Author James Hurman

Opinion
What ‘New Auckland’ means for marketers
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Inspired by a conversation with Al Brown on the new-found optimisim surrounding Auckland, James Hurman set out to discover why people were feeling so good about the city. Then, after speaking to 50 leading Aucklanders, he compiled a report that aims to create a shared understanding of ‘New Auckland’. These are some of the main insights.

Opinion
‘Good to great to good’: the 2013 Cases for Creativity
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This new year we’ve again gathered together a family of campaigns that represent something of a high water mark of achievement in our industry. To be judged Gold at Cannes and then Gold at the Effies is evidence of an advertising idea that is beyond reproach, both in terms of the commercial or behavioural impact it creates for its client and the way it moves our industry forward through sheer imagination and innovation. And in 2013, 12 campaigns achieved this remarkable distinction.

Opinion
Insights from the shop floor
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Shopper marketing is very du jour at the moment. And, given the importance of the last stages of the purchase cycle, rightly so. But James Hurman thinks it works better when the strategic thinking is done inside the customer experience.

Opinion
Again, behold the most creative country in the world
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Last year the token Kiwi at Special Group did the campaign for our Axis Awards, revealing to us that we’d won “the most Cannes Lions per capita of any country in the world in 2010 – one Lion per 155,989 people. Sweden was second with one Lion per 202,173 residents. The ‘we invented advertising’ UK? A sorry 4th with one Lion per 849,886 people. The creative powerhouse of the USA? 8th buddy, 8th! with just one Lion per 2,287,003 people. Yesiree.” So, as another of the tiny handful of New Zealanders working in New Zealand advertising, I felt a sense of duty to follow in Tony Bradbourne’s footsteps when Patrick Collister, editor of Directory magazine and The Big Won Creative Rankings, sent me his 2011 data.