As part of a review of its local business, Yahoo is set to let all its editorial staff go. This comes as a difficult time for the company, which was last year overtaken by Stuff in terms of online ratings.
Often when we visit or move to a new city and are ready to explore what it has to offer, we can be overwhelmed with choice. Where are the decent cheap eateries? Which art galleries will I like? Which music venues suit my tastes? There are plenty of media outlets devoted to informing us where the best bits are, but one of the more interesting—and increasingly popular—options is Concrete Playground, an online guide to culture in Auckland, Wellington and Australia.
For its latest campaign, McDonald’s seems to have taken inspiration from the the nursery rhyme ‘Sing a song of six pence’. But rather than having “four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie” singing to a king, it has instead added a touch of music to its Big Mac boxes. Yesterday, as selected McDonald’s customers in Auckland opened their Big Mac boxes, they were blasted by song straight from the burger’s container. The singing boxes were part of McDonald’s global ‘imlovinit24’ initiative, which sought to share 24 moments of joy to millions in 24 hours.
Despite the rapid progression and expansion of all that is digital, with even five-year-olds owning iPads these days, television still remains the most dominant form of video consumption in New Zealand, according to a New Zealand multi-screen report issued by Nielsen. And, even more surprising, is that report shows television isn’t only the most popular video-viewing platform, but that its use is also increasing.
It’s been just a few days since Air New Zealand announced its departure from Airpoints partner BNZ to team up with Westpac, but banking brands have fast taken action pushing themselves out through social media via sponsored posts (featuring an array of creative airline puns) to make sure they’re not overshadowed by the new partnership deal. Here’s what BNZ, Westpac, Kiwibank and ANZ have been up to.
Nivea Sun has won the January 2015 Colmar Brunton Ad Impact award for ‘Take Care Out There’ for an ad created alongside American artist Thomas Leveritt that gives a very literal view of how sunblock can protect your skin.
Air New Zealand has announced it has dropped its long-time Airpoints partner BNZ to team up with Westpac, saying the partnership would result in better earn rates for customers and BNZ saying the relationship was no longer a good fit for the bank. So is the lure of ‘free’ travel enough to make customers switch?
Air New Zealand has launched a new ad campaign to promote its mobile app and, like a combination of the most interesting man in the world and Cadbury’s airport dancer, it aims to show that using the airline’s tech makes flying an absolute breeze.
Toyota has teamed up with Marc Ellis’s small creative agency Media Blanco to launch an online showcase of the musical talent of buskers worldwide via a campaign called ‘Feeling the Street’. Hosted on a specially dedicated website, the campaign asks visitors to vote for their favourite buskers, with the overall winners becoming part of super group that will perform in New Zealand later this year.
Last year, the WWF and the Zoological Society of London released a report saying that Earth had lost half its wildlife in the past 40 years. It was a harrowing statistic and there are many more creatures in a perilous state. So, Species in Pieces, a very clever online interactive exhibition, aims to raise awareness about 30 of them.
MediaWorks’ decision to fire X Factor NZ judges husband and wife duo Natalia Kills and Willy Moon, after their scathing comments towards contestant Joe Irvine, has had a positive impact on the show’s rating, lifting viewership by 100,000 sets of eyes. Plus: a look at some of MediaWorks’ other missteps over the last few weeks.
Daikin has launched a new ad campaign sans Dan Carter, saying it was time to change up its brand positioning and stand on its own two feet. Instead of Dan there’s now a boy who has some serious separation issues with his friend’s heat pump.
Creative agency Bcg2 has released its first brand campaign for rural insurer FMG, and is rolling out over multi-media channels after winning the account last September, basing it on the tagline ‘We’re here for the good of the country’.
Although most consumers aren’t rushing out to purchase CDs anymore, the record industry is still chugging along. But, as illustrated by the latest stats from Recorded Music NZ, the revenue for the industry is increasingly coming from a very different source.
With the Cricket World Cup set to enter the quarterfinal stage next week, we thought we’d do another rundown on what the big brands and sponsors have been up to. This time we have news from the Alternative Commentary Collective, Pepsi Cola, Tui, Hyundai and a few others to boot.
Last month, Saatchi & Saatchi released a new Pump commercial alongside Flying Fish featuring a group of good-looking enthused water-drinkers jumping on a trampoline in an effort to grab bottles of water.
This year marks 100 years since the ANZACs got involved in Word War One. And to honour the sacrifice, an Auckland artist has embarked on the massive undertaking of creating the world’s largest poppy, which will consist of 59,000 red metal discs with contributors’ names and messages placed by him and members of the public on Auckland’s Domain in support of the RSA. PLUS: a few other ANZAC initiatives.
Huzzah! It’s reporting season. So here’s a selection of financial results from some of the country’s major media
Innovative data-sourcing site Wiki New Zealand launched in December 2012 as something of a test model to see what users wanted from the site and how it could run more efficiently. Two years on, the site has now been redesigned and chief executive Lillian Grace says feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive”.
Adidas has released a new global campaign about seizing the moment, which features some of the world’s top athletes, including All Blacks Richie McCaw and Sonny Bill Williams. The campaign features 30-second TVCs of top athletes from around the world who are at the top of their game in their respective sports, delivering short monologues about why they “take today”.
Auckland Museum has launched a weekly Twitter game to engage its followers and educate people about its collections, and Te Papa, Waikato Museum and The Nelson Provincial Museum are getting involved too.
For those of you who have longed to put yourselves in the shoes of a criminal defence lawyer, now you can, in the digital world at least. TV2 has launched a new campaign in the form of an online game to promote its show How to Get Away with Murder, through the release of a murder mystery game that casts the player as part of a criminal defence team fighting to clear a client’s name.
Sometimes unfortunate or unforseen circumstances arise, which means that brands, for better or for worse, need to change their names. We thought we’d look at a few examples closer to home and further afield.
As part of its new campaign released over the weekend via television and social media, former market leader in premium bread, Bürgen teamed up with Colenso BBDO and challenged current market leader Vogel’s to a taste-off, asking consumers to compare the two breads.
In celebration of Hawaiian Airline’s upcoming second anniversary on the New Zealand market, a secretive pair of New Zealand street artists, who work under the name BMD, were commissioned to paint one of the airline’s ground service trucks in their distinctive style.
DDB launched an in-house production unit, appropriately called ‘Maker’, about six months ago and says its ability to quickly create digital content for its clients is resulting in increasing demand.
Warehouse Stationery has released a new campaign with an emphasis on its ability to “connect” customers, focusing on the technological side of the business as opposed to the paper and pens.
New Zealand menswear brand Hallensteins captured a fair bit of attention with its last ad, which was shot on the Bonneville Salt flats in Utah and featured motocross star Carey Hart. And it’s headed overseas once again for another impressive spot to coincide with the launch of its winter collection, this time teaming up with The Script lead singer Danny O’Donoghue and heading to Cuba.
oOh! media has further embraced the digital age by expanding its network of retail digital assets across New Zealand after securing long-term contracts with key shopping centres. Updated with some thoughts from oOh! Media chief executive Brendon Cook.
Brands are constantly looking for innovative ways to reach their audiences, and one of the best ways appears to be through mobile-accessed websites and apps, seeing as many of us are linked to our phones almost constantly. Mobile advertising sales agency 4th Screen Advertising has released four new mobile ad formats, which aim to make the ad consumption experience a bit more enjoyable, requiring user-participation.