Content marketing is on the rise, but it’s not a shift that’s easy to make for all organisations. Here are three takeaways from the recent Content Marketing Conference that might help.
With a new co-owner on board and a desire to differentiate, Rush Munro’s ice cream has lifted the lid on a new look from Dow Design that’s pumped up the colour and personality.
Creative agency Fly turns 10 next year and to mark the milestone, has brought founder Shane Hansen back into the fold to give the brand a bit of a facelift. Creative director Johnson McKay elaborates on the shift and reflects on the journey to date.
As Voice Brand Agency recently learned, publishing a magazine is hard graft, even with the resources of a creative agency behind it. Creative director Jonathan Sagar explains why whacking stuff on Facebook won’t cut it anymore and why chasing perfection is futile.
For some, advertising is an irritating intrusion to be avoided at almost all costs. But every once in a while a great campaign comes along that gets everyone talking. And for the third year, TED has compiled a 10-strong list of Ads Worth Spreading, honouring ads in just this vein.
A year ago we introduced you to Veronica Nobbs, the AUT graduate and entrepreneur behind mobile app Get a Room. She had a vision for shaking up the hotel booking industry—having noticed that customers were increasingly booking on the same day as their stay—and devised an app for reserving rooms at super short notice. That vision continued as the business rebranded as Stay Today a few months ago and added features like a unique price-drop engine that reduces room costs throughout the day from noon onwards.
New auction site Wheedle closed down yesterday—its second day of operation—after a slew of maintenance and security issues. But it isn’t completely throwing in the towel: managing director Carl Rees says the site will relaunch once they’re “totally satisfied that the site will provide the high level of experience we want our customers to enjoy”.
It is a scientifically proven fact (or will be, once somebody gets around to studying it) that the internet favours extremes. Trolls (like spammers) are inescapable. And as senior advisor for innovation to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Alec Ross said in his keynote address to the Project Revolution conference last week, moderation and compromise tend to get punished in the process.
From ‘it’s not the drinking, it’s how we’re drinking’ to the ‘ghost chips’ legends, our collective love for the bottle has been referenced in advertising far too many times to count. Now a billboard for Radio Hauraki’s ‘Drive’ show that normalises drinking has fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority, but the same ad placed in the New Zealand Herald was deemed acceptable.
Wildfire, a social media marketing company started by Kiwi Victoria Ransom, has been bought by Google for a reported US$250 million.
Last year outdoor apparel brand Patagonia took out a full-page ad in the New York Times and other papers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday—the days around Thanksgiving that get the tills ringing loudest for US retailers—with the bold headline ‘DON’T BUY THIS JACKET’. Urging consumers to buy only after making a considered choice was obviously a risky move, but despite this, its sales were still up 28 percent on Cyber Monday. And, according to chief executive Casey Sheahan, who was speaking at the Better By Design CEO summit in Auckland today, this bold attitude permeates the brand.
Gamification, the use of game concepts to engage users, may be the new buzzword in digital marketing, but if you’re hoping to ride the merry wave to the top, marketers need to do their homework first.
The News International phone hacking saga put the cosy network of media and government in sharp focus and showed how powerful media organisations can extert undue pressure on lawmakers and law upholders. And, according to a report by AUT University’s Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD), similar trends—and their associated dangers—are also evident in New Zealand.
Marketing for $5 a day? As young Kiwi campervan rental company Lucky Rentals has shown, it’s not impossible – if you’re willing to crowdsource.
Media and entertainment organisations need to sort out their digital strategies, according to the inaugural Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2011-2015 report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers. But, as always, it’s a matter of figuring out new ways to turn a profit online, something that will require traditional media organisations to ‘shed conservatism’ if they hope to get with the digital times.
Vizualise NZ general manager Carl Pavletich (L) and director Rupert Deans
Even an earthquake striking in the middle of a massive international project didn’t slow down Christchurch-based digital agency Vizualise for long. But if it wasn’t for cloud computing, director Rupert Deans says continuing to work on a “major project for a US-based charity” that’s yet to launch would have been impossible.
Three days into the Cannes Lions, the folks at Colenso BBDO Auckland must be feeling pretty pleased with themselves, having scooped New Zealand’s only two trophies to date.