Author StopPress Team

Ever since Telecom did the splits back in 2011, there have been rumours that the ‘New Telecom’ might not stick with its name, which carries with it a fair bit of equity but also a fair bit of monopolistic baggage. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire, because Telecom has announced that it will change its name to Spark later in the year.

There’s a bit of an arms race when it comes of offices at the moment, and particularly when it comes to tech companies, which appear to have a desire to out-cool each other with their massive HQs and quirky additions (check out this Vanity Fair story about what Apple, Facebook, Google and others are doing in Silicon Valley and San Fran at the moment). But New York-based digital creative shop The Barbarian Group has upped the stakes by showing off what is undoubtedly the coolest desk ever created.

Coca-Cola shows it really does have a sense of humour — and is about more than sugar and caffeine — with a new video suggesting devices usually used for dogs could cure our social media compulsions.

What is Big Data? Well, if you believe a quote that’s been doing the rounds for a few years now and seems to be popular on the conference circuit, it’s exactly like teenage sex.

Birdseye UK is set to create food madness with the very social Mashtags, potatoes transformed into @ symbols, smiley emoticons and hashtags. Seems the humble french fry was just too straight (or crinkled) for the discerning digital generation.

Google has awarded Kiwi AdWords partner Localist for AdWords quality in a category open to its group of premier small and medium business Premier AdWords partners on both sides of the Tasman. The quality score measures how relevant ads are to users.

If you’ve ever run into a fellow mall shopper because you or they are staring down at their mobile phone, you’ll appreciate US brand Caribou Coffee’s efforts to make a show of what its users are posting on Pinterest.

A crazy mash of retro style game graphics and actual bobsled footage is the Jamaica Tourist Board’s attempt to get fans during the Sochi Olympics. We can’t help but point the finger at Cool Runnings.

If the TVC for this Chinese online dating service is anything to go by, the country seems to prefer luring lonely hearts with guilt than the prospect of a happy relationship. So why not throw in a grandmother desperate to see her granddaughter at the altar?

BBDO New York tapped into the boundless imagination of a child to create a spot that oozes creativity while simultaneously applauding the awesomeness of mums (or moms) who work for GE. Every scene in the slick ad brings an absurd idea of a child to life, and thereby shows that the extent of possibility is directly proportional to how far the imagination can stretch.

The ad industry often seems like a young man’s game. But there’s no substitute for experience, as renowned copywriter Paul Burke wrote recently. And, if you’re wondering when you’ll come up with that brilliant product innovation, that revolutionary campaign idea or perhaps that long-awaited solution to the world’s energy needs, turns out you might have to wait a while.

Rather than falling into the regular sports advertising trope of the burly sports star making a great play, the team at &Some* has instead opted for a fan-centric approach that doesn’t hold the promise of victory. The idea behind the ‘game of hearts’ campaign comes to life most evidently in the print versions, which feature the faces and quotes of six different Voadfone Warriors fans—both male and female—of different ages.

Jim Beam’s integrated global campaign Make History hit New Zealand shores last week with TVCs shot and produced largely in our country. The clips were produced by Auckland company Ruskin and directed by Nathan Price.

In this series, we talk to Kiwi keyboard tappers that have managed to shift from the personal realm of blogging to create online media brands that are widely read (and in some cases profitable). In this segment, we chat to Jenene Crossan, the founder and current director of nzgirl.

Outdoor and camping clothing manufacturer The North Face recently followed free-climber Alex Honnold to Mexico, where he climbed up El Sendero Luminoso (the shining path). And the six-minute video that resulted from this endeavour offers a visceral glimpse at what it’s like to dangle from the tips of your fingers.

On 10 February, Getty Images announced that it would be going into a partnership with LeanIn.org, a women’s empowerment not-for-profit founded by Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, which aims to create an online library of imagery that depicts powerful images of women and girls.

While chocolate hearts, cherubic angels with bows and Hallmark cards have nothing to do with the history of St Valentine, they are a bit more light-hearted than the imprisonment and torture of a man in Rome. So rather than condemning the unbridled commercialisation of love (and martyrdom), let’s celebrate some of the good ideas and be thankful that we don’t have to endure the annual retelling of the horror that befell a random historical figure.

There’s been a bit of coverage recently around mouthwash being ‘a disaster’ for health’, with those who swill increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Turns out ads for mouthwash can sometimes have the same effect, if Tom Paine and Carlos Savage’s Orca-winning campaign for Colgate Plax is any guide.

Just when it looked as though the hipster beard was starting to recede into the obscurity that swallows most fads, a group of Oslo-based designers has taken things to the next level by manufacturing a watch that doesn’t tell the time. And no, this isn’t a practical joke or satirical article from the annals of the Onion; it’s a legitimate project that’s based on the concept that time is subjective.

As Theresa Gattung famously confirmed, confusion is a well-established marketing tactic. And there are plenty of examples of duplicitous techniques used by the marketing and advertising fraternity to help ‘increase purchase intent’. Now the term ‘natural’—and the shysters who employ it—is coming in for some attention in a mock campaign funded by US industry body Only Organic.

A US animal shelter has come up with a novel way of helping dogs get adopted and at the same time making selfies less about egotism and more about charity. It’s all thanks to Instagram and bit of creative poochery.

A new property on Sportal.co.nz will showcase localised NBA content and live games as part of a new deal between the basketball organistion and Sportal owner Perform. The digital group says it’s a chance for advertisers to reach out to the often hard to target demographic of 18-34 year old males.

Air New Zealand has officially unveiled its latest in-flight safety video, which was filmed by Josh Frizzel from 8com and features five models from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit franchise. And the initial outrage that coincided with release of the behind-the-scenes clip now seems to have diminished substantially.