Author StopPress Team

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

With a new app called Wakie you could be getting one every single morning. If you so desire.

Barbara Miller, a spokeswoman for the US National Candle Association, told The New York Times last year that 35 percent of the $2 billion of annual candle sales happen in last three months of the year. And, in an effort to get more of its candles in stockings this year, Ecoya has released a beautiful festive film that celebrates the joy of giving and getting.

It’s not often, especially not in the digital age, for a trailer to accompany the publication of book. However, for the release of ‘Surviving Middle School,’ a tongue-in-cheek guide for young girls, writer David McGrail has gone all out by commissioning the production of a three-minute clip, which gives a hyperbolic glimpse at what happens when school girls make the wrong choices.

After Apple announced the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Samsung came out firing (once again) with a comparative print ad that pointed out the next best thing was already here in the form of the Note 4. And its approach to promoting the Galaxy Tab S is similarly comparative.

The Rumpus Room, the UK-based sister company of The Sweet Shop, recently completed a mobile activation to commemorate Lewis Hamilton’s victory for this season’s Formula One World Championship. The activation was set up to lead into the final race in Abu Dhabi , and featured footage sourced from the driver’s seven million fans, who often share their support via social media. The Rumpus Room invited fans to share their experiences via a mobile web app, and this content was then cut and edited into a video dubbed #TeamLHmovie, which was released only hours after the race.

Airbnb has made some quality ads in its time, with everything from the charming and inventive crowd-sourced film Hollywood & Vines to the rather enticing spot for its recent—and slightly controversial—rebrand. And now it’s made another stunner with the help of Kiwi animation house Cirkus.

In what has become an annual tradition, the students at Media Design School have developed a quirky campaign to encourage the nation’s ad folk to attend their end-of-year show. In the latest iteration, a series of cut-out headshots of the nation’s admen are accompanied with some humorous sound effects.

The last few TVCs from DirecTV has introduced to some remarkably creepy variations of Rob Lowe. And adding to this catalogue of weirdness is a new character called Scrawny Arms Rob Lowe, whose sofa scene might be the creepiest of the series thus far.

Sam Finnigan, a polite accountant hailing from Kohimarama, has won back at least some of the nation’s pride by defeating super villain and defending America’s Cup winner Jimmy Spithill in a Samsung smartphone-controlled sailing race.