Author Ben Fahy

We’ve already seen the foundations of Labour’s election campaign, with a policy focus on no asset sales and the implementation of a capital gains tax. National decided to hold off its launch until the conclusion of the RWC and, while it has erected plenty of hoardings around the country, all of them featuring both the candidate and the man many deem to be the nation’s first celebrity prime minister, it soft-launched its campaign this week with a campaign featuring stop-go men wearing blue and red stating ‘This year the choice is clear’. 

In a world gone social, influence is critical. And Telecom is bolstering its earned media credentials with the launch of Smart Network, a new online hub that showcases the work of a bunch of creative Kiwis. 

With a big pitch on the go and some unwanted attention from the Commerce Commission and the ASA for misleading and irresponsible advertising, Vodafone’s been in the news a bit recently. But it’s got something slightly more positive to shout about now: an augmented reality (AR) application to celebrate its sponsorship of the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.

It’s been a tough year for the Christchurch-helmed Strategy Design and Advertising. But last week was a well-deserved good one, with its first Effie (one bronze for Christchurch City Council’s Share an Idea) and five golds at the Best Awards. Now it’s getting international attention for its brand development work for new foreign exchange trading website MahiFX—and particularly for an online gimmick that allows visitors to compare their income to renowned supertrader John Paulson. 

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There’s been a bit of green-fingered, grow-your-own food renaissance around the developed world in recent years, to the point where the approximately $600 million New Zealand gardening market is one of the few retail sectors currently moving in the right direction. To help those numbers keep growing, Hotfoot and Tangible Media have chucked a bit of fertiliser on the Nurserymen and Gardeners Industry Association and launched a one-year long Go Gardening campaign that aims to get more Kiwis in the garden.

DraftFCB and the Ministry of Health are a pretty bloody good team, as evidenced by the numerous awards the duo has won in recent years. And, after it was beaten by Colenso’s supreme award-winning catfood campaign for Whiskas last year, they’ve managed to wipe away those salty tears and make amends by taking out a fair swag of the big gongs at this year’s Effies at SkyCity, including most effective agency and most effective client. 

There are currently thousands of tourists gallivanting around New Zealand, and many of them are freedom camping. Mostly, that’s a positive thing. But in some cases it leads to the inevitable negative stories about disrespectful visitors leaving a trail of filth behind them. Over the past 18 months, a team of mobile gurus has been trying to remedy this by plugging the information gap that currently exists with a free location-based app called Campermate that offers information about nearby rubbish bins, campgrounds, toilets and other amenities. And two of them are trying to get visitors to download it by heading on the ‘2-egg roadtrip’ and bribing them with free food.