The latest agency news, campaigns and client wins (and losses) making headlines across Aotearoa.
Katie Mills, the former head of brand and marketing at MediaWorks, has followed some of her previous crew to private tertiary education conglomerate Aspire2.
Wellington agency EightyOne rounded off 2016 with two account wins; LifeDirect by Trade Me and David Reid Homes.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things, inspiring things and other things from inside the intertubes.
After spending the early part of the summer weathering an onslaught of anger from the Lewis Road Creamery army (along with the wider dairy industry getting a smackdown after unsuccessfully complaining about a provocative Greenpeace campaign), Fonterra is trying its best to get past the white noise and get back to the facts. Not ‘alternative facts’, to borrow a Kellyanne Conway-ism, but the cold, hard, scientific ones.
To promote the new film Rings, set to hit the big screen in February, a US TV store pranked its customers by bringing one of the characters to life.
While many around the world watched in fear as Donald Trump was sworn in as president, The Netherlands—well it’s satirical news show Zondag met Lubach—decided it was best for both countries to get along, so it made an introductory video that speaks to Trump in his own language.
Paper Plus has launched a sarcastic new ad campaign, via FCB, that’s a dramatic shift from its previous marketing. With no blobby green alien mascot in sight, the stationery retailer is engaging with the millennial market by taking a shot at their addiction to social media sharing.
Warehouse Stationery has placed 99 in charge of its CRM and business-to-business loyalty programme, BizRewards, and has also appointed 99PHD (an integrated service between 99 and PHD) as its agency in charge of digital media and search. PLUS: find out who the incumbents were.
What at first starts as a standard celebrity endorsement video for a new product quickly descends into one man’s—completely unhinged—obsession with running in Nike’s new video series, featuring comedian Kevin Hart (and his glorious beard). The series is introduced via a short clip, showing Hart excitedly unboxing the new product. From there, the madness ensues, with Hart putting on his best impersonation of Forrest Gump crossed with the protagonist from Into the Wild.
Raise a glass to Subaru, Auckland Transport, Toyota, Holden and Tower.
Anyone who has crawled along one of Auckland’s motorways in bumper-to-bumper traffic will know the confused—albeit elated—feeling that comes when the traffic just starts moving again. As you accelerate out of the jam, a few questions are invariably left unanswered: What was the hold-up? Where was the accident? And why did the traffic just start moving again? Well, Work Communications creative Marco Ermerins took it upon himself to find a few answers to these pressing questions.
Breaking two decades of advertising silence, Jif has released a humorous new campaign urging Aussies (and Kiwis) to end the grease and grime of BBQ neglect.
After joining Airpoints last year, Tower has come out with a new ad, via Barnes, Catmur & Friends Dentsu, urging customers to insure their things—then leave it all behind.
YouTube reveals the five most popular ads of 2016.
Our relationship with money is typically something of an afterthought, generally restricted to advice columns and finance pages. However, Kiwibank is taking it mainstream in a new series called Mind Over Money with Nigel Latta, a fully funded series centred on the psychology of money. We talk to general manager of marketing Regan Savage and TVNZ general manager of content solutions Lyndsey Francis about the series and Kiwibank’s decision to take a leap.
Breaking into a well-established market is no easy task. But by coupling a strong product with the some-might-say mad decision to front his own advertising, Doug Hastie has made Chanui one of the more recognisable brands on the supermarket shelves. And for him, this is only the start of much bigger things.
Subaru might hail from Japan, but the car brand has done a pretty solid job of integrating itself into the local landscape over the last few decades. Whether it’s on the rally track, in suburban Auckland or on some desolate beach up north, you don’t need to look far to see the blue and silver insignia pasted onto a vehicle. It’s this connection to the local market that Barnes, Catmur & Friends was looking to tap into in a new 60-second spot for the brand.
Take a first look at Toyota’s new Hilux ad by Saatchi & Saatchi.
With the finalists announced today, this year’s edition of the Direct Marketing Awards will again see the nation’s agencies slog it out on awards night for metal.
Dentsu Aegis Network’s global media investment arm, Amplifi, has expanded into the local market with Richard Pook taking the reins.
Xero’s global director of media Patrick MacFie doesn’t hide under a PR blanket, openly admitting that Xero has made some content screw-ups along the way. But none of these have yet dissuaded the company from taking the DIY approach to producing its creative campaign. So what makes this added—some might say unnecessary—risk worth it?
Sick of Trump but love kittens? A new Chrome extension allows users to ‘Make America Kittens Again’ by replacing images of Trump with some furry alternatives.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Last year, StopPress collated some of the standout moments of 2016 in the annual ‘Year in the Rear’. Voting kicked off with our final newsletter and you went hard to make sure your opinions were heard. We returned from sun-soaking and surfing to find over 2,500 completed surveys, which were then meticulously analysed by our team of voter fraud analysts to ensure there was no rigging. While some categories saw a standout winner others were tight, and with that, Spark deserves a special shout-out for being pipped at the post in all three of its nominated categories.
In its latest ad by Special Group, Holden is getting the word out about its one percent finance deal with just a flick of a finger.
Building supply specialist ITM has launched its new app by challenging builders to catch the biggest virtual fish in a VR ‘ITM Go Fish’ competition via JustOne.
Cancer Research UK is hoping to raise awareness for bowel cancer, by filming ‘Live from Inside the Body’ to show audiences across the country what a colonoscopy looks like.
We all (hopefully) know the drill to ‘drop, cover, hold’ in the event of an earthquake, but what about in the risk of a deadly tsunami? Civil Defence director Sarah Stuart-Black discusses the story behind their latest pithy catchphrase ‘Long or Strong, Get Gone’, and why post-Kaikoura earthquake was the best time to launch it.
Nielsen has kicked off the year by announcing its Digital Ad Ratings service is now commercially available in New Zealand, following a local trial last year and its international release in 2011. We spoke to Nielsen New Zealand director Tony Boyte about how it’s set to change the digital game by enabling advertisers to compare digital audiences to those of TV.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen Whittaker’s partner with a number of brands, including L&P, Lewis Road Creamery and Jelly Tip, to produce a range of interesting hybrids. And now the Porirua-based chocolate company is continuing its collaborative trend by teaming up with Meridian Energy for a new campaign, focused on renewable energy.
Warehouse Stationery have uploaded a video of paint drying (literally). The question remains, why?
Brand Spanking found itself facing questions from the Otago Daily Times, after it launched a search for staff to promote a mysterious tobacco product.
Aucklanders may have seen billboards pop up encouraging women to get into construction trade, but they aren’t just an ads for jobs. As founder and CEO, Christina Rogstad discusses, they’re part of a wider effort to change perceptions about construction trades and show women that it doesn’t have to be a male-dominated industry.
RNZ’s latest piece of digital innovation is putting listeners’ voices to air through a self-recording app called VoxPop.
NZTA, The Warehouse and Warehouse Stationery enjoy a bright start to 2017.
No doubt to the joy and relief of some parents, the start of the new school year is just on the horizon. So as kids and students start compiling their ‘back to school kits’, some brands are making the most of the country’s stationery and lunchbox fervour.