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There was a bit of chatter in Australia about viewer numbers for the opening ceremony being the lowest since OzTam ratings began in 1999. So what happened in New Zealand? And how did the numbers compare to Beijing in 2008? And what’s this about the Prime Underclass?
It’s been featured in Wired, the Huffington Post (“a virtual reality explosion”), The Daily What (“a prototype for Skrillex’s inevitable 2017 Super Bowl half-time show) and a fair bit here on StopPress. And the V Motion Project has started its experiential journey into the public domain, with a surprise in-cinema activation showing the technology in effect on the big screen.
MediaWorks adds some more integration, Gordon Jon Thompson takes a gamble on Sky City, APN names Peter Hunt as its director and chairman of the board, and DB opens up its newly-renovated Monteith’s Brewery in Greymouth.
Last year’s PwC New Zealand entertainment and media outlook said conservatism needed to be shed if media businesses wanted to make hay in the rapidly changing modern era. And, according to the second edition, what previously looked like a wide gap between old and new operating models is now being bridged and the New Zealand market is finally starting to embrace the new ways in which punters consume content, with revenues in the sector growing four percent to $5.2 billion in 2011, PwC tipping an average of five percent percent growth throughout the 2012-2016 forecast period, and mobility seen as the biggest driving force of change.
During the Rugby World Cup, the off-field battles between sponsors—and, often, non-sponsors—made for fairly interesting viewing. And the same is certainly true with the Olympics. Thankfully, MediaCom has its finger on the pulse with its Twitter Tracker, which ranks sponsors by a unique Olympic Twitter Score that includes total volume of mentions, engagement and reach metrics and, importantly, positive or negative sentiment.
There’s plenty of debate about how to measure the value of social media, and, in some cases, whether sites like Facebook and Twitter are at ‘the heart of a fallacy’ around online advertising. But, according to a new study by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the business and economics research arm of McKinsey & Company, social technologies have the potential to raise the productivity of knowledge workers by 20 to 25 percent, as information is made more accessible and searchable and communication streamlined.
L&P is a much-loved Kiwi brand. Many of its ads are classics, its Facebook page has over 184,000 likes and the recent Reader’s Digest survey listed L&P the seventh most trusted brand in New Zealand. But sales were simply not matching the affection and loyalty the brand enjoyed. So the packaging has been given a spruce up by brand design specialists Dow Design in an effort to make it more contemporary—and more compelling for the younger generation.
Back in the day, those with the ability to control fire were likely to be run out of town—or put in the old ‘let’s see if they’ll drown’ chair—for “being conversant in the dark arts”. But, as a new campaign for Rinnai by .99 shows, these days it’s something to put in your brochure.
.99’s win of the Tower business was a much-needed fillip for the embattled agency. And the good news has continued after it was handed the reins for a range of through-the-line communications for Fairfax Media’s Sunday Star Times newspaper after winning a pitch against Y&R Auckland and Christchurch agency Simpatico.
Air New Zealand is going black for good, with its fleet set to sport a new livery from next year that was created in collaboration with leading Kiwi typeface designer Kris Sowersby and Designworks.
Freeview, True and Flying Fish launched the new ‘To be fair, it’s got to be Free’ campaign in June and, more recently, Pio has been explaining the joys of its personal video recording system MyFreeview. After the response to the last competition we ran on StopPress to celebrate the coming of the digital switchover, Freeview has offered us another Panasonic DMR-XW380 MyFreeview HD recorder valued at $800 to give away. So tell us what Olympic event you would record and why and the most creative answer will get the spoils.
Masthead advertising company BrandWorld has added another brand to its stable, with The Extra Mile aiming to attract corporates that have positive tales to tell. And it’s got some fairly big names on board to tell them.
Music is a powerful force in advertising. Jingles are thought to be the leading cause of ‘song rash’ among New Zealanders, choosing the right backing track can sometimes mean the difference between ‘meh’ and magnificent , and, due to the creative proclivities of those working in this industry, many of those who inhabit it are annoyingly talented musicians. And the advertising event that many jokingly (or, in some cases, not-so-jokingly) refer to as the year’s most important is back for 2012. So let the inter-agency banter for the Battle of the Ad Bands commence.
There’s nothing like leaving on a high note and Clemenger BBDO’s Jon Pickersgill and Sarah Jackson have done exactly that because, just before they jet off across the ditch for new creative adventures at Sapient Nitro in Brisbane, they scooped the June ORCA with their back to front/front to back anti-drug-driving campaign for the NZTA.
Porirua chocolate maker Whittaker’s has been voted New Zealand’s most trusted brand in the annual Reader’s Digest Most Trusted Survey, moving up three places to top the 2012 list, knocking last year’s number one St John’s from its perch down to number two.
In April this year the outdoor sector industry body OMANZ launched its Step Outside campaign using its own medium to reel in advertiser and media agency interest. And with phase one of the campaign safely tucked away in the past, phase two has kicked into gear, this time adding visual cues in an attempt to drive home the message of how powerful out-of-home advertising can be.
Six teams teams of young media and creative agency whippersnappers were named as place getter in last night’s inaugural Fairfax Media Young Spikes Media and Integrated Competitions, but it was the Whybin \ TBWA and OMD teams that took out the winning spots, and each will now represent New Zealand at the Young Spikes competition held in Singapore in September.
APN shuffles staff into senior appointments thanks to sales restructuring, M&C Saatchi’s hire at first sight, Wright Communications acquires a new trio, The Research Agency expands by two, Fairfax feels Droga5’s creative spirit and Dentsu eyes up Aegis.
Kleenex’s Paper Dresses campaign has been plodding along nicely since 2009, showing just how dextrous Kiwi fashion students can be with masses of toilet paper. This years campaign, however, has upped the ante with a concerted effort to bring the promotion further into the mainstream, thanks to a collaborative effort between Ogilvy, Kimberly-Clark and TVNZ that seeks to directly engage, and interact with, the public over the course of nine months.
Logos are a wonderful thing. Executed correctly, they can become an instantly recognisable representation of your brand. But for some brands, the need to evolve the logo is irresistible and, if you look at some of these before and after logos posted by Stock Logos, highly necessary.
Come this Friday, over 8000 athletes from around the world will be seeking medal glory, but they’re not the only ones in the running for top-placed rankings. The Olympic Games, of course, seems to be as much about athletic prowess as it is about getting brand messages across to the masses of captive viewers. And MediaCom Sport, together with Brandwatch, have created a nifty interactive data visualisation tool and Twitter tracker to keep track of how well the 25 Olympic sponsors are faring.
Yahoo! New Zealand’s inaugural Digital Stars Awards have been on the hunt for the country’s best emerging digital media talent and, after scrutinising 18 savvy entries, the list has been narrowed down and the five finalists revealed, representing a decent cross-section of Kiwi agencies.
Spinning Olympic promo, Gotye meets Star Wars, when Lego gets gangsta, Banking group Banco Sabadell’s mob of symphony, Morgan Freeman champions New Zealand, have a taco why don’t you, Lionel’s tea, Good Book’s metamorphosis, Graham Henry and Ted, and the most fitting 50 Shades of Grey promotion.
Putting a corporate design pitch out the public is nothing new. Toyota’s current logo was the result of a worldwide design competition in 1936, the result of which garnered an impressive 27,000 entries. While it may not be on the hunt for a new logo, Subway New Zealand is putting a call out to the public to design its gift cards with its ‘our cards, your canvas’ competition.
If you’ve been losing sleep lately, it probably has something to do with the thought of missing out on attending the event second in glamour and prestige only to the Academy Awards, the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards. If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet and fancy your hand at winning one, it’s time to stick your nose out. We want to know, if this year’s trophies were embossed with a scratch and sniff that revealed the smell of marketing, what would that smell be? The best answer wins a ticket to the awards, valued at $245.
Last year, New Zealanders’ confidence in the economy took quite the fall, plummeting nine points, from 99 in Q4 2010 to 90 in Q4 2011. And results for the second quarter of this year don’t make for better news, with confidence remaining at the global average of 91, down six index points from the same time last year, according to the latest round of Nielsen’s Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions.
There’s Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, and our very own David Tua. Sure, the boxing world has been graced by many a talent over the decades, but Adshel reckons the pool of knockout talent isn’t the exclusive domain of athletes. Its newly launched Knockout campaign is an intercontinental battle where the best Adshel campaigns from the previous quarter are pitted against each other, with the ultimate power falling into the hands of you, the discerning industry player, to cast your vote.
Social media has forever changed the way we connect with each other and while some detractors are averse to sharing snapshots of their lives with the online community, LG and its advertising agency Y&R, are hedging their bets that members of the public will be keen to have their Facebook posts not only publicised, but brought to life by a team of performers and artist Otis Frizzell thanks to a gigantic 26-foot high bricks-and-mortar Facebook wall built in Auckland’s Aotea Square
Vodafone may be seeking to acquire a new branch of business with Telstra Clear, but DraftFCB’s latest TVCs for the Telco revisits BestMate, an old product favourite that, although popular, hasn’t received much promotional love as of late.
Wellington startup Showcase Software has launched its Showcase app, a business tool for marketers and sales teams that enables them to create a business app without the need for an app developer. And with Z Energy and Hyundai New Zealand already on board, the company’s eyes are now firmly set on the millions of business users of iPads and Android tablets around the world, with discussions already taking place with Nike and Apple.