Last week Vodafone took out the awkward ad placement award, and we’ve got a contender for this week’s edition, with an ad on Stuff promoting ‘beach fale fun in the sun’ in Samoa running alongside a story warning of a tsunami. Pesky news, always wreaking havoc with those commercial messages.
Author StopPress Team
After a brief but rewarding fling with StopPress and Idealog, tech reporter/photographer/regional man of mystery Sim Ahmed finished up yesterday and is off to work for POS start-up Vend HQ. But we’re not letting him get away without mentioning a bit of copyright hilarity he was involved in on Twitter last week.
Snapper chief executive Miki Szikszai noticed an awkward ad placement on the New Zealand Herald’s website this morning.
Carin Hercock swaps APN for Nielsen, the Red Bulletin takes a new approach, Sim Ahmed and Simon Pound join start-up Vend HQ, Damien Shatford signs with the Sweet Shop, Republik gets some Aussie biz, Big Mobile gets bigger, Rose Matafeo changes channels, Stefan Korn takes Creative HQ reins and APN Outdoor heads to Broadway.
The Luddites among us may remember the pre-mobile age as a wonderful time when you didn’t feel obliged to check your work email before you went to bed and phubbing wasn’t a threat to the very fabric of society. Telco beast Qualcomm sees things a bit differently and, in an entertaining, pratfall-heavy online film that’s clocked up 2.3 million views in a few weeks, it’s attempted to show what the world would be like without mobile. Answer: violent and crazy.
Kiwi ‘post-punk revival’ band The Naked and Famous have recently been holed up in Los Angeles studio trying their best to overcome That Difficult Second Album Syndrome for In Rolling Waves (by the way, That Difficult Second Album would be a great name for a debut album). And the band has once again called on Special Problems to direct the music video for its new single ‘Hearts Like Ours’.
Work for insurance giant lands digital agency SpaceStation a gong from Yahoo.
As this news report shows, being able to read an entire newspaper—aside from ‘the pictures, ads or comics’—on a computer was a giant technological leap back in 1981. While this development has certainly been good for the readers, it hasn’t been too beneficial for newspapers. And you can see where it started to go wrong. As David Cole from the San Francisco Examiner says in the clip: “This is an experiment … We’re not in it to make money.” Some might say the same strategy holds true 34 years later.
Many thousands of people from the global comms industry descend on Cannes every year to judge, learn and drink. But why? This film, which was produced as a collaboration between Lions Festivals and Jack Morton Worldwide to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the festival, explains what happens, how it inspires creativity and why it’s become so alluring.
The ’80s were a time of big hair, bright clothes and bold claims. And they don’t get much bolder than the ones uttered in a rich velvety voice in this glorious piece of automotive advertising for the very advanced 1984 Chevrolet Corvette. Look at those wonderous LCD displays, listen to those epic synths and sound effects and take a trip into the future.
The 2013 Global Effie Effectiveness Index has just been released, with Colenso BBDO maintaining its position as the fifth most effective agency in the world based on 2012’s award haul and Barnes, Catmur & Friends punching well above its weight to be recognised as the fifth best independent agency in the world and the leading independent agency in the Asia Pacific.
Men, show your dedication for your significant others by using DB Breweries Facebook app to let them know – with a video.
There’s been a whole heap of industry chatter about the proposed merger of Publicis and Omnicom, a merger that would create the biggest holding company in all the world (but would still pale in comparison to Google). And, in true modern style, there’s already a parody Twitter account (‘This is a parody. But then again, isn’t the ad industry’) that’s skewering the combined entity.
While newspaper circulations continue to decline and the media companies behind them face massive upheaval, research from industry body News Works suggests that pulp and ink still play an important role in New Zealand current affairs – especially when it comes to credibility and trustworthiness.
Since launching on 17 June, the Love Your City campaign has resulted in over 4,000 user-generated photos of Auckland on Instagram – and counting.
Remember when the prudes got all wound up after Carefree busted a few feminine hygiene taboos and used the word vagina in its ad? If you were among the complainers, then you definitely don’t want to watch this video for Hello Flo, a tampon subscription service that features a 12-year-old girl who fully embraces the arrival of her ‘red badge of courage’.
New Zealanders love nothing more than hearing their country get a mention, especially if comes from the mouth of a foreign celebrity. Facebook pages, articles both real and satirical, and TV segments have been devoted this strange and thrilling phenomenon. And we can add another one to the list, because the The Herald has made it into The Onion’s brilliant story about the birth of the royal baby.
Clemenger businesses on the move in Welly, Bauer looks inside and finds a new advertising director, The Radio Network lures a big radio fish back home, Fairfax hands Lions Festivals baton to Val Morgan, Mark Reekie heads for the islands and Spotify announces new ANZ head of sales.
Big Data—or more specifically, Big, Bad Data—is coming in for plenty of scrutiny at the moment, with some calling Edward Snowden’s revelations about government snooping a precursor to the death of the cloud and many Kiwis protesting about changes to the controversial GCSB bill around the country over the weekend. But GE isn’t worried about such trifling issues around civil liberties and democracy. It’s worried about how big data can be used to stop zombies and alien cattle snatchers, with its Datalandia campaign.
A new look Sunday News will hit the newsstands this Sunday, the Fairfax paper’s re-launch sees a shift in both design and content strategy.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
TV3 is replacing its 5:30pm staple Home and Away with Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals cooking show.
Most people can think of a lot of things they’d rather do than hear people talk about how good their night sleep was, but bed manufacturers Sealy Posturepedic want exactly that. And they’re willing to pay handsomely for it.
Those smart screens are the best thing to happen to broadcast news since the introduction of colour.
More than half of New Zealanders now own a smartphone (54 percent), a lofty feat in technology terms which puts us almost on par with the US which is sitting on 56 percent, according to research commissioned by Google.
One of the key contributors to Auckland’s transport and planning debates has reaped a reward from grateful users.
The world is aflutter with royal baby news but this BBC news journalist is clearly fed up and unhappy with his placenta-side post.
Digital Arts Network takes us through a virtual tour of one of the coldest places in New Zealand.