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].
We told you about New Zealand’s Webby Awards finalists and official honorees a while back. But we missed one out: local graphic design and interactive design studio Supply, which was nominated in the IT Hardware/Software category for the Netsafe Scam Machine.
Yukfoo Animation’s first short film Preferably Blue, which tells the story of an embittered, reprobate Easter Bunny, made its rather appropriate New York premiere at the 10th Tribeca Film Festival on Easter Sunday. And it’s also off to Germany after being chosen to screen at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film in May.
Fairfax Media is expanding its portable news repertoire, last week announcing the launch of its first Android app for Stuff.co.nz. That means “more people than ever can get up to date with Stuff’s award winning news on the go”, according to Fairfax digital general manager Nigel Tutt.
Youngish advertising whippersnappers have just three days left to enter the Fairfax Media Young Print Lions competition. And past winner Brent Colliver suggests entrants would be well-advised to spend the last few days polishing their entries.
The promotional onslaught from Rugby World Cup sponsors hoping to make good on their significant investment into the tournament has begun in earnest, with the dangling carrot of Cup tickets already being used to lure the punters. Heineken is already offering finals tickets with its on-pack promotion and it’s dishing out a few more in the Heineken Trivia Series.
Colmar Brunton has long been dabbling in the field of customer service research, most recently in last year’s Distinctive Customer Experiences Survey, which showed, slightly surprisingly, banks were the best-performing sector. Now it’s taking its findings to a wider audience and teaming up with Fair Go for a regular monthly section that identifies New Zealand’s “customer service champions”.
There’s now one big dominant player in New Zealand’s magazine distribution scene after CourierPost, Fairfax Media NZ and Netlink announced a new partnership, which kicks in from 1 July.
…as Kerry Smith is farewelled; Tequila finds its new general manager after a lengthy search; Mango adds three new fruits; and one of The Sweet Shop’s directors gets the nod for his film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
It looks as if the daily deal sites that seem to be seeping out from all over the place have made quite the impact on our online shopping habits, according to the latest Nielsen Online Retail Report. By the end of 2010, the number of New Zealanders aged 18+ making transactions online reached an all time high of nearly 1.5 million. This was an increase of over seven percent on 2009. According to the report, 46 percent of the adult population has made a purchase online, nearly double the number of six years ago.
Ah, the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The time when all New Zealanders unite to celebrate sponsorship. And rugby. With the likes of MasterCard, Landrover, Toshiba, Brancott Estate/Montana, Heineken and ANZ already joining the official sponsorship ranks, comes news BlackBerry developers Research in Motion (RIM) will be nuzzling in for some cozy sponsorship action, with BlackBerry becoming the “official handheld mobile device” for the tournament. ACP is also involved, winning the contract as the official publisher.
The Church has embarked on a pretty expansive journey over the past 10 years. Starting out as a small design agency, it’s since gone on to become a design, advertising and communications agency and on Monday, to coincide with the opening of its first office in Australia, and as a “coming of age” of sorts, the communications agency officially relaunched itself.
Things have been going pretty well for Yahoo!Xtra as of late. Just last month the joint venture between Yahoo!7 and Telecom New Zealand announced a net profit of $1.88m for 2010, an increase of 37 percent on the 2009 results. But Telecom has decided to part with its 49 percent share of Yahoo!Xtra, announcing it has sold it to Yahoo!7. That means Yahoo!7, a 50/50 joint venture between Australia’s Seven Media and US company Yahoo, will now own 100 percent of Yahoo!Xtra.
Hot on the heels of winning the Nestle Milky Bar Kid Search in New Zealand and Australia, The PR Shop has won the recent CDB Consumer Products pitch to work on the SodaStream brand.
…as the Marketing Association ramps up its, er, marketing with a new human in a newly created role; Martine Jager returns from Australia to join Westpac New Zealand’s marketing team; Radio New Zealand announces its new board; TrinityP3 downsizes and St John Craner moves to the country; Syro Communications announces a staffing coup; International Rescue adds a generous photographer to its ranks; and a Kiwi expat gets a plum Asia Pacific posting with Interpublic’s Mediabrands.
Everyone likes a success story and Massey University is hoping to capitalise on all sorts of successful Kiwi global ventures as part of its new promotional campaign that carries the slogan, ‘The engine of the new New Zealand.’
6,346 votes later, the results have been tallied and the awards dished out in the second round of Freeview awards, which honour almost anything and everything, from decoders and retailers, to satellite receivers and television shows.
This week’s roundup includes Countdown employing MasterChef 2010 winner Brett McGregor to offer tips on making the ultimate child’s cake; TV3 amps it up for this weekend’s ITM 400 Hamilton; another sporting push from Freeview for the Rugby World Cup; famed international landmarks get doodled on by hotels.com; Rexona employs a man impractically wearing sunglasses during the night to up the appeal of its deodorant; and Sara Lee goes retro with a sitcom cartoon featuring a 1950s baking housewife.
The Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand has released its Q1 revenue results, and the OOH sector has got out of the 2011 blocks pretty well, with gross media revenue for the industry increasing 7.1 percent ($970,000) on the same quarter last year for a total of $14.6 million.
Subway has just pimped out its Subcard App and turned it into the first mobile-only loyalty card in New Zealand. You can also load cash on your account and pay with your phone, be it an iPhone, Android or other. So to celebrate the release of this wonderous sandwich-buying technology we’re making all your bread-related dreams come true and giving away two $50 Subcard credits. Just devise an absurd sandwich and come up with an absurd name for it. The best combo wins.
Saatchi & Saatchi has been in a state of creative flux since executive creative director Dylan Harrison decided to head to Australia after less than a year in the role. While the search for a replacement was undertaken, Jeremy Taine was brought in as a part-timer to guide the agency’s creative output. But there’s no need for that anymore, because they’ve found their man: Venezuelan-born Antonio Navas, who comes to New Zealand from a role as executive creative director at Ogilvy and Mather New York.
Breaking down language barriers to engage all New Zealanders in a conversation with our deaf community is a challenge. But that’s exactly what Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand (DANZ) and Wellington design agency Creature hope to do with their new campaign for New Zealand Sign Language Week 2011 that proudly states ‘I am Deaf, Let’s Talk.
The marcomms community has already offered plenty of assistance to those affected by the earthquake in Christchurch, and NZ Marketing’s social media columnist Simon Young is hoping there might be some more corporate generosity left over to help out with Servolution, a project involving a whole bunch of churches and community groups doing a range of good deeds such as painting out graffiti, picking up rubbish, checking for smoke alarms, providing school makeovers and cleaning parks and reserves from 14-20 April.
Having ticked the call for entries box by means of a multi-lingual presidential address, English-based D&AD has taken another unique measure to draw attention to its awards, this time by updating its website over the course of judging week (which began yesterday) with how it’s all going.
In March we shared the awards haul goodness from the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival, aka Adfest, held in Thailand. But despite how much we know you all love to read, nothing quite beats seeing the winning efforts for yourself, and now that the Adfest winners showcase has been made available online, that’s exactly what you can do. And if you’re into all of the nitty and gritty behind the winning efforts, there’s a stack load of info under each video. So go on, click and watch to your heart’s content.
…as Aegis opens a new activation division and Apollo Marketing’s Will Riley gets the plum posting; Graeme Underwood moves across the hall and Rachel Lorimer takes over publicity duties at MediaWorks; Simon Kozak is appointed high priest of The Church; Greg Shand sells his share of Baldwin Boyle Group after 25 years with the company; Datamine finds a managing director in its existing ranks; and Ian Hughes announces some changes at Bigmouth voice agency.
You may still have to pay for the sandwich, but Subway’s latest Subcard App, which it says is the first national loyalty card available on mobile in New Zealand, means you can now do it without opening your wallet.
Between 2009 and 2010, retail sales of Fairtrade certified products in Australia and New Zealand increased by almost 200 percent to over $200 million and, with Cadbury and Whittakers deciding to listen to their consciences, Fairtrade Certified chocolate sales grew by more than 1500 percent. It’s already a powerful ethical consumer movement but a global campaign that’s being called the first ever ‘filmic petition’ aims to raise that even profile even further and bring more value to the farmers.
More than 240 agency staff and marketers came together to hear the ‘New Rules of Brand Engagement’ from an impressive list of speakers in Auckland on Tuesday. And with marketers increasingly trying to create memorable experiences for consumers and get the humans talking about their brands, PR and experiential are increasingly being employed to achieve those goals, as the results of the CAANZ Marcomms Leadership Group survey shows.
The MYOB Business Monitor Internet survey of more than 1000 local businesses of various sizes across New Zealand examines the wide-ranging ways businesses now use the internet. And, according to latest results, the biggest e-transformation the digital world has led to is in where Kiwi businesses now choose to advertise.
… as Air New Zealand brings one of our boys back into the fold; Acumen Republic appoints a new head honcho; TVNZ says goodbye to Good Morning—and up to 12 fulltime staff; Thick as Thieves enlists a new award-winning director; Air Asia hits the runway running and announces a national marketing manager; another All Black endorses something; AJ Park gets a taste for internal promotions; and two films made by the Media Design School strike Hawaii gold.