Author StopPress Team

The SuperBowl has become the red carpet event of the year for the advertisers, in the sense that they get to unleash the work that they are proudest of on arguably the most well-watched stage in America. This year, the hype has not disappointed, and major brands have unleashed a plethora of high-budget teasers and ads, some of which have already attracted millions of views. So, here’s a rundown of the some of the more popular offerings thus far.

While most annual reviews are jargon-loaded examples of corporate self-adulation, some businesses see it as an opportunity to engage with consumers by using a more creative and accessible approach. Over the last few years, four corporations that took latter approach were Z Energy, Warby Parker, Adris and Heinz.

AA Life and interactive partner DigitalWorks Worldwide have revamped the website with new tools and video content designed to simplify the very taboo topic of life insurance.

Getty Images has released an innovative calendar for 2014 that allocates specific galleries to every day of the year, thereby making it easier for website owners to update their sites with content (and imagery) relevant to a specific day.

The much maligned .GIF format, star of hackneyed electronic cards and dated websites, now has an awards site to call its own. LA agency CP and B has formed The Gifys, which sorts the image format stars in a raft of categories.

Hungarian pop singer Csemer Boglarka has undergone a live Photoshop face transplant for her new music video. And although such uses of Photoshop are by no means new or original, the way in which it is done in this video is particularly impressive. All the changes made to Boglarka’s face are effected while she is singing her new song.

Call of Duty’s trailer for its Ghosts Onslaught content pack starts as every person’s nightmare with kidnapping, but ends with the gamer’s dream of time to satisfy their addiction without interruption.

Squarespace has followed its Superbowl trailer with the full clip of A Better Web Awaits, but the lasting memory is an extended version of everything that’s wrong with cyberspace.

More than 180,000 visitors have signed up for Seek’s Facebook contest, a twist on the dated genre of the inspirational poster. The Reinspiration Project asks entrants to make new versions for the social channel instead of the office wall.

By tapping into a marketing budget that other companies could only dream of, Old Spice has launched a series of nine websites dedicated to fake (and unavoidably uncool) products. But instead of actually sending the products to those who attempt to purchase them, Old Spice commissions the services of the bare-chested one to conduct an ‘internetavention’ to encourage buyers to stop making stupid decisions.

In order to encourage prospective pet owners to consider adopting abandoned dogs, Costa Rica-based dog rescue centre Territorio de los Zagautes commissioned the creation of a campaign that highlighted the uniqueness of mixed breeds.

SodaStream is no stranger to controversy—and, in quintessential challenger brand style, no stranger to directly confronting the big drinks companies it competes against. It had its first major brand ad pulled in the UK for being “too disparaging towards soda manufacturers” and its Super Bowl spot from last year was rejected by CBS because it showed truck drivers in clothing featuring Pepsi and Coke logos (in the end, it ran a tweaked version of the UK ad). There’s obviously a fair bit of PR value in having your ad banned from the Super Bowl (and these banned ads often live on in the online world) and, surprise surprise, this year SodaStream’s ad featuring ambassador Scarlett Johansson, who utters the the line ‘sorry, Coke and Pepsi’, has also been knocked back.

Telecom is catering for growing data use as Kiwis report live from big summer events and hotspots. And they find uploads and downloads are growing in parallel, with faster networks allowing the trade of richer content.

In a new 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 the second segment, we chat to Dan Lake, the founder of Dan News.

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

An eagle-eyed, schadenfreude-loving reader sent us this house ad promoting APN’s special recruitment feature, Career14. Can you spot the issue?

Advertisers releasing teaser spots for their Super Bowl ads could be seen by some as prime evidence that The Rapture will soon be upon us and it’s likely the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will be coming for those in this industry first. Thankfully, Newcastle Brown Ale is here to be the voice of reason—and, in its quintessential ‘No Bollocks’ style, skewer the marketing tactics of other brands—by creating a hypothetical ad for the S**** B***.

In the words of Chuck Palahniuk’s Tyler Durden in Fight Club, “advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” And while this remains true for the most part, there are times when advertisers also use their skills to encourage people to make the world a better place.

Beer and reptiles might not have much in common, but Carl Vasta, founder and owner of Tuatara, one of the country’s most successful craft beer brands, has combined these two things to great effect.

Mobile device owners are worth marketers’ attention when it comes to promoting messages through outdoor advertising, according to new research from Roy Morgan.

Cisco has marked its Tomorrow Starts Here campaign with a TVC about the internet of things, shot in New Zealand. The ad shows some of Auckland’s best sides and the possibility and reality of internet-connected devices making our lives easier.

Rather than simply asking this question, Australian creative agency Flickering Wall hypothesised the possible result with a sensational short film for Denham Jeans.

Web company Squarespace is tapping into Superbowl hype with a trailer that shows us everything that’s wrong with the internet. That includes too many things to squeeze into 15 seconds, but Squarespace has managed to get in epic fails, cheesy contests and online dating.

Google’s new TVC for its entertainment store Google Play is a celebration of everything related to the heart — and alert viewers will notice a quick grab of Kiwi songstress Lorde among the artists gracing the service’s play arrow icon.