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].
Fisher & Paykel has just kicked off the global launch of 70 new locally-designed products with a roadshow in New Zealand and one of its first TV campaigns in a while. But while progress and innovation is laudable, some old features deserve to stay. And this little patriotic easter egg is one of them.
The Depot took out Metro’s supreme restaurant of the year award in 2012, and it’s a popular haunt for marcomms power lunchers. And now Al Brown has produced a skite film courtesy of Alex McVinnie Photography and Reel Good that aims to capture the essence of the place.
We’ve featured Crown Range Drifting, bike races with Peregrine Falcons, men jumping from the edge of space, Rube Goldberg antics and plenty more Red Bull tomfoolery on this site in the past. And you can add another work of extreme art to the list with Danny MacAskill’s Imaginate, which sees the freakishly talented bike artist play with a few toys.
Day two was a good one from a New Zealand perspective. And Day 3 wasn’t too bad either, with one silver, a few bronzes and plenty of shortlistings.
Contagion’s relationship with Air New Zealand cheeky little brother Grabaseat was enhanced last week after winning a competitive pitch against several other agencies thought to have included Special Group and Young & Shand.
Mitre 10 Dream Home returns to Kiwi screens on 2 July at 7.30pm after a few year hiatus. And, along with the naming rights sponsor, TVNZ has signed up a host of other commercial partners who will spruik their wares in the TV2 show, including ASB, EECA Energywise and plenty more.
The first winners have been announced, and there are a few Kiwi agencies in the money, with DDB NZ winning a prestigious Creative Effectiveness Lion for Steinlager’s ‘Believe’, DraftFCB NZ picking up seven lions so far for Driving Dogs and Call Girl and Colenso BBDO winning gold for Amnesty International’s Trial by Timeline. Plus: more Kiwi agencies on shortlists.
Marketers love to throw around health-related buzz words to confuse naive consumers into thinking what they’re buying is good for them. Of course all natural might not mean the same thing for everyone, as this beefy ad selling sausages shows us.
Tabloid newspaper The Truth may shut its doors after more than 125 years of publishing – this in a shocker week for New Zealand media where Fairfax Media axed three of its technology titles and MediaWorks was put into receivership.
60 years ago there were 130 delegates at the first year of the Cannes Lions and no entries from New Zealand). This year it’s estimated there will be 12,000 attendees and, if last year is anything to go by, a few Kiwi winners. And to celebrate the evolution of the world’s pre-eminent marcomms festival, Sapient Nitro created this infographic.
There were a record 35,765 entries from 92 countries for the 60th Cannes Lions. Of course, we’re small-minded and patriotic so we’re focusing on the Kiwi contenders and here are the seven agencies in the running after the first shortlists for Creative Effectiveness, PR, Promo & Activation and Direct were announced.
While we at StopPress feel the understated approach to destination marketing, as seen in Flight of the Conchords, is the best fit for New Zealand, connecting the country with a fantastical epic and getting the actors involved to swoon over it also works pretty well, as this behind-the-scenes clip from The Hobbit films shows.
The kooky minds over at our sister publication Idealog Magazine have a long, illustrious history when it comes to putting a little extra oomph into its cover design. Whether that be hand drawing a complete chalk image or doing an extreme close up of Minister of Everything Steven Joyce’s intimidating face. But their latest creation really takes the cake – or should I say, mud pie.
It’s World Elder Abuse Awareness Day tomorrow. And, to get more people thinking about the issue and donating to the cause, Age Concern New Zealand is taking to TV for the first time with a campaign by First Star called ‘Always Respected, Never Abused’.
There’s absolutely nothing better than a dad joke. Nothing. And in honour of (un)hilarious dads everywhere, Heineken and Wieden + Kennedy have decided to crowd-source a few gems for father’s day with a social media-fuelled campaign using the #dadjokes hashtag.
The Waterfront Theatre Project, which is a partnership between the university and the Auckland Theatre Company (ATC), will see the construction of the new performance centre in the trendy Wynyard Quarter area – specifically amongst the Innovation Precinct to be built in the area.
New Radio NZ head, PRINZ announces its top brass, new shopping channel announces a familiar face as chief executive, Media Design School makes a couple of upgrades, AWARD School opens its Auckland doors again, Naked Sydney takes EA games PR biz and Ad2One adds another site to its list.
The White Pages in Auckland now has less than five percent of the circulation it had a year ago, thanks to the introduction of a trial opt in system in March. This year instead of sending every Auckland household a copy of the giant white tome by default, the public had to specifically request a copy.
There’s been plenty of spy-related news recently after the Edward Snowden leak. So it’s pretty good timing for the launch of CAANZ and TBWA\’s Effies call for entries campaign, which taps into the shadowy world of blacked out documents, lie-detection. and subterfuge. Perhaps they know more than they’re letting on?
The gaming community was breathing into a paper bag after Sony launched its next generation PlayStation 4 console a few days ago. And Sony and its new agency BBH New York are embracing the fantasy with an epic ad entitled ‘Greatness Awaits’, which features a range of character cameos, exploding sets and, of course, OTT violence.
Judging from the (unusually) complimentary comments on StopPress, the pundits seem to like the new—and quite bizarre—Instant Kiwi campaign. And, to launch NZ Lotteries’ new overarching tagline of ‘Winning Happens’, DDB has also released a series of entertaining radio ads featuring monkeys, kung fu masters and tense reality show music that aim to drum home the fact that there’s a winner every second-and-a-half across the whole portfolio.
Come next week, throngs of industry folk will touch down in Cannes to pat backs, sip rosé and try to be inspired. Agencies and their holding companies invest huge sums to take part. But duo Michael Middelkoop and Sharif Elmawla, who are currently working at Saatchi & Saatchi Amsterdam, decided to find out what else the entry money would be able to buy with their website www.insteadofalion.com.
We wrote about Beck’s and Shine’s Edison-inspired beer bottle last week. And now there’s a making-of video created by magazine/media company Vice that shows the whole, very involved process.
In the war for talent, the marcomms sector is on the frontlines, with regular poaching of staff and a strong desire for those attracted to the industry to take on ‘new challenges’. So how do you attract and retain staff in this digital age? While employees are motivated by perks and pay, new research from Deloitte and Google has found that workplace IT is becoming an increasingly important factor.
Over the past few years, we have seen a series of memes that have had the potential to cause injury, such as planking, owling, batting and, of course, extreme ironing/hammocking. The Harlem Shake, however, never really seemed too dangerous. Ridiculous, yes, but not particularly life threatening. Fonterra disagreed, however, after it sacked two of its staff for shaking it on the Takanini factory floor.
New Zealand-based photography and illustration house International Rescue is setting up shop in Australia, with a new office in Sydney.
One of the joys of this business is that companies are often willing to spend untold sums in an effort to bring often-ridiculous ideas to life. Red Bull has made an art form of it over the years and, with its increased focus on media, it’s creating some remarkable things, likes its recent project filming the fastest bird in the world, the peregrine falcon, hunting down one of the best downhill mountain bikers in the world, Gee Atherton.
There’s a Tumblr for everything these days, heck – there’s probably a Tumblr curating all the times the phrase “there’s a Tumblr for everything these days” is used in an article. So it’s not surprising that the biggest news story of the week, the NSA and PRISM cyber spying scandal, gets the full Tumblr treatment.
When life gives you lemons, go back in time and punch it in the face. That’s the message behind BJ Golnick’s entry into Saatchi and Saatchi’s global Music Video Challenge, which saw hundreds of entrants remix their original video onto OKGO’s latest track ‘I’m Not Through’.
