Author StopPress Team

Breaking the rules is a standard trope used to encourage consumers to make an extravagant purchase. And while it doesn’t necessarily redefine this oft-used premise, Audi’s new spot via Venables Bell & Partners is an entertaining and far-fetched look at the consequences that could follow on from breaking the simple rule of not waiting at least an hour after eating.

To highlight the fact they have over 2000 domestic flights each week, Air New Zealand enlisted the help of some local celebrities for their latest spot.

Realestate.co.nz has coupled a stereotypically nerdy middle-aged man with an annoyingly talkative woman in a new spot that aims to show that the company has options for house hunters of all persuasions.

Founded 25 years ago and based in Melbourne, retail design specialist Greater Group recently crossed the Tasman to open an office here at the Steelworks Building in Mount Eden in Auckland. This is the fourth arm of the business to open and follows on from the opening of the branches in Hong Kong and Shanghai. And to lead this latest addition to its operation, Greater Group has sent across its general manager of global brand and strategy, Danielle Barclay, someone who is quite familiar with working in New Zealand, having worked her for several years earlier in her career. So StopPress asked her a few questions about what she hopes to acheive now that she’s back on this side of the ditch.

Happenings in the digital industry at Spark Digital, BKA Interactive and Yellow.

Nike has been one of the leading proponents of the quantified self trend with its suite of Nike+ products and Fuelband. Now, with the help of AKQA, it’s put some of that data to good use with the Your Year app and has created over 100,000 personalised animated films based on the activities of some of its more active users. And as well as celebrating the athletic achievements of its users, the videos also aim to inspire them to outdo their 2014 accomplishments.

An app a day keeps everything away, so why interact with the real world?

In the world of smartphones, bigger is increasingly better. Samsung got in early with its Note range and got a fair amount of criticism for it. But, much to Samsung’s delight, Apple has recently followed suit with its iPhone 6 Plus. Both those phones pale into insignificance when compared to the Nabi Big Tab, however, which employed the services of a magician to show off its wares. PLUS: How big touch screens are being used in retail and marketing and what screens might look like in the future.

Nintendo released the Power Glove in 1989. The wearable video game controller was a huge flop but has found a new purpose in a slightly different field.

Late last year, puppy lovers everywhere shed unnecessary tears on account of the supposed death of Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan. This tragic news story was widely circulated via Facebook, until Millan stepped in and released an official statement via his Facebook page that he was still alive and well. This faux news story was by no means an exception, with countless similar celebrity deaths and other outrageous stories being shared through the channel. However, it seems that Facebook wants to bring an end to the falsehood. A report on Wired says that the social media juggernaut will soon release a new feature that enables users to flag hoax articles.

While Volvo is owned by a Chinese automaker, its marketing slogan is Made of Sweden. And its latest ad campaign celebrates the photogenic misery of the northern winter.

Look at the cover of any fitness magazine—or the imagery used by gyms like Les Mills—and you’re likely to see beautiful, fit people with flat stomachs, toned limbs, great tans and big smiles. But This Girl Can, a national campaign by Sport England and other organisations that aims to get “women to do their thing, no matter how well they do it, how they look or even how red their face gets”, has taken a more realistic approach by showing everyday women being active. PLUS: The Sun calls time on page 3 girls after 44 years.

Netflix recently launched a pair of new spots that show how much a Netflix subscription is capable of changing a viewer’s life. And while binge-watching shows until your eyes go red might not seem all that beneficial, the pair of new spots credit Netflix with the potential to increase compatibility between couples, make people more adventurous and remedy the frowns on sullen teenage faces. One thing it cannot, however, do is make you the leader of an alien race.

As evidenced by the likes of Women Laughing Alone with Salad and Completely Unusable Stock Photos, stock imagery​ is a fairly easy target. Enter The Stock Photobomber, who inserts himself into shots for comedic effect.

Content marketing is by no means a new marketing innovation to slide off the ceaseless production line dedicated to marketing jargon. Since Procter & Gamble’s early dabbling in sponsored content on a radio-based soap opera, content marketing has chugged along, evolving along the way and has now become a formidable beast that is present in countless marketing plans. But as the beast has grown, so too has the trepidation that brands often feel when finding the best way to approach it. So, in an effort to demystify content marketing slightly and make it seem a little more approachable, Getty Images has released a new infographic that gives marketers a quick breakdown on strategies that could help to effectively integrate content marketing into campaigns.

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

Skewering the earnestness and, at times, outright ridiculousness, of the fashion industry is fairly common. But it’s less common coming from the naming rights sponsor of a major fashion event. And that’s what Mercedes Benz has done with its entertaining, cliche-slapping film Fistful of Wolves.

Aussie e-commerce site ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, as the name implies, started offering glitter bombs as a service to those hoping to annoy the hell out of people they hate. It’s trolling in the real world. And it’s been too popular for its own good.

In an increasingly digital, ephemeral world, tangibility still has power. And MEA Mobile’s photo printing app Printicular is profiting from that. PLUS: Other companies bringing online and offline closer together.

You can do some amazing things with light these days, with the likes of Philips’ Hue and GE’s Link giving humans the ability to control their lights via apps, create a disco in their living room or respond to other data (like calendars, or through ‘if this then that’). And Infiniti Middle East and TBWA/RAAD in Dubai has also done something pretty cool with lights for its Inspired Light project.

Where do creative types find their inspiration? New research by Adobe shows it’s increasingly in the online realm. PLUS: the creative skills deemed to be most in-demand in 2015.

The potential for digital sensors and big data to make our cities easier to navigate and more efficient, whether it’s for parking, lighting or, in the case of Sensing City, pretty much the whole of Christchurch, is immense. Cisco has been banging on about the possibilities of the internet of things for a few years now, and, as its latest campaign, Building Tomorrow Today, shows, it thinks technology will soon render traffic jams extinct.

Newcastle Brown Ale has long been know for taking the mickey with their advertising. So much so that it has become a central part of their brand identity. Now they are taking another stab at their favourite target, Super Bowl ads, with possibly their weirdest idea yet.