One of the talented StopPress Team of Content Producers made this post happen.
By selling its Switch Kites brand direct to consumers online, Inverno Trading has disrupted the industry’s traditional distributor/retailer model. And it’s gained legions of fans in the process.
In a sea of sameness and functional claims, NZ Tax Refunds rose above the rabble by giving the feeling a name.
David Bell, ex-creative director at Media Design School’s creative advertising course and the recipient of the 2011 lifetime achievement award at Axis, has been on a mission to get his book The Dog Hunters in front of as many people as possible since it was published in July. Sales are building slowly as word spreads, he says, and so far he’s been spreading it via social media and at shows like Armageddon. And now he’s harnessing the power of Kickstarter to help fund an illustrated version.
Last night’s last minute win over Ireland meant the All Blacks finished the season undefeated, the only team in the 18-year professional era to achieve that feat. And to celebrate, Adidas, which, as Gregor Paul wrote in a great piece about the creeping commercial influence on the game, might be trying to up its game after the arrival of fellow main sponsor AIG, created a new website (sort of).
The old creative writing adage goes “show, don’t tell,” and this is clearly an axiom that Getty Images aims to tap into with a new infographic that details why companies should use transmedia storytelling to market their offerings.
We had a bit of fun last week detailing some typos we’d come across recently. But this one from New Zealand Farmers Weekly that was sent in to us by an eagle-eyed reader takes the cake.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
A range of media owners are trying to find the sweet spot between ads and editorial. And the likes of MasterChef NZ and The Block NZ have been able to appeal to commercial interests without alienating the viewers. TVNZ’s latest effort in this regard is Purina Pound Pups to Dogstars, which arose from its million dollar branded content initiative and is currently in production. Plus: TVNZ’s new logo.
Google has commemorated the 50th anniversary of Dr Who by creating a doodle in honour of the popular television show. In addition to featuring cartoon versions of 11 of the characters, the doodle also has an interactive element in the form of a vintage video game.
Music videos have shifted onto the next step of their evolutionary progression to give us a new interactive experience. Earlier this week, Interlude’s Bob Dylan video was making the rounds, and now attention has shifted to Pharrell Williams’ 24 Hours of Happy.
BrandWorld’s Mike O’Sullivan pioneered the masthead format in New Zealand, he’s been inducted into the TVNZ Marketing Hall of Fame and, as this video created by his loving team shows, it turns out he’s also a dead ringer for Peter Griffin.
Potato chips and penguins are not a particularly natural partnership. But the power of advertising has made it so. And now, in Bluebird’s 60th year, our Antarctic friends are back in a rehashed ad to promote a co-branding initiative with Tegel and Wattie’s that sees the release of some new ‘Kiwi As’ flavours.
TVNZ’s loss is Orion Health’s gain as Annemarie Browne moves on, more changes at Fairfax, Aegis welcomes a new digital media guru, Octane rekindles old flame, 19-year-old entrepreneurial hot shot heads to the US and Iain Nealie shacks up with Google.
Forty-seven years after Bob Dylan’s song Like A Rolling Stone was released, it’s got a video to go with it. The clever work by digital media specialists Interlude in the US means viewers of the video can skip between channels as the song continues.
While the newspaper industry is currently facing up to a range of concerning statistics, one of the positive consequences of the digital era is that newspaper brands and media companies have been forced to innovate and experiment with new forms of storytelling. APN NZ did a great job of bringing all of the various strands of its modern business together for its 150th birthday celebrations last week, from the printed paper to the special editorial projects to the parallax scrolling website to the live blog of the newsroom to Dick Frizzell’s commissioned artworks of Kiwi legends to the 15-day promotion. And at the cocktail function at the Auckland Art Gallery, they showed a clip created by Leon Sefton of Perendale Productions that showed what the current crop of editors and journalists thought about the milestone—and what the company will need to do if it hopes to be around for the next 150 years.
Dodge has been getting a lot of mileage, if you’ll excuse the pun, out of Ron Burgundy and the upcoming Anchorman sequel. After several TVCs, it’s going online with a contest that lets you touch Ron (in a virtual sense) to try to win a Dodge Durango.
If you’re filled with the Christmas spirit, Coke Zero has just the site for you. It’s the Sweater Generator, where you can create yourself a jersey that will be the envy of yuletide nerds everywhere.
While things have certainly calmed down a bit since the ’80s, this industry still has an undoubted penchant for lunching—and especially so over the silly season. It also has the skills required to draw attention to things and DineAid, a charity that helps feed the homeless and hungry, is joining forces with Pead PR and StopPress to combine these two elements into one competition, with creative Kiwi types being asked to produce a short video that tells the DineAid story.
PlayStation’s latest console is coming here this month and hype has reached frenzied heights worldwide. In Europe Sony is celebrating with a tribute to the players who will no doubt be ringing cash registers once the PS4 is out.
Fedex USA and BBDO NY have embraced the Christmas spirit by showing what Santa Claus does to those who are naughty rather than nice. PLUS: see what special package Mr Scrooge can expect this year.
They say anyone who lives inside glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. But what would ‘they’ know. So, in honour of petty pedants everywhere—and with a healthy dose of there but for the grace of God go us—here are a few entertaining/head smacking typos we’ve noticed recently.
Ad awards season is pretty much over for another year, but there were a few more announcements over the weekend, and once again Kiwi agencies and clients did very well, with DraftFCB’s Driving Dogs taking Best in Show at the Caples and Colenso BBDO taking most awarded agency at both Caples and Digital Asia Awrds.
See the world from the perspective of our feathered friends with Getty’s compilation of the best aerial footage from 2013.
AUT Adschool students are getting ready to present their portfolios to prospective employers at the annual end-of-year show, which will be held on 19 November from 5.30 to 8.30pm.
What sorcery is this? Six of the country’s most experienced admen—Mike Hutcheson, Ross Goldsack, David Walden, Peter Cullinane, Sandy Moore and Roger MacDonnell—were spotted feasting at renowned advertising haunt Cibo on Friday. This gathering certainly wouldn’t have happened a few years back. So what’s brought them together? The only logical explanation is the launch of a new advertising agency.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, DraftFCB has came up with a campaign for Prime that enabled fans of the show to send an audio transmission of their voices on a voyage to the moon. UPDATE: feedback from DraftFCB about the campaign.
Chairman of Ideaworks Jon Bird discusses what Kiwis can expect to learn about the future of retail from Steve Brown and David Roth at the Westfield Breakfast Seminar that is scheduled to run at the Langham on 19 November. In addition to discussing the speakers’ areas of expertise, Bird also touches on some of the innovations that are going to be unleashed on the retail world in the next few years.
We posted a whole host of fancy, often fantastical and fairly big budget Christmas ads from overseas a few days ago. Now Sainsbury’s has joined the fray, and it’s knocked it out of the park with its emotional, user-generated festive film.
Brands are pretty keen to get themselves on the big screen these days. And, as Dodge has shown with Ron Burgundy, fictional characters make for pretty good spokespeople. So what do you say L’Oréal? It’s a match made in heaven—literally.