Author StopPress Team

At the centre of Lotto Powerball’s brand ad, released in July, was a story about the relationship between a dad and his son. And now with Father’s Day fast approaching, the brand has jumped on the opportunity to consolidate its ‘Imagine’ positioning with a touching spot that depicts the classic Kiwi scene of some backyard cricket.

Last year, to launch the Madden 15 video game, EA went to town with a fantastic three-and-a-half minute clip featuring a slap-happy Kevin Hart and Dave Franco battling it out. And to launch the 2016 version, it’s taken it up a notch with a completely over the top fake movie trailer that’s riddled with stars of screen and field.

With a print run of 220 million copies, the Ikea catalogue has a distribution level that any author would be proud of. And it’s only fitting then that legendary German literary critic Hellmuth Karasek should be given the opportunity to analyse the pages and share his opinion on the narrative development, characters and language used in the book. Over the course of about five minutes, the critic pages through the catalogue, delivering a very dry analysis.

Benevolent dictator John Key has been on a mission to convince New Zealanders that we need a new flag—from the big ($26 million for the flag consideration project) to the small (writing columns)—and he has said he favours the fern and southern cross combo. Gareth Morgan also wants a change and has pinned his four colours to the mast after running his own competition. And Peter G Deakin from Turangi (if that is his real name, eh John?) has also taken out an ad in The Sunday Star Times explaining his views and showing his penchant for the silver fern.

Over the last seven weeks, the DB Export ‘Brewtroleum campaign’ has been encouraging Kiwis around the country to help save the world by drinking variants in the brand’s range. The only problem with the message was that the world-saving action was that it was limited to times generally considered appropriate for beer drinking. One could not, for example, open a DB beer at 11am in the morning and persuasively argue that this was an essential act. So, in an effort to overcome this problem and enable any person to lend a hand to the Brewtroleum cause at any given time, the brewery has created DB Export 0.0% Citrus—a lemon-flavoured lager with zero alcohol content.

Brace yourselves, parents (and weird people who like to collect things from supermarkets). New World has launched an updated version of its ridiculously popular collectables line. And it’s aiming to inspire some food science with the Little Kitchen.

Tourism activities are always better in the mind than in reality. And Banksy, one of the most subversive artists in the world, has flipped the capitalism-fuelled, often rather empty, completely over the top fun of the modern amusement park on its head with the opening of Dismaland, a “bemusement park”/major art exhibition on the sea in England that’s definitely not suitable for children.

Hubbards Muesli is showing a preference for the digital after launching two new social media-based campaigns: one in celebration of its 25th birthday next month where it asked Kiwis to submit their own muesli recipes on its microsite, and then share the recipes on Facebook for a chance to have their concoction hitting the shelves. The other to promote its latest ‘Outward Bound’ range of muesli, calling upon New Zealanders to share their own ‘Outward Bound’ moments.

Auckland street artist Paul Walsh has achieved internet fame after his transformation of the city’s utility boxes.

The annual New Zealand Best Awards celebrate excellence in graphic, spatial, product and interactive design. Here’s a few of our favourite finalists from the ‘Interactive – moving images’ category from the likes of Waxeye, Assembly, Media Design School, Powershop and Locales.

There seems to be a month for everything now: Dry July, Movember, the Feb Fast and as of this year, Junk Free June. And perhaps there’s a reason for that, maybe they’re successful fundraisers because Kiwis like a challenge, and a month doesn’t seem like such a long time to kick the booze, not shave your dirty tache or hold back on the snacks (at least on paper). Whatever the allure is, it seems to work and as results have shown social-media campaign Junk Free June was a huge success raising well over its media spend and attracting thousands of social media followers and daily hits on its website. Here’s a rundown on the campaign.

Cancer Society created a mobile donor engagement campaign via Chemistry Interaction, which connected Kiwis with a series of touching video thank you messages from Cancer Society staff and volunteers in celebration of Daffodil Day next Friday. It also created limited edition ‘Cups of Hope’ with St Pierre’s Sushi, where a donation from each cup went to the society. A TV campaign is also running, with creative by Whybin\TBWA and Waitemata Films illustrating how most of us have some sort of connection to cancer.

We’ve all had that moment, as we tell our friends about a great song we’ve heard, plug in our phones/laptops into some sort of speaker system, push play on our Spotify as we stare at them with a look of anticipation and glee on our faces (like above photo) while we wait for the song to start, but it doesn’t.

‘Don’t work with animals or kids’ is a common principle thrown around advertising. However, Ziploc has conflated the core pillars of this piece of advice to produce an ad series that features animals serving as the beastly representations of an unruly children.

The battle of the big outdoor players has continued, with APN Outdoor adding 113 more panels to its arsenal after acquiring New Zealand-based billboard business Roadside Attractions from Twisted World Limited for $6.5 million.

For those die-hard Space Jam fans, a few of your favourite characters have returned to star in a new Jordan shoes commercial.

Often hardcore sports fans act if they are part of the team they are supporting. This definitely seems to be the case of football fans. When discussing how the team performed the word “we” is thrown around a lot. “We really stuck it to them this time”, “We sure came out on top in that last game”, “We caned those guys”. You get the picture. Rexona’s new ad attempts to channel this collective consciousness showing that while game day preparation for an All Black will differ significantly to that of a fan, many of their movements are similar, illustrating how ‘we’ (fans and players) move together. PLUS following on from our last round up, here’s the 411 on what a few other brands are up to around RWC 2015 including: Airbnb, Jockey, Vogel’s, Land Rover and Steinlager.

Red Bull is often presented as one of the best examples of content marketing, largely due to the effective way in which it has associated its brand with extreme sports events. Big wave surfing, motocross, BMX racing and sky-diving are just some of the sporting codes that have featured the Red Bull logo over the years. And now, Red Bull is collaborating with another person who dabbles in the extreme—but this time it doesn’t involve sport in any way.

Trade Me, State, Air New Zealand, Rexona and Anchor take a victory lap this week.

Whether it’s Google and Luxottica, Spotify and Uber or Whittaker’s and Lewis Road Creamery, strategic partnerships and co-branding initiatives can be a good way to breathe some new life into both parties, increase distribution and, if you’re lucky, add some joy to the lives of consumers. And Kiwi fashion label I Love Ugly’s collaboration with global accessories brand Jansport is already paying dividends.

After nearly a century, Anchor milk has jumped back aboard the All Blacks bandwagon, partnering up with the team just before it heads into World Cup territory.

Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.