Author Ben Fahy

News
Harsh new world claims another victim as Brave New World closes doors
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The unfortunately all-too-common combination of a troublesome client and the cool recessionary winds have forced Parnell indie agency Brave New World to shut up shop. But it hopes to go out in a blaze of glory and highlight a serious issue with shelf companies that the agency’s general manager David Brash believes is currently going under the radar of the authorities.

News
Battle of the banks
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Who’s it for: RaboBank by Shine and Assembly.

Why we like it: As the only online specialist savings and investment bank in New Zealand, RaboBank has a relatively unique tale to tell. And that relatively unique tale has been told in a fittingly unique and …

News
Nielsen gets licence to print’s money
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The Nielsen Company has been signed up for another five years as the preferred provider of research services for the print media industry. But all is not as it once was: Derek Lindsay, chairman of the snappily titled Print Media Industry Research Review Group (PMIRRG) and managing director at DraftFCB media calls the new deal a complete relaunch of the consumer insight and print readership research service in New Zealand and he believes the host of new innovations soon to be on offer will prove to be a bit of a fillip for New Zealand’s publishers.

News
Is that a voucher in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?
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Way back in the mists of time, the number of vouchers redeemed by consumers was often seen as an indication of how effective a print ad had been. Since then vouchers have been put inside books, on dockets, in letterboxes and on the internet, each with varying degrees of success. But Auckland company POCKETvouchers claims to be improving the success rate—and efficiency—by sending discount deals to consumers’ mobile phones.

News
The future is bright: Jason Paris on TV’s second wind
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Jason Paris’ switcheroo from the head of digital media and marketing at TVNZ to chief executive of MediaWorks in March created, quite understandably, a fair swag of industry chatter. And, while he’s learning quickly about the differences between working for a company owned by a private equity firm and one that’s owned by the government, he’s still grappling with a lot of the same televisual issues and the social changes that are influencing them. And, in his presentation at the Death, Taxes and TVCs event last week, he agreed wholeheartedly with Colenso BBDO’s planning director James Hurman that, despite many assertions to the contrary, mass media is still alive and kicking. In fact, he says “television has never been more popular”.

News
Back from the dead? James Hurman on the new mass media
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Around 50 industry heavyweights, middleweights and lightweights shunned the Ranfurly Shield match last night and instead gathered together at Studio Lumiere in Parnell to talk television. And, particularly, to talk about what the future held for television advertising. Colenso’s planning director James Hurman, MediaWorks chief executive Jason Paris and Image Centre Group’s Mike Hutcheson enlightened, extrapolated and entertained in equal measure as part of Pure Production’s Death, Taxes and TVCs event and, in the first of three posts about each of the presentations, we delve into James Hurman’s thoughts on what he feels is a misconception about the death of mass marketing and media.

News
Hello Dolly: Air New Zealand, Flying Fish and .99 caught in sex toy romp
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BNZ’s GlobalPlus has, up until very recently, been the only credit card where users were able to earn Air New Zealand Air Points through their everyday purchases. But the airline decided to expand its credit card offerings in November, which means New Zealand Airpoints Members can now earn Airpoints Dollars with a few new banking providers. And what better way to show off this exciting evolution than with a sexy, slightly ridiculous romp around Auckland with a blow-up doll.

News
Shine joins the banking party as new Rabo campaign goes live
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It’s all go in New Zealand’s financial comms realm at the moment, with a bevy of big new campaigns, logo redesigns, repositioning statements and retiring frontmen spewing forth recently. And RaboDirect is the latest addition to that bunch, with a cool new campaign created by its new agency Shine, which took the account off Ogilvy in May.

News
Nextbike Shores up its public cycle fleet
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It’s been a rocky road at times, but the first year of public cycle scheme Nextbike has been a pretty successful one (as evidenced by the emerging business award it was handed by the  Sustainable Business Network last night) and, to celebrate, it is extending its Auckland network to include the North Shore, an area that Nextbike’s marketing and sales manager Glenn Shaw says is not particularly well-endowed with outdoor advertising opportunities.

News
The futures market
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Mike Walsh is what’s known as a ‘futurist’. Somewhat disappointingly, he doesn’t wear a silver boiler suit, he doesn’t employ the services of a rocket pack and he doesn’t know if the Mayans are right about the world ending in 2012. But, by focusing on nascent consumer trends in certain regions that have the potential to become mainstream everywhere else, he does know a thing or two about how the rise of the machines is completely changing the marketing game. 

News
From fusty to frivolous: DraftFCB gives National Bank a Dr Seuss-inspired refresh
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DraftFCB snatched the National Bank account off Clemenger BBDO in October last year and since then, industry chinstrokers have been eagerly awaiting the fruits of the new relationship. Well, the new, zany, big budget, weirdly patriotic TVC epic has finally hit the shelves and it’s an interesting—and entertaining—evolution to a banking brand that’s long been seen as a fairly serious one.

News
DraftFCB banks on Dr Seuss, Colenso goes on a milk run
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Who’s it for: National Bank by DraftFCB and Robber’s Dog

Why we like it: Diehard Dr Seuss fans could potentially cry into their hands at the use of ‘Oh, the places you’ll go’ in a bank ad. But bank ad fans will presumably rejoice because …

News
War of fruity words waged as internal cider conflict rips Monteith’s apart
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It’s not unusual to see companies extolling the virtues of their own products and criticising the products of their rivals. But it’s much more unusual to see a battle raging between two products from the same company. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening with Monteith’s new campaign for its crushed pear cider. And it kicked off in fine, confusing and rather unique style with a fake protest at the DB Breweries Waitemata site.

News
3 News licks ratings wounds as two million tune in to TVNZ’s quake coverage
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Source: ONE News

With thoughts of yawning chasms and widespread destruction in Christchurch piquing the interest of the New Zealand populous, many turned to the good old reliable television to get a glimpse of the quake carnage. And with what was basically a full day of live coverage, it’s fair to say ONE News smoked 3 News in the media battle.

News
New and improved
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Who’s it for: Vodafone by Colenso BBDO and Flying Fish

Why we like it: Place this firmly in the ‘how’d they do that?’ category. Colenso BBDO and Flying Fish’s Wade Shotter have joined forces to create a TVC that’s intended to start a conversation …

News
Just one year out and questions on RWC ‘clean zones’ still to be answered
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DHL announced its sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup today (and to celebrate Grant Fox kicked a rugby ball off the Skytower). And while the rules for the tournament’s official sponsors seem fairly clear, media owners, media buyers and the host of other companies that haven’t forked out but are hoping to jump on the RWC marketing bandwagon are still waiting to find out from the government how the Major Events Management Act (MEMA) could affect marketing activities, particularly when it comes to out-of-home media.

News
Holt! Who goes there?
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Andrew Holt, currently a group account director at Colenso BBDO, will be shifting south, moving up the executive chain and battling the breeze after being appointed as managing director of Clemenger BBDO in Wellington.

News
Terrible pun used as Colenso, DraftFCB and Barnes, Catmur & Friends all bubble with EFFIEvescence
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The EFFIEs aren’t usually seen as the most glamorous or creative of the CAANZ events (as evidenced by the historic victory of Farmer’s Red Dot Specials a few years back). But, in terms of what advertising is actually meant to do, it should really be deemed the most important. And Colenso BBDO, DraftFCB and Barnes, Catmur & Friends have come through the first two rounds of judging as the country’s three most effective agencies for 2010.

News
Up the talk, decrease the violence
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Who’s it for: Campaign for Action on Family Violence by DraftFCB

Why we like it: DraftFCB has been staking a serious claim for the title of social change specialists in recent times (and in very recent times it has apparently started production on what has …

News
New magazine smell not quite as memorable as new car smell
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If you happened to look up from your iPhone as you strolled past a bookstore, dairy or supermarket, you may have noticed a collection of strange things made out of paper. They often call these quaint periodicals ‘magazines’. And a fresh, shiny new September-October NZ Marketing could just be among them.

News
Taste of Kiwi dished out as Welly restaurant pops-up in Sydney
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Since April, Positively Wellington Tourism has been on a mission to lure more of our Aussie friends across for a visit and smash a few misconceptions. And all indicators suggest the ‘There’s No Place Like Wellington’ campaign, which aims to showcase the region and its creative edge, has worked very well so far. But it’s taking things up a notch and getting experiential with WLG, a pop-up restaurant that will be operating in Sydney for two weeks next month in a bid to generate some buzz about the city.

News
Low hanging fruit hurled at religion in controversial new poster campaign
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The modus operandi of Eshe, a Kiwi streetwear clothing company that was started in 2008, is to take things back to the glory days of skating counter-culture; to slaughter a few metaphorical sacred cows. And it’s managed to inspire some fairly contrived controversy with a combination of sacrilege and old-school Garbage Pail kids imagery with a new poster campaign in Auckland.

Opinion
Te Radar and 2degrees shine at TVNZ-NZ Marketing awards
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It was a night that had almost everything: surprisingly loud and seemingly dangerous explosions; a fair bit of rowdiness from the 2degrees/TBWA tables; a hilarious mad scientist poking fun at everyone; strange glowing beakers; an array of confusing acronyms; polite clapping; attentive listening; and prodigious amounts of inter-company sexy dancing as big names from big and small Kiwi companies got dolled up for last night’s TVNZ-NZ Marketing awards at the Langham Hotel in Auckland. And the general consensus was that the quality of the winning work was world-class and that the awards themselves just keep on improving.

News
And the winners are…
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The New Zealand marketing community was in celebration mode at the 2010 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards at the Langham Hotel in Auckland tonight. And, after months of trawling through a huge number of entries, some rigorous judging and a fair bit of finalist back-patting, New Zealand’s newest, quirkiest mobile network 2degrees came away with the most back pats on the night, winning three of the big gongs.

News
Going digital: boffins’ brains picked on how to get organisational buy-in
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The humans are digitising. And the adspend is following suit. Hell, you can even get fridges that connect to the internet these days. So, given that it’s still considered by many to be a rather intimidating, mysterious realm, it’s not surprising to find that the marcomms community can’t get enough of that educational digital stuff. As such, the Marketing Association/Jericho’s Brainy Breakfast gathered together a few of the country’s successful digital exponents to offer some of their insights and tell marketers how they can convince their corporate gatekeepers to fully embrace digital marketing.

News
Apple to confused clients: “Thou shall not show iPad being used in iPad app ads”
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Anyone who has had the pleasure of dealing with corporates, government departments or academic institutions presumably knows there are an almost limitless number of seemingly ridiculous rules that have to be obeyed. Many of these rules fly directly in the face of common sense and are generally frustrating time-sucks. But StopPress can’t recall a rule that seems quite as ridiculous as this one from Apple.

News
Newish BNZ logo brings back the stars
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It was less than two years ago that BNZ released its cute, fluffy, cloud-like logo into the wild. Some thought it was fresh, different and looked like toothpaste. Others thought it was too fresh, too different and too toothpastey and, therefore, lacked history and gravitas. And it seems the BNZ brand boffins agreed with the latter, because it’s gone back to its astronomical roots and changed its logo again, adding the classic Southern Cross back in, reducing the fluffiness and chopping that cheeky vestigial tail off the B.

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