Paywalls are the future for professional journalism says former CEO of News UK, Mike Darcey.

Yesterday David Bowie accomplished the impossible, and proved through death that he is immortal. The world has refused to let him die and his many faces have been scattered across the web, while his name and memory are on everyone’s lips. And while he has been well covered in the media already, we just couldn’t help but write a little something on him. So here’s a few examples of Bowie’s foray into the world of advertising and business, as well his strangely accurate predictions around the future state of music.

An Australia Day campaign has gone viral for all the wrong reasons, and it’s dividing the nation along the carnivorous line.

ASB is taking advantage of the holiday period—and new interactive camera technology—with its upgraded sponsorship of the ASB Classic tennis tournaments.

There are so many little things we take for granted every day that make our lives so much easier. From the humble wheel to the flush of a toilet. Exxon Mobile points out a few of them in this clever cluster of ads which encourage youngsters to become engineers by showing the ways they have improved our lives.

Kapiti, String Theory and the Health Promotion Agency take the cake this week.

Spark is continuing to utilise its younger, cooler post-rebrand persona by venturing into target market territory. Its most recent effort is its summer Instagram campaign, developed with its PR agency Sherson Willis, which rewards the most creative fans with credit (or as Spark calls it, ‘social currency’) if they capture and share Instagram shots (based on trending images on the platform) with the correct hashtag. And halfway through the campaign, the telco has already given away thousands of dollars of credit, increased sign ups and seen a growth in its Instagram following.

In 2014, the Ford Ranger outsold the Toyota Hilux, ending the Japanese car brand’s 32-year run as the top-selling ute in New Zealand. And Ford has now gone on to show this wasn’t just a fluke by retaining its position at the top of the ute pile in 2015 and also outselling the Corolla.

This week, people across the country will be trading beach sands for office chairs as they return to the daily slog at work. And while we all chew on air-conditioned air together, StopPress would like to welcome all our contributors, industry experts and snitches back to the real world. Here’s to doing it all over again for another year.

With users logging into their social accounts on mobile multiple times a day and scanning the newsfeed for anything that might interest them, the smartphone has become a key battleground for the publishers vying for consumer eyeballs. And with NZME data showing that 50-58 percent of all the traffic to the Herald’s mobile site came from social media channels over the last few months, we look at how news publishers are becoming increasingly dependent on social media channels.

Last year, the comedic septuple of funnymen that make up the Alternative Commentary Collective were almost stopped in their tracks by a drinks trolley fiasco that saw their media accreditation pulled. But this didn’t stop the group from adding a bit of colour to the dire commentary that usually accompanies cricket matches. To the delight of fans who aligned with supported causes like #JeSuisACC and #SavetheACC, the collective continued to share their banter, risque remarks and heavy drinking from outside the stadium and later also went cross-discipline and started reporting on rugby. However, after the end of the Rugby World Cup, the ACC disbanded and the various members have since occupied themselves with an assortment of solo careers. Fortunately, NZME’s general manager of experiential Mike Lane has been working hard to convince the band to get back together.

Showerheads, chopsticks, condoms and a vast array of other Star Wars-related products have hit the shelves recently in an effort to tap into the hype around the new film. And while many of them border on the ridiculous, data from cloud-based point-of-sale company Vend has found that New Zealand retailers who are selling Star Wars-related products and memorabilia have seen a 430 percent increase in December sales so far, compared to 2014.

It’s hard to believe Air New Zealand has had the time to actually fly people around the country/world this year given all the major marketing campaigns it’s launched. And while it’s already had a crack at Christmas, once is never enough. So, in a continuation of its Meanwhile in New Zealand series, it’s got a bunch of Air New Zealanders to help ensure a six-year-old boy called Archie gets a visit from Santa after his family moved from Broome in Western Australia to Queensbury, which is about an hour outside of Wanaka.

In some ways, smartphones are a strange product. We all use them differently, and have different expectations as to their performance, yet most of us buy one of just a handful of models that all do pretty much exactly the same thing. But what if you want something different? What if you want something distinctly you? Well, here are some phones for particular people that fulfill a particular need.

From taking bathroom breaks to hitting the skip button as aggressively as possible, Kiwis will in most instances do all they can to avoid ads—something that’s evident in the rapid growth of ad-blocking software. However, every year, there are a handful of ads produced that Kiwis actively search for and share with their friends. And this year was no different, with YouTube’s leaderboard of ads showing that Kiwis are happy to sit through an ad if the idea is strong enough.

Customisable shoes have been around for a while now and they don’t come cheap. But a US company called ShiftWear has taken it to the next level by creating kicks that can be instantly updated in their design, with an e-ink display that can show detailed artwork or animations of the wearer’s choice beamed straight from the wearer’s smartphone.

Talk of the cashless society has abounded at least since the beginning of this century, but a surge in contactless payments suggests cash may not be king for much longer. And cards could be on the way out too, because, following on from the launch of Semble earlier this year, ANZ has announced the release of its goMoney wallet, which lets customers to pay with their smartphones.

A clever direct marketing campaign from The Fred Hollows society shows Kiwis exactly how lucky they are to have the gift of sight.

As advertisers spread news about all those fantastic sales out there, the criminals in our midst create personal wishlists of all the items they aim to get at 100 percent discounts. So to help retailers keep an eye on the most regularly targeted goods, software company Auror recently compiled a list of the items stolen most often around Christmas. And as it turns out, meat is the most common target.

In its latest spot via Wieden + Kennedy, Nike shows that those future stars are already on the road to sporting greatness. And while they might not yet be attracting any press attention, chances are that they’re probably clad in the latest gear from the sports retailer.

On Monday morning, widespread speculation that WPP would up its stake in STW was confirmed by news that it had increased its shareholding from 23.6 percent to a controlling 61 percent. This merger sees the 70 STW-owned and part-owned companies, including Ogilvy & Mather, Ikon, JWT, Designworks, Assignment Group, pulled further into the WPP family of businesses, creating the largest marketing group across Australia and New Zealand. So what does this mean for the local market?

Air New Zealand, Lotto, TVNZ and Spark fill up their sacks this week.

Research from Roy Morgan reveals that Netflix was reaching 398,000 New Zealanders only three months after its original launch.

Amazon was once a company that just sold books online but now with Amazon Prime you can buy just about everything, including tiny horses.

Top taco tips: don’t overload with salsa and never ask for a knife and fork says the Lucky Taco.