This post was created by one of the small but mighty StopPress team of journalists. Among their number are: Zahra Shahtahmasebi, Niko Kloeten, Penny Murray and Rachel Tsai. Send your news to [email protected].
British fashion and lifestyle magazine i-D has launched its online presence in New Zealand at i-D.co and it’s tapping into a few tricks of its parent company Vice to appeal to the beautiful people—and to get brands involved.
In an effort to be the first to jump on a hot new story, more and more media outlets are failing to do one of the most necessary tasks: fact checking.
The appetite for content marketing is growing rapidly, with much of it happening in the digital space. Many brands have invested in their own content marketing teams and platforms. Publishers like Fairfax, APN and Tangible Media all have their own content marketing teams working on both digital and print. And agencies of all stripes are also trying to make hay while the sun shines by filling up the variety of channels consumers now use. Now Brendan Jarvis and Ron Sneddon have joined the fray with Story, a standalone business that has a “laser-like focus” on digital content marketing.
The hair is being groomed and the guitars are being tuned for tonight’s Beatles-themed Battle of the Ad Bands at the Kings Arms, and while the winner of the last two year’s events, Barnes, Catmur & Friends’ Friends Electric, is out of the running this year (all the members are thought to be pursuing solo projects after a huge falling out, with Daniel Barnes going through his Sting phase and focusing on the lute), it’s an opportune moment to show off the saucy full-length music video the band made as part of its prize from its win in 2012.
New research shows international retailers are chipping away at New Zealand shoppers’ consumer spend, but Kiwi companies finding a way to effectively harness the power of online retailing could add another $34 billion to the economy. And online events like the upcoming Click Monday are doing their bit to get Kiwis spending on local sites.
Comparative advertising is fairly rare, perhaps because brands don’t want to be perceived as being negative or due to the potential for legal action from competitors. And comparative advertising that references an ad from a competitor is rarer still. But VW and Colenso BBDO have done just that in a cheeky print execution that aims to spell out the reasons why the Amarok is a better option than the Hilux.
Last Sunday once again marked the annual time of year when Kiwis are unified in an attempt to assuage some of the guilt associated with pretty much commandeering the word relaxation from the vocabularies of the nation’s fathers. And it does after all make sense, because once children enter the world, men’s lives change: sleeping in late becomes virtually impossible, prized possessions become ad-hoc teething soothers and monthly bills start to stretch in a way that defies all the rules of physics. So here’s a rundown of various brands that decided to tap into this shared guilt in the hope of extracting a few coins.
You can’t underestimate the power of the All Blacks when it comes to sponsorships. And it’s even better if you can get them half naked, as Jockey did recently as part of a successful activation for New Zealand Fashion Week.
Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook took to the stage this morning in Cupertino to launch the iPhone 6 (and its larger brother the iPhone 6 Plus) and the Apple Watch. It’s put a selection of videos from the launch on its YouTube channel, including a cool (and slightly controversial) clip about Perspective, Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake showcasing the new phones, a lengthy explainer from lead designer Jonny Ive and a clip featuring U2.
Once again, the Apple acolytes are frothing at the mouth over the announcement of the new Apple Watch and iPhone 6 (the Oatmeal sums up what owning an Apple product is like quite well). But we prefer this wearable Apple ‘tech’.
As Adweek points out, the product as aphrodisiac has a long history in advertising, and especially when it comes to male grooming products aimed at younger men. Unlike Axe/Lynx, however, Old Spice has largely avoided the obvious gag of women being unable to resist the lure of scented man, and, if it has used it, it’s at least added in some absurdity. Its latest campaign does feature plenty of hot babes falling into a deep swoon over the lead male character, but, as per usual, there’s a slight difference. And, in the latest spot, the newest Old Spice mascot unwisely decides to go for a soak in the tub.
Bikers, robots and solitary actors star for Hallenstein Brothers, ASB and Noel Leeming in this week’s edition.
Greenpeace has been left in the awkward position of inadvertently distributing the photography of Alain Marfat-Renodier, a man who was involved in the 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand. This situation comes about after it was revealed that one of Marfat’s photographs taken of a variety of animals around a Namibian watering hole was included in the not-for-profit organisation’s annual calendar (image credit: Stuff).
The name ‘Teahupo’o’, which was given to the Tahitian surfbreak widely considered one of the heaviest in the world, roughly translates to English as ‘to sever the head’ or ‘place of skulls’—and for good reason. Since 2000, there have been five recorded surfer deaths, and countless others have been dragged across the razor sharp reef that lies under just a few feet of water. And despite the risks involved, Visa sent surfer Kolohe Andino into the barrel armed with a mobile phone and a Go Pro camera in an effort to show viewers how easy it is to order pizza through its mobile platform.
Given that most of us are ill-equipped to taste the intricacies that go into a sip of wine, US-based Union Wine Company has decided to mock the wine snobs that turn their noses up at anything that doesn’t come out of the finest bottle. Over the course of four spots, a variety of characters share their largely vacuous insights, littered with sommelier vernacular, on the drink they are holding. Although some of the spots do tend to be a bit long-winded, they serve as a great reminder as to why we should always be suspicious in the company of people who use the words ‘notes’ or ‘tones’ to describe anything other than music.
Changes at Davy & Chapman, Heinz, Qrious, Running with Scissors, Snakk, Pead PR and GrabOne.
Design, said Apple founder Steve Jobs, is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. Or, put in a commercial context, whether it helps a company make money. And the Best Design Awards’ ‘Best effect’ category, whose finalists were announced this week, celebrates design that has produced a measurable effect on the success of an organisation or product, whether it be productivity, staff engagement, sales growth, bottom line or customer experience.
The ‘Beer Census’ ad created by Barnes, Catmur & Friends for Boundary Road Brewery has picked up the Newspaper Ad of the Month for August as part of News Works’ Agency League competition.
Sky TV has delved back in time to before certain movie stars were famous – featuring the casting tapes of famous Hollywood actors in TVCs as part of its its “Come With Us” brand campaign. Two 45 second TVCs have been produced by DDB, one featuring martial artist/actor Bruce Lee and the other comedian/actor Seth Rogen.
When Annie Baxter, Google’s comms manager for Australia and New Zealand, started at the tech behemoth in 2008, there was no Chrome, no Android, no hardware, and no Google Play. So she’s had to learn as she’s gone along. And she’s loving it.
Every year, the equivalent of 1,866,664 trailer loads full of organic waste are sent unnecessarily to the landfill in Auckland, a mass so huge that it costs taxpayers approximately $77 million per year to dispose of it. So, in a bid to remind Aucklanders about the problem of food waste while simultaneously encouraging them to consider composting, We Compost (a network of New Zealand businesses committed to reducing and recycling organic waste) has launched a campaign via DDB and with support from Auckland Council that will on 6 and 7 September enable Aucklanders to trade their food waste for a variety of treats.
The internet loves cats. Cats love treats. Here’s an ad the combines both these things.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
From brewing vodka in his garage to eventually establishing what Paul Catmur called a “vodka empire” worth $138 million, Geoff Ross knows what it takes to build a successful business. In recent years he has turned to a slightly different type of brewing and is currently chief executive of craft beer brand Moa. Ross also serves as a chairman of Trilogy, the skincare company.
Not-for-profit organisation the Haven Night Shelter has launched the Street Store, a campaign that gives the homeless an opportunity to select from items that have been donated by those who are more privileged.
Industry happenings at Clemenger Group, Colenso, Air New Zealand, The Management Company and 3R.
Since 2008, Gianpaolo Grazioli, the owner of Auckland’s haute ice cream store Giapo, has combined experimental flair with culinary mastery to establish one of the most well-known ice cream stores in New Zealand. So what does it take to get Kiwis queuing for a frozen dessert all the way through winter?
The proliferation of digital technology has introduced countless features and applications. And with this progress has come a new vocabulary to describe everything that these digital innovations bring to the table. So, for the launch of its latest catalogue, Ikea has unveiled arguably the most ground-breaking innovation to hit coffee tables: the bookbook. At first glance, it might seem like nothing more than a print edition of the fancy furniture store’s annual catalogue, and this would be correct. It is simply a book. But in describing the latest edition in an over two-minute video, Ikea uses language that would be more suited to the latest rendering of the iPhone.
PETA never shies away from controversy to get its point across—an approach that has even seen the organisation launch a porn site, in an effort to show that animals and humans share some body parts. And while the organisation’s latest campaign does include POV camera angles, it isn’t quite as salacious as what was done before.
Back in July, Canada-based Milk West, a dairy partnership consisting of Alberta Milk, BC Dairy Association, Dairy Farmers of Manitoba and SaskMilk, launched a bizarre YouTube-based campaign via DDB that featured a series of characters in a range of awkward situations. When StopPress first covered the story, there were only three episodes loaded onto the Snack Time YouTube channel, but over the last few months an additional six clips have been uploaded. And judging by the number of views, the series seems to be garnering a decent online following.