Author Ben Fahy

New Zealanders, with our unusual combination of immense pride and nagging self-doubt, like to be liked (“How are you enjoying your trip? Are you enjoying your trip? You’re enjoying your trip, aren’t you?”). But, just as Aucklanders have certain preconceptions of, say, Invercargill, many Australians couldn’t think of anything worse than visiting their Tasman neighbours. So, as part of a campaign launching today in Australia, Air New Zealand and its Aussie agency Host Sydney attempted to show a bunch of ‘Kiwi Sceptics’ what they were missing out on by tricking them into a trip to the other lucky country. 

After the success of Pepsi’s MaxIt Jobs campaign last year, there were high hopes for Colenso’s follow-up, Bromitment. But, by the power of Facebook, the vocal minority have got their way and convinced Frucor/Frucor’s PR agency to bow to online pressure and withdraw a prize offering a trip to the running of the bulls in Spain from the campaign. 

Gone are the days when homebrew was a byword for, as your dad might say, bloody undrinkable horse piss. Craft beer is one the major growth areas of the booze market and there are now plenty of interesting brews being concocted in garages, laundries, hot water cupboards, man caves and, of course, breweries all around the country. To tap into the growing number of refined palates, Ian Williams and Anders Warn spent five years developing the world’s first personal brewery, WilliamsWarn, and the design and brand work by Studio Alexander has matched the quality of the product by taking gold in the international Graphis 100 Best in Design awards. 

As smartphones become more prevalent, QR codes are picking up steam and are now seen more regularly on ads, on products and even on t-shirts at festivals in Poland. Most of the time, the fairly ugly, alien-esque black and white shapes are employed to disseminate information—or offers—but there are some pretty creative options now available (Kiwi company Set QR is leading the way in this regard) and one of the coolest QR executions we’ve seen recently is this print ad for Panasonic that was made by Publicis Mojo Auckland to go on the cover of trade publication Wares Magazine.

BCG2 Health appears to be revelling in its niche at the moment after a couple of good wins and it’s toasting to more good health because, after a competitive pitch, Fisher and Paykel Healthcare has shacked up with the agency to launch a digital consumer and trade campaign in the US, a key market for its range of sleep apnoea medical devices.

The oft-stated wonder of the online realm for advertisers is the utility it provides and the creative opportunities it affords. And while that utility isn’t often harnessed as effectively as it could be, a campaign to launch Hellers’ new range of burger patties by Christchurch agency Simpatico, which recently rebranded from UMC, shows what can be done with a bit of nifty thinking. 

Following in the footsteps of Facebook Deals, Groupon Now and other large deal-providers offering location-specific discounts in real-time, GrabOne has launched its version in New Zealand, Instant. And, on the same day, Flossie.com has also relaunched itself as “a quiet-time appointment channel for the hair and beauty industry” in an effort to tap into the burgeoning deal-hunting consumer movement.

Mobile devices are basically seen as a necessity these days and, like a dog without its bone, there’s almost nothing more depressing than seeing a modern human try to function without its phone. For marketers, these devices offer some very exciting creative possibilities, and MediaWorks has jumped on the ‘social TV’ bandwagon and released what it believes is a world-first smartphone app called Pluk that uses audio recognition technology to deliver content from the TV straight to the user’s phone.

If you believe the digital doomsayers, free-to-air TV is currently experiencing death by a thousand cuts. But in New Zealand, it seems as though TV is slowly clawing its way back to the good old days after data released by industry body ThinkTV showed a two percent or $11 million rise in total ad revenue to $618 million for 2011, up from $607 million in 2010 and $569 million in 2009.

Barnes, Catmur & Friends won the Tourism Fiji account in mid-2009 and set out on its mission to grow New Zealand visitor arrivals from 100,000 per year to 120,000 by 2011. Since it took over, and despite the ongoing political uncertainty, arrivals have gone up 18 percent on the back of some good creative comms, including an enticing TVC, a billboard that showed how hot it was in Fiji during the New Zealand winter and a well-received Adshel promotion that ‘Fiji’ed’ a few hundred locals. But, despite these local results, Tourism Fiji has decided the best approach to “ensure the best possible return on the Fiji Government’s significant annual investment in marketing Fiji to the world and to effectively position Fiji competitively into the future” is to find a lead global advertising agency to develop and implement a new global masterbrand strategy. 

Tip Top launched its new range of Ice Bar Co. ice blocks last year and, slightly unusually, aimed them directly at the grown-ups. Typically, ice blocks were something for the kids to get all over their faces, and their popularity with this demographic meant such treats were always in jeopardy if the stash happened to be discovered in the freezer. But thankfully, Colenso BBDO has come up with an ingenious product that aims to keep the goods safe from the greedy little thieving parasites (or from curious flatmates): a frozen pea packet camouflage system that uses the threat of vegetables and phrases like ‘now extra bland’ and ‘eight fewer flavours than ever before’ to put mischievous kids off the scent. Get yours for free here.