ute will help maintain that level of growth in 2012. 

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Auckland up for grabs as ATEED scales down—UPDATED
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Last year, Ogilvy was awarded the contract for the Auckland Tourism, Transport and Economic Development’s (ATEED’s) Rugby World Cup campaign and positioning the Big Little Super City as the host was a huge, multi-million dollar, multi-headed initiative. But now the dust has settled on that, the organisation is getting back to basics and has appointed Big, Barnes, Catmur & Friends and 4i’s on a roster basis. 

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Will the real Turtle Beach campaign please stand up
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Last year, Droga5 launched an online trailer for a campaign created for Fiveight, the local distributor of Turtle Beach, a manufacturer of high-end headsets and gaming gear. The clip showed an avid—and fairly cocky—Kiwi gamer who had agreed to head to Iraq to see what a real warzone was like and a fair bit of controversy erupted after its launch, which meant most didn’t get a chance to see it reach its denouement. But the full version is out there—although now under the Fiveight name—and there’s an interesting twist to the tale of the Kiwi gamer known as StatiC.

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Crouch, print, engage: Tangible launches two new brand extensions
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Yesterday’s ASA figures showed a $10 million decrease in ad revenue for the mag industry. And fairly tight times are forcing publishers to innovate, whether it be through branded content, new advertorial products, online initiatives or special issues like Tangible Media’s just-launched NZ Rugby World 1st XV and The New Zealand Weddings Planner. 

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Go deep: Frank Rose on the art of immersion
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Throughout history, the arrival of new mediums has continually upset the apple cart. The printing press, the novel, film, sound, TV, 3D, and the list goes on, have all changed the way humans tell stories—and all taken a long time for the storytellers to come to terms with. And, as Frank Rose, Wired writer, media analyst and author of a new book called The Art of Immersion said this morning at a breakfast hosted by DraftFCB, exactly the same is true in this digital age. 

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Total ad turnover up $42 million in 2011 as TV knocks newspaper off its perch—UPDATED
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The Advertising Standards Authority’s annual media turnover figures have been released, and while there are a few significant changes, there are no real surprises, with a slight overall increase on 2010 for the whole industry, TV doing as expected and claiming first place for the first time, interactive and outdoor charting significant rises and the rest of the media channels remaining fairly static. 

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ASB and ANZ duke it out on the new campaign trail—UPDATED
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There’s been no shortage of action in bankland recently, with agency shifts galore and fairly sizeable profits being announced by the big boys that could potentially lead to some fairly enthralling market-share battles this year. And one of the big ones is set to be between ASB and ANZ. 

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Of mice and money: Sorted sends out a new financial message
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The wise spokesrodent for sorted.org.nz has been helping to enhance Kiwis’ money smarts for almost ten years now and the website is renowned as one of the best financial literacy programmes in the world. New Zealand’s love affair with debt appears to be declining slightly, but there’s still plenty of work to be done and plenty of gaps in the educational process. And, with the help of GSL Network, DoubleFish and Yukfoo, the newly refreshed and renamed Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income has launched the first phase of a new campaign that hopes to get the punters planning. 

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Kiwi rum runners seek Kiwi rum runners in customs-busting PR stunt
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Back in 2008, swarthy old seadogs Roger Holmes and Jamie Duff ditched their fancy London day jobs and returned to New Zealand to launch Stolen rum. Since then, the sugary nectar has won a few awards, added names like Peter Gordon, Nick Worthingon, Brent Smart and James Hurman to the investor list and, through a combination of savvy PR and branding and a good product, is now stocked in a number of classy bars, swanky restaurants and luxury lodges. And, to launch a new rum variety called SX9 that’s aimed squarely at the hospitality industry, it’s taken a leaf out of the 42 Below book with a potentially controversial campaign enlisting the services of local mules to help smuggle its illegal contraband into Australia. 

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Igloo on ice? Sky/TVNZ joint venture given the once over by ComCom
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News surfaced this week that Sky and TVNZ had a date with the Commerce Commission after a complaint was laid about their joint venture Igloo and whether it met merger obligations under Section 47 of the Commerce Act. So if the decision goes against it, will it put the kybosh on the new mid-play TV network?  

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ACP sends FHM to the glue factory
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For a time, it seemed as though men—and quite a few ladies—couldn’t get enough of FHM’s tall-tales, humour and glamour shots of well-endowed models. But ACP has made the decision to close the magazine after it lost almost half of its circulation in the last six months of 2011 in Australia. And, as of May, it will also be taken out of the market in New Zealand.  

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.99 makes cuts after big account losses, as justONE shown the door at BNZ—UPDATED
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After BNZ’s parent bank NAB recently shoulder-tapped Clemenger Group and asked Colenso BBDO to hop into bed with BNZ, Westpac was pushed out onto the floor and swiftly put its account up for pitch. At present, the Clemenger-owned .99, which recently had to show around 15 staff the door after the loss of Air New Zealand and Vodafone to DraftFCB, is Westpac’s retail agency but this new regional alignment and other agency changes for BNZ means it might be pretty tough to keep it that way. 

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Finger Pluk-ing good: advertisers mix TV with mobile as smartphone app kicks off
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After launching in January, giving away a new car to one person who signed up and doing a fair bit of promotion through MediaWorks’ channels, over 43,000 smartphone users have downloaded the Pluk app, which claims to offer an added level of interaction between brands and consumers and was developed by local company Foxtrot Media. And, after the first Pluk-enabled TV commercials went live this week, Foxtrot’s managing director Boyd Wason is fairly chuffed with the initial results—and so, he says, are the first clients Holden, InsureMe, Subway and Roadshow.

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DDB takes out local agency derby, justONE and OMD take category wins
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Success is fairly subjective in adland. Depending on who you’re talking to, it can be about the cash earned, growth rates achieved, accounts gained or creative plaudits won. And while DDB Group hasn’t quite had the run of things when it comes to awards of late, its “exceptional” business performance over the past year was enough to win it the 2012 Fairfax AdMedia Supreme Agency of the Year last night at the Imperial Lane Bar & Restaurant, adding to the agency of the year titles it has recently been awarded by the NBR, Campaign Brief and Campaign Asia Pacific. DraftFCB was a close runner-up, justONE won specialist agency of the year and OMD took the media title. 

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Jamieson bids adieu to NZ, says hello to Asia
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Nielsen’s managing director of media Stuart Jamieson is set to depart after around ten years in the hotseat to take up a role running the Nielsen business in the Philippines based in Manila. Rob Clark, who was appointed managing director, consumer group in August 2009, is set to take over the new position of country head, but a replacement as MD of media has yet to be announced. 

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