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].
Whatever St Matthew in the City can do, Chapel Bar can do better. To celebrate seven years of Almighty Nights at the Ponsonby Road institution, it enlisted the sacrilegious services of Ogilvy, which created a great (unless you’re a devout Christian) ad that’s bound to appeal to the secular customer base.
Air New Zealand became the official airline of Middle-earth a few months ago as part of a marketing deal struck up between Tourism New Zealand, New Line, MGM and Warner Bros. And, after plenty of teasing, including a countdown clock on its Flying Social Network site, it’s released a classy new Hobbit-themed safety video.
Last year’s impressive Step Up campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi for the RNZAF offered users the chance to experience four live simulated challenges that tested their skills against some of the everyday situations they’d encounter if they took up a career in the Air Force. This year’s version, ‘Virtual Missions’, follows a similar path and it’s been deemed good enough to win the IABNZ Online Creative Award for November 2012.
Esquires Coffee Houses is moving on to its third different agency in as many years, with Y&R picking up the business following a review of several local creative agencies. Media buying will be retained by Mediacom.
Findings from InMobi’s Mobile Insights Report Q3 show Apple remains the dominant force in the New Zealand market, with 42 percent of total impressions, a nine percent increase from last quarter. But there are also positive signs for Android, climbing five percent to take 34 percent of the total market share. PLUS: infographic action.
After nearly eight years in business, PR agency JML Communications is shedding its moniker and rebranding as PR Partners.
We’ve seen the banks gunning for new customers after a big merger. Now, after Vodafone’s $840 million takeover of TelstraClear was cleared by the Commerce Commission yesterday, it’s time for the telcos to have some fun, with Telecom running a full-page print ad today riffing on TelstraClear’s slogan.
Andy Warhol’s iconic image of Marilyn Monroe, one of the most influential pieces of modern art ever, can now be seen at Queen Elizabeth II Square in downtown Auckland. As part of Art Week, 3,944 Resene test pots in four specially chosen colours – Princess, Smitten, Shooting Star and All Black (actual Resene paint names)—were commandeered to create a 4x4m mosaic.
Recycling really should be second nature by now, but it doesn’t take much more than a look around to see there’s still plenty of work to be done in terms of education. So in an effort to fill up those 1000-odd recycling bins all around the country, Love NZ has just pushed play on a six-week campaign by McCann Melbourne and its direct and digital arm MRM called It’s A Karma Thing, which exhorts Kiwis to ‘do the right thing’ and earn points they can then redeem for prizes.
It’s pretty tough out there in retail at the moment, with the internet affecting bricks and mortar and economic malaise affecting everyone. But there are plenty of savvy retailers making it work and a couple of international retail gurus—Jon Bird, IdeaWorks’ chief executive based in Sydney, and UK retail expert Martin Butler—are visiting next week to share some of their secrets.
For the second year in a row, an electricity company has topped the Deloitte Fast 50 list of New Zealand’s fastest-growing companies—though Pulse Utilities NZ’s 2637 percent revenue growth didn’t quite reach the dizzying heights of last year’s winner, Powershop, which clocked in with 5280 percent growth. And in the marcomms field, Mediacom came in ninth with 487 percent growth, Gopher was 17th with 304 percent growth, SnapComms was 30th with 222 percent growth, recently acquired SublimeNZ was 31st with 216 percent growth and Christchurch’s Plato Design Agency was 35th with 208 percent growth.
As one famous Brit hits our screens, another famous Brit departs, because Dame Judi Dench’s time is up as the voice of ASB. And while Saatchi & Saatchi has already presided over an online campaign, a cool Spotify app and some nice print work for Big Yellow, it’s just released its first TV push with a spring home loan campaign offering borrowers some cash, Samsung Galaxy tablets and a taste of ‘fully furnished’ domestic bliss.
Wendy Rayner’s new reign, Michael Laws drops the mic, DDB makes a deposit, changes at Woman’s Weekly, no comment from Fairfax, Top Gear New Zealand heads across the ditch, Charlie’s finds a new chief, Ideas Shop adds a new general manager, Alt Group pleases ze Germans, Mi9 moves them up the chain, Simon Barnett heads back to TV, Dominic Bowden takes on X Factor, Datamine adds an ‘Owl’ and Bright Sparks beefs up in the south.
QR codes have slowly started to infiltrate the local scene, but it’d be a stretch at this stage to say they’ve rocked the marketing world. Enter Boxtcode, patent-pending smartphone technology that aims to resolve the limitations of QR codes, with location-based technology that connects consumers with brands via a four digit code rather than a barcode that requires scanning.
Following a story in the Herald over the weekend about increased competition leading to a drop in broadband prices and increases in data allowances, new player Flip, a business in the CallPlus group of companies, and its agency Sugar&Partners decided to take the opportunity to link itself with the news and promote its offer of free* broadband with an ad in yesterday’s Herald.
Those with a penchant for posteriors may have noticed the outdoor campaign for StepOut Nature’s new range of bamboo socks and tights. And one of our dear readers had his morning brightened today when he saw this perfectly timed lamp-post shadow on Ponsonby Rd. Perhaps a caption competition is in order.
They say you can’t buy experience, but you can buy experiential agencies and that’s what Professional Public Relations has done with the acquisition of specialist experiential marketing brand SublimeNZ, an offering it hopes to grow in Australia across PPR’s six state offices.
While some could probably think of nothing better than a bit of silence, having to do without your favourite sounds forever is a different kettle of fish. So, to show what role sound plays in people’s lives, Bay Audiology, Shine and Exposure’s Kevin Denholm have taken a charming—and very Kiwi—look at how customers can keep ‘hearing the things you love hearing’.
The Maggies judges have spoken and the covers they have deemed to be the country’s best will now fight it out for top honours in their respective categories, plus the coveted overall cover of the year award, as they go up for a public vote over the next five weeks at www.themaggies.co.nz.
While Google’s AdWords scheme has taken plenty of wind out of the sails of print media—and traditional directory services—here and around the world, one thing Google lacks is the sales force on the ground to sell to the small to medium enterprises that make up such a big chunk of the economy. So, to remedy that, it partners up with resellers and New Zealand-based tech company Gopher has become the third local company alongside Yellow and Localist to be named as a Google AdWords premier SME partner.
Keen to get your foot in the door at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney? As any young creative knows, one of the biggest challenges is cracking that door open. But aspiring creatives can now go inside the Sydney branch after it claimed to be the first agency in the world to team up with Google to create Saatchi Street View.
The time has cometh once again, when the upper-lips of men around the country—and the world—are given a temporary hairy embrace as part of Movember celebrations. And Carat has stepped up to the plate and challenged the rest of the marcomms industry to get growing and support the cause.
Lindauer and DDB’s recent tear jerker created a bit of a stir when it was released, with some seeing it as low hanging fruit and others (particularly the female target market) seeing the hyperbole as spot-on. But the piece de resistance of the over the top campaign was a champagne tower that was filled with salty male tears* during the 30 Days of Fashion and Beauty Style Weekend at the Cloud.
It’s the web app that keeps on winning, and after numerous awards for Colenso BBDO and Mars Pedigree’s ‘Doggelganger’, it’s added another prestigious trophy to the cabinet: The Diamond Award at the Direct Marketing Association’s International Echo Awards.
As far as unintentionally humorous advertising cult heroes go, you don’t get any bigger than the silver fox in the Colorsteel ‘Roof Shout’ ad who looks a little bit like one of the old guys from The Muppets. Well, heeee’s baaaack with his hedge clippers in a cameo for the ‘Roof Shout’ follow up, which celebrates “30 years of being the roof of New Zealand”. And this time there’s a bit of a nod and a wink about his appearance from Coxy.
It’s been a pretty good year for bcg2 and Mediacom, with a few new accounts and plenty of plaudits at the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards for the work done on Pfizer’s ‘Viagra = Avigra’ campaign. And it’s notched up another win after being awarded the Freedom New Zealand account from incumbents M&C Saatchi Sydney/Auckland and Carat without a pitch.
Along with the main ‘every time you swipe something a little bit good happens’ TVC featuring a bunch of playful animals, the idea of creating little moments of joy has been brought to life in the real world with some nice experiential executions, like swipe-activated bubble gum billboards, bubble blowing Adshels and even a seat and a magazine on the Wellington waterfront. But for its latest trick Fly Buys has got the Wellington City Council on-side and is trying to bring some joy to an eight-year-old boy named Elijah.
We’re fans of ad agencies that back up what they do for their clients by advertising and we think they should do it more often (*cough, StopPress media kit, cough*). DraftFCB leads the pack in that regard and has created a great brand that it can hang its hat on. There’s a pretty big gap back to second, but Special Group has been known to talk itself up from time to time. And to celebrate its packaging pin at the Best Awards for OOB ice cream and drum home its belief that design and advertising need to kiss and make-up, it placed this ad in last week’s Herald.
DDB, Barnes, Catmur & Friends, 2degrees, Clemenger and Colenso all walked away from the Langham last Thursday with varying degrees of Effie-inspired joy in their hearts. You can check out all the winners here. And, thanks to CAANZ and Richard Leonard, those more interested in the humans who attended can check out a few pics below.
New Zealand goes a bit funny when famous folk come for a visit. It’s that classic Kiwi combo of pride and self-doubt. And it was no different when Eva Longoria popped in recently to spruik some of her perfume, cut the ribbon on The Shopping Channel and answer a few questions at an event put on by Woman’s Day and L’Oreal. The security was almost Obama-level, with pre-event checks and phones handed in at the door, but with a bit of baksheesh we managed to get our hands on collection of glamour shots from the night. So fill your boots. And eyes.