Although the release of last week’s ad spend figures by the ASA served to confirm trends that have been obvious for quite some time, a general consensus among those in the industry is that the figures don’t give an accurate reflection of changes that are occurring in the industry. Several senior industry figures share their thoughts on the structure of the annual ad spend report.
Auckland-based brand and communications agency Goodfolk today announced the addition of Mark Easterbrook to the newly created role of executive creative director. This move comes shortly after the agency recently made two other senior staff appointments.
In an effort to lure New Zealand’s loyal fast food aficionados away from beef-based options on its menu, Burger King has just launched a cheeky campaign via Colenso BBDO that encourages Kiwis to cheat on beef by sampling something from its new range of chicken-based options. And to ensure that the cheating happens in private, the fast food chain has converted a motel into an extension of its brand.
Republik and Flux Animation have gone pro-bono to produce a 30-second TVC promoting the inaugural Whittaker’s ‘Big Egg Hunt’ campaign for Starship Children’s Hospital.
At last year’s Moas, the motion picture Shopping picked up seven awards, making it the biggest winner of the night. And now, to promote the television premiere of the film on Sky’s Rialto channel, DDB launched an auction-based campaign with a humanitarian twist.
What started as “drunken idea” between Kristian Barnes, Jason Williams and Michael Kean this year celebrated its 12th year, as the YoungGun Awards were again distributed to advertising’s most promising minds under the age of 30.
In January, Vodafone announced that it was reviewing its global media account, which has been held by Omnicom’s OMD for half a decade. And this process could have repercussions for local account holders.
Two years after first launching its ‘purer invironment’ spot, HRV has once again collaborated with Y&R NZ to launch an extension of the campaign, which will see the home improvement company take on an old, damp and mouldy home. The HRV Pure Invironment Project, which aims to show that it’s possible for any home—irrespective of its age—to have an invironment as comfortable as the one depicted in the original TVC, will result in the renovation of a 110-year-old villa over the next month.
In November last year, McDonald’s launched New Zealand’s version of the ‘Our food, Your Questions’ campaign that proved so successful in Canada. As the questions have poured in over the last few months, McDonald’s has proceeded to answer them and the resultant correspondence has been collated on a website specially dedicated to the campaign.
Content marketing specialist BrandWorld has just launched Field Trials, a new masthead that aims to showcase products targeted at farmers. This move marks a change in direction for BrandWorld, in the sense that this is the company’s first foray into the rural market. Although the previous four mastheads – Discover, The Extra Mile, Eating Well and Family Health Diary – do sometimes feature products that appeal to both the rural and urban markets, the new offering will focus exclusively on targeting farmers. And if the statistics from the Ministry of Primary Industries are anything to go by, this could prove to be a lucrative move.
The Intermedia Group, which owns over 70 media titles in Australia, has announced that it will release two business-to-business titles in the New Zealand market within the next few months. This move comes only a few weeks after it was confirmed that MediaWeb, which was previously active in both the FMCG and hospitality markets, went into receivership. And although the Intermedia NZ general manager didn’t say that there was a correlation between the MediaWeb receivership and Intermedia’s decision to enter the market, he did admit that situation at MediaWeb influenced the timing of the move. Update: the receivers are accepting tenders from interested parties for all MediaWeb’s assets.
The ASA’s 2013 ad spend figures showed that while TV continues to reign supreme, its time at the top might be coming to an end as the interactive category continues its trend of strong year-on-year growth. Updated with comments from OMANZ, MediaWorks Radio and NZ post.
.99’s latest TV spot for Tower invokes the nautical metaphor of a lighthouse keeper to illustrate that the insurance giant is always looking out for its clients. Throughout the 45-second TVC, the bearded protagonist draws a parallel between lighthouse keepers and Tower, in the sense that both are “always on watch” and have wisdom on “how to avoid danger and how to put things right.” Updated with 2013 ad spend figures for insurance companies.
Quite often, when companies operate across both the Australian and New Zealand markets, advertisers create generic marketing messages that are applicable across the board. But rather than adopting this cost-saving approach for its latest OPSM spot, the creative team from Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney took a flight across the ditch to produce content that was aimed specifically at the Kiwi market.
Having already established a strong foothold in the personal consumer market, 2degrees has now set its sights on business clients with an online and outdoor campaign via new account holders Special Group. In addition to featuring the faces of several prominent business owners on billboards, the campaign has also resulted in several updates to the mobile service provider’s website. PLUS: find out why 2degrees is so keen to tap into the business market.
In response to the growing mound of unpaid fines, the Ministry of justice has launched a new advertising campaign via M&C Saatchi that features Mr Fines, a suited bald man who seems to have been cast out of the mould usually reserved for stereotypical debt collectors. Central to the campaign is a new 30-second TVC in which Mr Fines is depicted as paying visits to various Kiwis and seizing items that belong to them in lieu of payment for outstanding fines.
Summer 2013/2014 has undoubtedly been the season of the pop-ups, with Jacob’s Creek, Corona and Stoneleigh all introducing relaxation or entertainment enclaves to promote their products. And it seems that the trend is stretching into autumn, as Rekorderlig recently launched Rekorderlig Summerhouse, a bar modelled on a Swedish abode that will be serving drinks and snacks to visitors over the next two weeks.
In December last year, it was reported that OMD and MediaCom were involved in a pitching tussle for the Fonterra media account. And now, after several months of speculation as to where the account would go, the dairy producer has confirmed that MediaCom has won the pitch. Updated with information on the duration of OMD’s hold on the account.
Last night’s Axis Awards, hosted by Newstalk ZB’s Andrew Dickens at the Viaduct events centre, delivered a plush showcase of the country’s best creative talent for the 34th year in a row. The theme for this year’s edition was ‘share the love,’ and this was certainly a sentiment that all 800 people in attendance embraced as smiles around the room were as ubiquitous as celebratory drinks. Here’s a rundown of how the event went.
Carefree has taken a page out of the Vagina Monologues with a new campaign that aims to subvert the shame women feel about their menstrual cycles by encouraging an online dialogue about periods.
Only five months after NBR reported that Mediaweb was unable to pay its staff, it has now been announced that the publisher has gone into receivership. Updated with comments from Tony Maginness, the receiver who has been appointed to the case.
Guy Williams has literally become the (disembodied) face of responsible drinking in New Zealand as part the second stage of DraftFCB’s ‘Say Yeah, Nah’ campaign from last year. Updated with comments from Guy Williams on why he decided to participate in the campaign.
After serving as the managing director of Y&R NZ for fewer than two years, James Hurman is set to bid farewell to the agency.
For the third year in a row, Roy Morgan handed out awards to 24 Kiwi businesses that showed the highest levels of customer satisfaction, when measured against its annual survey of over 12,000 New Zealanders.
Last night’s 26th edition of the annual NZ Direct Marketing Awards at Auckland’s Langham Hotel was a lavish affair, which was hosted by comedian Ben Hurley and the Marketing Association’s chief executive Sue McCarty, who recently resigned from her position. In total 41 different awards were handed out over the course of the event, and by the end of the night the attendees from Colenso BBDO/Proximity and iSite Media must’ve had tired legs due to the number of times they were called to the stage.
In 2009, when Alex Gledhill co-founded Quina Fina tonic water, he wanted to create a traditional variation of tonic water that contained the bark of cinchona. However, after following his research to the Ecuadorian province of Loja – the natural habitat of cinchona – he discovered that the tree was on the brink of extinction due to deforestation caused by the high demand for the antimalarial properties found in the bark. Rather than just accepting this problem, Gledhill decided to do something about it.
Pernod Ricard-owned wine producer Stoneleigh will bring some botanical intrigue to Auckland from 28 February to 8 March, as it takes over Queens Wharf with its ‘Wonder of Nature’ event. Over the course of the campaign, Stoneleigh will break the concrete flow of the city’s landscape with the introduction of suspended gardens, which were conceptualised by award-winning landscape designer Jules Moore.
Earlier this year, it was announced that Image Centre Group* had won the Wendy’s account from King Street. And four weeks later the new account holder has launched a campaign via its in-house creative agency &Some to introduce the Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger to the Kiwi market.
To attract South American students (and the unsubsidised fees that come with them), Education New Zealand has arranged for Otago Polytechnic to host a pair of popular Brazilian bloggers for several weeks. Caio Komatsu and Luana Mazotti, both from Sao Paolo, are the founders of the blogs Fail Wars and Puro Veneno, which are said to reach a combined audience of approximately five million people. And the organisers of the campaign believe that the pair’s keyboard-tapping hobby could help to spread Latin American awareness of New Zealand, not only as a tourist destination but also as a great place to study.
Yesterday, APN released a new campaign to promote the addition of OPTA, a rugby analytics tool, to its recently launched rugby portal, which serves as a discrete hub for anything related to the sport. In the campaign, titled ‘Talk like a rugby pro,’ the laconic observations of a rugby novice are juxtaposed to the in-depth analyses of a fan who has access to extra rugby intel (possibly thanks to the information available on the Herald). PLUS: read about which agency lost APN’s creative account.