Author StopPress Team

Wellington startup Showcase Software has launched its Showcase app, a business tool for marketers and sales teams that enables them to create a business app without the need for an app developer. And with Z Energy and Hyundai New Zealand already on board, the company’s eyes are now firmly set on the millions of business users of iPads and Android tablets around the world, with discussions already taking place with Nike and Apple.

Of all the sabbaticals you could embark on, flying halfway round the world to New Zealand to work on crafting a new beer range surely has to be one of the most desirable. And that’s the precise task assigned to US brewmaster Brian “Spike” Buckowski thanks to a campaign run by Barnes, Catmur & Friends for Boundary Road Brewery. Utilising brewing sites around the world, the agency put the call out for a genius brewer, with a skill set that sits somewhere between genius and God-like, to “come down and do his stuff”.

Following on from its slick rebrand of Paper Plus last year, Hyde Group, with the help of writer Vaughn Davis and designer Graham Murray, has launched the chain’s new online office stationery offering paperplusoffice.co.nz with a series of billboards that aim to capture the attention of traffic in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

On average 115,000 Kiwis use Skype daily, and MSN New Zealand has added the site to its local advertising network, boosting MSN’s audience reach to over 2.3 million New Zealand internet users.

Babyboomers are often portrayed as greedy, BMW-driving, house-hogging, tax avoiding luddites. But they also use the internet, have Facebook pages and watch YouTube. So why should they miss out on all the viral marketing fun? As no one was really catering to them specifically in this area, Publicis Mojo Auckland, Goodman Fielder Australia’s Lawson’s bread and The Down Low Concept have tried to fill the gap with a light-hearted look at that particular life-stage, with self-help tips delivered by one of the statesmen of Australian comedy Trevor Marmalade.

New Zealand has a special connection to Antarctica, due to a combination of our close proximity, the past efforts of explorers like Edmund Hillary and our ongoing investment into scientific research on, protection of and stake in the icy continent. And, in an effort to draw attention to some of the altruistic, world-leading work the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute is doing to unlock the secrets of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, the appropriately named BRR was enlisted to create a new identity.

After weeding through nearly 1,600 image submissions, Getty Images has picked Aucklander Jamie Wright as the winner of Grab New Zealand, a photography competition that gave enthusiasts the world over the opportunity to show off their visual definition of everyday Kiwi life.

The effectiveness of advertising on Facebook is being called into question once again following revelations from the BBC that its ‘VirtualBagel’ experiment, an imaginary business that tech reporter Rory Cellan-Jones started in a bid to test it, received 3,000 ‘likes’ within four days, despite the fact that it offered no products or interesting content.

As Rebecca Black so famously sung, “It’s Friday, Friday, Gotta get down on Friday, Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend, Friday, Friday, Gettin’ down on Friday, Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend.” But today isn’t just any old Friday. It’s the third Friday the 13th of the year. And to celebrate, Pak ‘n’ Save and DraftFCB decided to have a bit more fun and try to scare the bejeesus out of everyone.

Independent mobile advertising network InMobi has released its latest New Zealand Mobile Insights Report, showing Apple’s iOS platform has overtaken Android for the first time and a 78 percent increase in tablet impressions on the InMobi network over the past three months.

In the lead up to the Rugby World Cup, All Blacks sponsor Rexona went for the rather earnest, clenched fist on heart approach with its ‘rituals’ ad. But things are a bit more relaxed after the win, with a recent black and white spot by Aussie agency Naked and Curious showing some of the lads laughing together as friends (and hugging mum). And the same team, with Tammy Davis on directorial duties, have followed that up with something of a French farce showing “never seen before footage from the opposition dressing room after THAT game last year.”

There has been widespread speculation recently that the weekday version of the New Zealand Herald would be moving to a compact format and APN New Zealand has confirmed that’s the case, with a date set for September 2012. And, as its print product changes, it will also be redesigning its major digital property nzherald.co.nz.