Author Erin McKenzie

Shortland Street may be taking a break for the summer, but the drama isn’t. While the actors enjoy some time off camera, TVNZ Blacksand has launched a new campaign to keep audiences engaged until the programme returns on 18 January.

New Zealand’s Asian population is growing in both the main centres and the regions, but are retailers and marketers missing their opportunity to turn them into customers due to a lack of understanding, stereotyping and homogenisation? Nick Siu and Peter Doyle offer some advice.

Are you afraid of the dark? Lynx Pitch Black has taken its campaign all the way by turning out the lights at a Seekae concert.

The upcoming New Year’s resolutions may be easier to achieve thanks to athletic polar bears, vibrating belts, smart socks and maybe even wearable bananas.

Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson and countless travel bloggers might have you believe that “life is a journey, not a destination”, but a new campaign from Fullers by Motion Sickness Studio shows that sometimes the destination matters a little more than the journey—and this is especially true when it comes to the Waiheke and Tiritiri Matangi Islands.

As well as the traditional ads everyone has come to know and love, the rise of ad creep means we might also see ads on receipts, on jerseys, on foreheads, on the upper thigh region and pretty much anywhere else humans may look. But is it going too far when advertisers follows us into the bathroom? Captive Media doesn’t think so.

It’s no secret that the Internet and its capabilities to give anyone an audience alongside budget cuts and redundancies have shaken up the industry. So much of a shake in fact that the number of print journalists in New Zealand declined 61 per cent between 2006 and 2013 according to census data. But also worthy of a mention is the rise of PR. A 56 per cent increase between 2006 and 2013 resulted in public relations professionals outnumbering print, television and radio journalists three to one in 2013. So what this mean for the fourth estate?

It’s been a rocky year for German carmaker Volkswagen, with data from CNN money showing that global car sales fell 5.3 percent in October after news of the emissions scandal broke. But have these shockwaves stretched across the world to also affect sales in the local market?

Dropit hopes punters and retailers will say yes to ‘no reserve’ and sign up to take part in reverse auctions. Last week, Dropit soft-launched its auction website where items have no reserve price. However, this is a good thing for the punter because the longer the auction lasts, the cheaper the item becomes. We chat to the company’s chief executive and marketing manager Peter Howell about how this all works.

Last week, Stolen Spirits raised a toast after selling a controlling interest in the company to US-based venture capital funds Liquid Asset Brands and Spirits Investment Partners for NZ$21 million. Before this premium vodka 42Below became a global brand when it was sold to Bacardi. And a number of other Kiwi craft spirits appear to be following close behind.

In and around Auckland’s CBD, parking is becoming a business in itself. Since Parkable launched in August, some hosts have already started earning over $1000 per month, for spaces previously unused. And now retailers are also trying to cash in on the copious space they have available.

The Warehouse is getting into the Christmas spirit by jumping on the bandwagon of random acts of kindness campaigns.

It’s not Christmas without carols, trees and ads. And while New Zealand retail brands aren’t going as large as those in the UK, whose Christmas campaigns tend to be looked forward to and often clock up views in the millions, there are signs that things might be heading in a more emotional direction here too.