Author StopPress Team

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

Safety has long been a major focus of car companies. And VW has shown how important its safety features are with a powerful, shiver-inducing montage via Ogilvy Cape Town that zeroes in the most most important moment of one girl’s life.

They say the children are our future, which is at times a worrying thought. But the way the world is changing, it’s certainly true in advertising and a few of the young’uns from Media Design School have impressed some of the world’s biggest creative brains and made the shortlist of the Future Lions.

The fact that over 100 million web users across the world have already downloaded ad blockers to combat the annoyance of online ads stands as evidence of how much they annoy people. So rather than simply conceptualising another ad destined to irritate users, BBDO teamed up with Post-it to develop a campaign that uses digital technology to change banner ads into sticky notes and to-do lists.

This year, Red Nose Day will be hitting American shores via an NBC television event set to feature Julia Roberts, Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jodie Foster, Jimmy Fallon, Neil Patrick Harris, Coldplay and others. And to announce the impending event, Coldplay and NBC have released a few teasers on YouTube featuring snippets from Game of Thrones: The Musical, an elaborate project developed by the British band with the help from stars of the TV show.

YouTube has been celebrating its tenth birthday this month by going through a letter a day and while the vast majority of viewing is still done on the main screen, there’s no doubt the video sharing has become a powerful cultural force since the first video featuring co-founder Jawed Karim at the zoo was uploaded. It’s also become a powerful marketing force, with four of the most-watched videos of last year made by brands and 16 million hours of ads watched. As such, YouTube has chosen the 20 greatest brand moments in its history and it’s asking people to vote for their favourite ad. PLUS: the tale of Old Spice.

DDB’s Maker unit has created a bizarre online film that seemingly marries Dirty Dancing with Stephen King’s Carrie to announce the return of the McRib—and all the sauce that comes with it.

Real estate is regularly in the news, especially given the massive price increases in Auckland. But real estate conferences generally aren’t. That changed today because while the real Harcourts conference was going on at Sky City, its #harcourtsconference hashtag was hijacked by a range of Twitter users (led by Guy Williams) who all took their frustrations out on Australia’s third most dishonest profession. Here are some of the best.

As advertisers continue to shift more of their ad spend online, they are looking for ways to ensure their messaging reaches the desired target audiences in the swirling mass of zeroes and ones that make up the interwebs. And given that there are more places to advertise than ever before and that audiences seamlessly shift from local to international sites, this has led the the growing popularity of programmatic ad-buying platforms. Over the last few years programmatic platform provider TubeMogul has been tracking the growth of programmatic ad buying, and the company has recently released its first quarter statistics for Australia and New Zealand.

Now in its tenth year, the Documentary Edge Festival kicks off in Auckland next week and in Wellington in early June. As per usual, the festival offers a range of audio-visual delights from here and around the world to whet creative appetites. So suggest a topic in the comments that deserves a documentary—such as the untold story of how long pies spend in the warmer at the dairy, the secret history of prime ministers and ponytails or a sordid expose on the media industry’s descent into click-fuelled madness—and we’ll give the best effort two tickets to a screening of their choice.

Sadly, hair doesn’t just reappear on bald heads, but in this clever campaign called ‘The Hair Giveback’ for Regain it does, albeit in photo-form. The agency behind the campaign, Grey Advertising Bangladesh, sneakily collected photos of the baldies who headed into a local shop to have their passport pictures taken and then digitally added a full and naturalistic crop of hair to the images whilst secretly filming the whole shenanigan.

As well as being popular with the viewers, the 7 Days gang are also popular in commercial circles, with Paul Ego voicing ads for Pak ‘n Save, Guy Williams fronting campaigns for All Good and HPA, Ben Hurley MCing cricket games and Dai Henwood voicing Mitre 10 ads, spruiking fires and taking the Eddie Murphy approach for Toyota. Now Godfrey Hirst, Australasia’s biggest carpet manufacturer, has employed Henwood’s services and taken viewers on a trip around the country to announce its nationwide flooring sale.

The Jono and Ben team penetrate layers in a recent skit about New Zealand drink-driving ads, which becomes a parody of a drink-driving ad of a parody of a drink-driving ad (we could go on).

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

Game of Thrones is a show largely built on political intrigue, the dynamic between good and evil, the horror of war and ambition, giant dragons, the always-approaching threat of winter and the gratuitous chopping off of appendages. Of all these possible areas of interest, Denmark-based creative agency Seligemig decided to focus on the last one for its campaign leading up to the release of season five of the hit show.

During Chopper Appeal month, Westpac in partnership with with DDB, Facebook and Starcom released a series of four confronting videos that show the horror of a woman trapped in a car. Shot by the Sweet Shop, the first three videos play out over the course of an evening, providing a glimpse at the claustrophobia and loneliness that typifies a car crash along one of the many remote roads in New Zealand. PLUS: a look what motivates people to donate.

Fairtrade sales increased by 28 percent in 2014, reaching $89 million in sales as a result of more availability of chocolate, coffee and bananas, which grew the most with a 78 percent rise. And, as part of a campaign to thank Sunday morning shoppers for taking the ethical option and supporting farmers in developing nations, All Good Bananas has employed the typically over-enthusiastic services of Guy Williams.

16 years ago, the 100% Pure slogan was born (after being conceived by an Australian agency). And, despite a few naysayers pointing to the fact that it’s not entirely true, it’s widely recognised as one of the world’s most successful tourism marketing campaigns. For the past three years, it’s had a distinctly fantastical feel as part of the 100% Pure, 100% Middle Earth campaign, but rather than chuck it all out and start again, it’s decided on an evolution, both in terms of the comms and the visual identity. PLUS: Andrew Fraser on Tourism New Zealand’s growing digital focus.