Author StopPress Team

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

Lorde hasn’t had too much trouble selling records, but, given what’s been happening to the music industry in recent years, the labels could always use a bit more revenue. And Universal Music and BBDO Argentina devised a great way of drawing attention to/selling more copies of her album Pure Heroine by asking fans to imitate her unique dance style and giving them a discount based on how closely they matched.

If horror films are anything to go by, then the restrooms of petrol stations aren’t necessarily the best place to visit—not so much because of the boogeymen lurking in the shadows, but more so because thought of bringing bare buttocks into contact with the toilet seat is genuinely terrifying. So, in an effort to make the pitstop experience slightly more enjoyable, independently owned fuel chain Gull has refurbished 14 of its petrol stations, giving them themes that would be more congruent with a quirky hotel than a petrol station.

With the trials and tribulations of Quickflix and Ezyflix, the arrival of Premier League Pass and Lightbox, the impending arrival of Sky’s Neon and murmurings that Netflix will launch in Australia next year, there’s plenty of action in the subscription video on-demand market at the moment. And that’s good news for content consumers. But one of the major impediments to uptake is the hassle—or perception of hassle—in getting that content on the main TV. So, following in the footsteps of Quickflix and the free-to-air broadcasters, Lightbox has launched an app that offers its service through Samsung Smart TVs.

Compulsive hoarders are often reviled for allowing themselves to be buried under the assortment of junk that they’ve collected over the course of their lives. And while extreme examples of this problem make for fascinating trash TV, in reality the tendency of humans to collect isn’t unique to those who can’t see the floors of their homes. As evidenced by the continued popularity of collectibles—with Z Energy’s Blokhedz a recent example—even ordinary Kiwi families can at times indulge in the pleasure that comes with collecting things they simply don’t need. All Good Bananas is another brand that has recently launched its own version of collectibles campaign, which comes in the shape of stickers that are attached to bananas.

Steinlager’s latest ambassador is freediver William Trubridge, whose upcoming world record attempt in the Bahamas is being screened on Breakfast on December 3. At the launch of the new campaign, senior brand manager Michael Taylor said there were plenty of creative suggestions about how to promote the event and he even mentioned the possibility of a 102m high billboard. We haven’t noticed any of those around as yet, and they probably don’t come cheap, but we did notice a clever media idea that has put a lift in the Auckland CBD to good use.

Adobe has been beating the accountability drum recently, with some great spots for its ‘do you know what your marketing is doing?’ campaign that show the perils of not basing your decisions on good data. And its latest effort has perfectly sent up the insatiable demand for clicks by equating a marketer with a junkie on the hunt for their next fix.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, German-headquartered music service Soundcloud has created an acoustic representation of the divisive structure, ‘the Berlin Wall of Sound’.

McDonald’s has been fighting back against some of the more pervasive myths and legends about its business in recent years. One of the first things the Canadians explained as part of the first Our Food, Your Questions campaign is why the food never looks as good in real life as it does in the ads—and they did a good job of it. But the local outfit appears to be favouring the advertising vérité approach, because some of the pics it’s been posting recently on its Facebook page are much closer to the real thing than they are to over-stylised glamour shots.

According to data released by Recorded Music NZ, Kiwi musicians made more money from digital album sales than physical records for the first time in 2013, and, if numbers are anything to go by, this trend is set to continue over the next few years.

There have been a number of recent campaigns that employ digital tools to get the audience to do something, from ASB’s Like Loan to Sky’s ‘Bring down the King’ to Vodafone’s sailing game to Bonus Bonds’ longerconga.co.nz. Now Emirates is joining in the fun and asking Kiwis to use social media to propel three charities to Australia. PLUS: Potentia asks charities to submit films for the chance to get $10,000.

In an effort to ensure that the next generation doesn’t add to melanoma statistics, Kiwi entrepreneurs Daniel Xu and Ming Cheuk, founders of innovation company Spark64, have developed the UVLens, a sensor that detects the UV risk in the atmosphere and then communicates this to a tablet. And the pair have now teamed up with Banana Boat to put the technology in 100 childcare centres around the nation.

There are plenty of rules around booze advertising, and one of them is that they aren’t allowed to show their products increasing the chances of sexual success. But that certainly wasn’t always the case, as this old Steinlager ad shows.

Following in the footsteps of Dove and Always, iNature Skincare has released a new video that makes a profound statement about beauty by asking a group of ordinary people a simple question. To produce the four-minute clip, which has already gone viral, iNature collaborated with the Jubilee Project and asked a series of 50 people across the age spectrum what the one thing is that they would change about their bodies. And although the clip navigates well-worn territory, it’s worth watching just to see the creative responses the kids come up with.

Given that it relies on bored workers to shop during the workday, hotel-booking website Last Minute has incorporated a defense mechanism into its homepage to ensure that workers are always only a single click away from the safety of a spreadsheet. A small link titled ‘the boss is coming – look busy’ navigates users away from the pink glow of the website to the safety of a jargon-filled spreadsheet.

To some, the term corporate social responsibility is an oxymoron; more keeping up appearances than a legitimate attempt to make the world a better place. Nigel Latta looked into what the booze companies are doing in terms of promoting their products and, to a lesser degree, responsible drinking, in his recent series. And South Park has shown the paradox of the alcohol-funded ‘drink responsibly’ message perfectly (NSFW)

The numbers using public transport in Auckland are increasing, but it’s still something of a running joke and the much-trumpeted rail link is facing problems as the bureaucrats question the costs. Auckland Transport and Work Communications have been trying to convince more people to take the bus, train or boat and they won a TVNZ-NZ Marketing Award for their trouble. They’ve also got Jerome Kaino onboard to help spread the message and, at the smaller, more Colin Craig-ish end of the mascot spectrum, comedian and Radio Hauraki DJ Tim Batt has gone on a crusade to get people’s views on what the new transport network for West Auckland should look like.

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim aren’t big fans of bad marketing and advertising. But that hasn’t stopped them making heaps of good ads, with its recent spot with Jeff Goldblum for, of all companies, GE, their Old Spice ads with Terry Crews and some utter madness for Absolut with Zach Galafianakis all hitting the spot. And now they’ve cranked up the crazy for Totino’s Pizza Rolls.

More than 80 percent of a worldwide research panel (including over 3,000 advertisers, marketers, service providers and technology developers across 17 countries, including New Zealand) said that data plays an important role in supporting their respective efforts. And 92 percent said they expect data to contribute even more substantially to their advertising and marketing efforts over the coming years.

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