Following a creative review that commenced late last year, AA Insurance has parted ways with Special Group and appointed DDB as its new creative agency. But it isn’t all bad news for Special Group, with the agency picking up the cross-Tasman Bell Tea and Coffee Company account.
Following last year’s departure of long-serving Malcolm Phillipps, 2degrees has confirmed the appointment of Roy Ong as its new chief marketing officer.
The streets of Cuba, the vistas of Rio De Janeiro and the desolate Salt Flats of Utah are just some of the breath-taking landscapes Hallenstein Brothers has featured in its advertising. And the Kiwi brand has now added to this list, releasing a new spot that takes the viewer on short trip through Morocco and Dubai.
It’s been called New Zealand’s most expensive TV show in history—and for good reason. With over $8 million of New Zealand On Air funding on top of the amount contributed from TVNZ’s own coffers, Filthy Rich certainly does live up to its name. We chat to the team at TVNZ about the launch campaign, airing the show two nights a week, and pressure of promoting a show with such a hefty price tag.
MediaWorks head of brand and marketing Katie Mills has ended her long tenure at the media company, taking up the position of general manager of marketing and communications at infrastructure consultancy Opus International Consultants.
Last week, at an event hosted at the Auckland viaduct, Heineken gathered the media and a collection of millennials to unveil its latest brand ad, which again has a very strong moderate drinking message. But as a brand that lives and dies by the number of bottles it sells, why is it trying to encourage consumers to think twice about handing over their cash?
A source in the industry has revealed that there were concerns about the integrity of the Massey University pitching process, which culminated in the account being awarded to FCB.
Fonterra is rolling out a major global platform in a bid to strengthen the Anchor brand in several international markets. Strategically developed by Colenso BBDO, various creative iterations of the core concept are set to appear in New Zealand, China and Sri Lanka (and later in Chile and Malaysia). The creative announcing the campaign to the local market is unreservedly audacious, seeming more akin to a gritty movie trailer for a series of interlinking stories than an ad for a dairy product.
Following on from last week’s news of his departure from Saatchi & Saatchi, Murray Streets has now been confirmed as the general manager for business innovation and strategy at FCB. This appointment comes as part of the launch of what FCB is calling “a fully integrated strategy unit”. We chat to head of media and strategy Rufus Chuter about what these changes mean for the agency. PLUS: a look at some of the other staff changes at the agency.
It’s no secret that VW had a complicated 2015. The moment the emissions scandal struck, the brand jolted to halt and shifted into damage control mode. But the brand is now looking to bounce back, launching its first TV campaign via its new creative partner.
MediaWorks head of marketing Katie Mills has called the Newshub launch the biggest in MediaWorks history. We look at all the creative elements and how the launch went.
In 2014, Noel Leeming took a break from the regular retail approach of shouting about price and product to revamp its brand and launch a platform that focused on explaining what the items in store—and their underlying technology—enabled. This repositioning cost the company around $5 million, and it is now looking to build on this investment by rolling under a series of new spots that again focus on telling the stories of the products.
Nielsen has released its figures for the top ten advertisers in the calendar year for 2015, and it’s again a lineup of the usual suspects, with the nation’s major retailers taking seven of the positions on the list. And while the figures are still high, there was a clear year-on-year drop in the overall contribution of nation’s biggest advertisers.
Experiential players Brand Spanking and Fluxx this week announced a merger, which will see the companies trade under the Brand Spanking banner at the Eden Terrace office from now on.
Mention the NutriBullet, the Transforma ladder or Thin Lizzy in conversation, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a Kiwi who isn’t aware of at least one of these products. Such is the enduring power of the infomercials, which continue to grace our free-to-air screens during off-peak viewing times, that these brands have essentially been embedded into the Kiwi psyche through brute force. At a time when buzzphrases such as ‘transmedia storytelling’, ‘digital disruption’ and ‘omnichannel marketing’ are habitually thrown around conversation, the infomercial is made to seem anachronistic, a living fossil of a bygone era on the verge of extinction. But this isn’t the case at all… Look at Nielsen’s ad spend figures from 2015 and you’ll notice the presence of Brand Developers in sixth position, behind the big-spending retail giants Progressive, The Warehouse, Harvey Norman and Foodstuffs.
Google has confirmed that New Zealand country manager Tony Keusgen has been replaced by Stephanie Davis.
Saatchi & Saatchi NZ sent out a release this afternoon announcing the resignation of chief executive Nicky Bell, who will hand over the reins to current general manager Paul Wilson (promoted to managing director) in March.
TVNZ is looking to offer advertisers a means by which to reach male audiences through a new free-to-air TV channel. We chat to the broadcaster’s chief executive Kevin Kenrick about why it’s made this move.
It took creative minds from 10 different agencies across the Coca-Cola marketing network to develop the global campaign for 2016. The result is a collection of 10 TVCs, over 100 campaign images, a new visual identity system and the introduction of a new tagline: Taste the Feeling. But some argue that this global approach may alienate local audiences that are already disengaged from the brand?
In 2015, the maturation of New Zealand’s SVOD market was tracked in the column inches of media journalists across the industry. And this trend has already continued this year with Netflix making headlines by extending its service to 130 countries across the world and then saying that it was looking into clamping down on VPN users to ensure they can’t log into global content. We chat to Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock about what’s likely to happen in the SVOD market in 2016.
Bauer confirmed today that Cleo magazine and its associated website will close after the April edition. And the media company has also shifted its distribution from Netlink to Gordon & Gotch. We chat to publisher Brendon Hill and chief executive Paul Dykzeul about these moves.
Following on from the recent controversy regarding Lion’s funding of research conducted by anthropologist Dr Anne Fox, we take a look at whether we can trust research funded by coroporations (or anyone for that matter).
Last week’s passing of David Bowie revealed how popular the star was across generations, with tributes streamed in on every social media channel.This outpouring of emotion got Bauer’s custom publishing team at Bauer thinking that it presented an opportunity to give local Bowie fans something tangible to remember the legend. And this week, the publisher announced the release of a special magazine filled entirely with rare photography of Bowie taken over the course of his life.
Nielsen has confirmed to StopPress that it will no longer be fielding specific enquiries from journalists on the audience metrics of New Zealand television shows. Instead, the research company will provide a weekly top 20 breakdown of programmes for One, TV2, TV3, Four, Prime and Sky in the 5+ and 25-54 demographics.
SMI’s most recent data on media agency ad spend between July and November again reiterated how valuable hosting the Rugby World Cup was to the industry in 2011. While the November figures for 2015 were at a record high, the full-year figures for last year were still below the amount the industry spent when the tournament took place on local shores.
It’s no secret that MediaWorks had a tough year in 2015, with major changes in its current affairs lineup provoking ire among both industry commentators and viewers and declining ratings for some of its big reality TV shows making things tough commercially. But it’s hoping a new year signals new beginnings, and the media company is kicking off 2016 with a new logo.
Tui has ended its creative partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi, appointing Colenso BBDO as its new agency.
In 2014, the Ford Ranger outsold the Toyota Hilux, ending the Japanese car brand’s 32-year run as the top-selling ute in New Zealand. And Ford has now gone on to show this wasn’t just a fluke by retaining its position at the top of the ute pile in 2015 and also outselling the Corolla.
With users logging into their social accounts on mobile multiple times a day and scanning the newsfeed for anything that might interest them, the smartphone has become a key battleground for the publishers vying for consumer eyeballs. And with NZME data showing that 50-58 percent of all the traffic to the Herald’s mobile site came from social media channels over the last few months, we look at how news publishers are becoming increasingly dependent on social media channels.
On Monday morning, widespread speculation that WPP would up its stake in STW was confirmed by news that it had increased its shareholding from 23.6 percent to a controlling 61 percent. This merger sees the 70 STW-owned and part-owned companies, including Ogilvy & Mather, Ikon, JWT, Designworks, Assignment Group, pulled further into the WPP family of businesses, creating the largest marketing group across Australia and New Zealand. So what does this mean for the local market?