I remember when Michael Wolff was very bullish about the internet in the 1990s, so when he starts sounding warning bells, we had better take heed. And the way he paints Facebook—and a belief that its advertising model will eventually collapse for being so limited—is not unfamiliar to anyone who ever wondered, during the dot-com boom, just why those companies were worth that much.

My four-year old had a birthday party a while back. Nothing fancy, just a few mates, an obstacle course, a cake, a piñata, goody bags – the usual stuff. But the build up to that birthday was something else. He was so excited that anyone and everyone got an invitation. And it got me thinking: what’s the difference between a four-year old birthday party and a customer loyalty programme? If the boy is the brand, the product is fun and the party gives you double points on Tuesdays; here’s why I think there’s stuff we can learn from four year olds.

When iconic ad man Martin Lindstrom starts preaching ethics and green sensibility, you know the writing is on the wall for business as usual in the marketing world. But it’s not really Lindstrom calling the tune here. He’s just the weatherman pointing out the massively changed consumer climate. In New Zealand, 88 percent of us want to buy more sustainable products and services according to Colmar Brunton’s B3W research 2010 & 2011, with spends increasing even in tough times.

Back in September 2009, we sent StopPress into the wild. Almost three years later and, with steadily rising audience numbers and what we think is a fairly well-established position as an important source of news, views and hullaballoos for the marketing, advertising and media community, we’re pretty proud of our e-baby. But, as everyone in this industry knows, laurel-sitting is not recommended, so, with the help of our digital agency and ‘creative co-conspirators’ &some, we’ve spent the past few months redesigning the site. Rest assured, we’ve kept all the good bits, but we’ve given it a good spruce up, shifted from WordPress to Django, installed a better comments engine, added the ability for users to submit jobs (an events uploader will be coming in the near future), made the design more responsive so it will work on iPads, tablets, smartphones and big browsers, and basically tried to ensure we took care of what &some’s head nerd Matt Cooney calls ‘the whole platform-for-the-future thing’.

Given the attitude of ‘the normals’ towards marketing and advertising, it’s fair to say the industry has a few perception issues. Before I started this job, I envisaged being in the eye of the wankery storm in Auckland, surrounded by people who wore shiny shirts, drove ridiculous cars and used business jargon with absolutely no sense of irony. That’s occasionally true, of course, and my Invercargill-based parents are obviously deeply ashamed at what I’ve become, but, in my relatively short time spent writing about the industry, I’ve found it to be, by and large, full of exceptionally smart, talented, creative, hard-working, hard-playing, competitive and often very opinionated businesspeople. For some, the fact that it attracts extroverts is part of the industry’s appeal. For others, however, some these extroverts—and their often anonymous views posted on websites like this—give the industry an air of unprofessionalism. So, as we get set to relaunch StopPress, we thought it was a good time to delve into the thorny issue of online opinions.

This weekend my mailbox was inundated with catalogues from big retailers telling me about their current toy sale. Apparently ‘tis the season. As I flicked through one of the catalogues I began to notice just how gender-specific it was. In the “play and pretend” section (it is a sea of pink) there are little girls playing with Barbie glam pools and day spas, or wheeling around a shopping trolley (with food no less). Or, they can take their pick from one of the kitchen, supermarket, pots and pans or laundry playsets. Flick a few more pages, and you’ll find the pink ‘craft and creativity’ section, or the blue ‘action and adventure’ section. You get the picture.

“But I had that idea.” Spend any time in an agency creative department and you’ll hear that a lot. It’s usually true. In fact, if I think back a decade to adschool (and communications theory before that) there’s a well-founded, pointy-headed theory that there are only seven creative territories. And, just like the seven musical notes, true creativity is about the song you choose to write. So what better place to explore that theory than through the winners of this year’s Film Lions? I spotted six of the seven core thoughts—same old ideas, incredible craft. Or, to mis-quote Edison, one percent inspiration, 99 percent execution.

We were interested to read about Ian Smith’s apparently coincidental attack of the Pures during his commentary of the first All Blacks vs Ireland test, a three match series being sponsored by Steinlager, which is soon to launch its 2012 campaign featuring a new ambassador ($10 says it’s Ian Smith). Lion and Sky denied there was any attempt at nefarious aural product placement. But even if there was, it’s highly unlikely it would do anything: remember the old wives’ tale about subliminal messages being played in movie theatres that supposedly made people buy more Coke and popcorn?

Once you get past the Dr Seuss headline, there’s a serious question here. It’s also a hot topic right now. When big business is scouring every budget line to trim a little fat, many of them ask, “Can I save money with an in-house studio?” I reckon the answer is “maybe.” Having worked in big agencies, smaller ones, digital shops and in-house, here’s why I think the answer is “horses for courses.”

The old adage says reputations take a lifetime to build and only 15 minutes to destroy. And with the emergence of social media and online reviews, never has this saying rung truer for our travel and hospitality industries. 

With the recent opening of New World and Countdown Metro in Auckland’s CBD, it seems New Zealand supermarkets are following in the footsteps of their overseas counterparts. While I can’t hide my excitement in having convenience re-enter my life, I do wonder if this may be the start of a slippery slope. Once the supermarket giant shows its face, it’s only a matter of time before the own brand phenomenon takes hold, a development that could mean the bounty of boutique food producers that currently grace our shelves may be squeezed out.

Colmar Brunton has just released some survey results that show 60 percent of New Zealanders follow a brand on social media and more than two thirds think a social media presence adds to the brand’s appeal. But what those consumers say when they’re talking to those brands is another, very different question. So we thought we’d republish a column by The Research Agency’s Andrew Lewis that ran in the last issue of NZ Marketing and detailed the interesting results of a survey on how people interact with brands on social media.