While there’s plenty of growth in the local cider market, it’s still suffering from a bit of an image problem, particularly among Kiwi men who prefer beverages on the drier side of the scale.

If you know Nick Offerman and his character, Ron Swanson from TV show Parks and Recreation you will know how much the curmudgeonly Offerman loves whisky and silence. If you need further proof, the bearded actor and fine wood worker has just filmed a 45-minute spot for Lagavulin whisky where he sits in a fine leather chair next to a crackling fire, calmly staring into the camera, imbibing his beverage of choice and moving very occasionally. Watch it and drink it all in.

The development of new technology invariably leads to the emergence of new words to describe exactly what this tech can do. And with the emergence of programmatic ad-buying and a range of other digital tools, marketing has become flooded with acronyms, intialisms and buzzwords that wouldn’t make sense to anyone outside the industry. Attend an agency lunch or dinner these days, and you’re more than likely to hear a few of these phrases thrown around by individuals who are either in the know or doing their best to feign it. Jargon overload can be frustrating, but we’re actually pretty lucky. At least we aren’t in the business of selling Turbo Encabulators.

As well as the traditional ads everyone has come to know and love, the rise of ad creep means we might also see ads on receipts, on jerseys, on foreheads, on the upper thigh region and pretty much anywhere else humans may look. But is it going too far when advertisers follows us into the bathroom? Captive Media doesn’t think so.

NZME is continuing to pull all its strings together with this week’s announcement that it was launching CreateMe, a new division comprising the media company’s core commercial content creators and strategists. And it seems in many ways quite akin to a creative agency. We chat to CreateMe general manager Fiona McLeod about the role she sees the new department playing in the industry.

Historically, Mike Pero Real Estate’s ads have featured the founder talking up its lower commissions or profiled some of its salespeople and properties. And that strategy—and the booming property market—has helped it take off, to the point where it appeared on the 2014 Deloitte Fast50 list with revenue growth of 328 percent. Now it’s trying to get more salespeople to join the family, but it’s gone with something a bit more ‘creative’ this time.

Mimi Gilmour’s restaurant chains Burger Burger and the newly opened Fish Fish have adopted the no-reservations policy increasingly used overseas. But as queues form, she is planning technology to take the agro out of waiting for a table.

SBS bank has introduced Kiwi audiences to a Kiwi couple, Eric and Sandra, who are randomly interrupted by luminescent text featuring messages from the bank.

V Energy’s latest campaign sees the company moving beyond guarana-infused beverages into streetwear, with the launch of a new range one-of-kind T-shirts designed by street artist Mr G Hoete.

Air New Zealand is once again poking fun at rival airlines with a facebook post jibing airline Jetstar for its claims to be “New Zealand’s most punctual airline”.

Auckland’s Karangahape Road, known to locals simply as K road and formerly the hub of the city of sails’ seedy underbelly, has long been a subject of curiosity and ten short films soon to be released will tell stories inspired by one of New Zealand’s most famous locations.

It’s no secret that the Internet and its capabilities to give anyone an audience alongside budget cuts and redundancies have shaken up the industry. So much of a shake in fact that the number of print journalists in New Zealand declined 61 per cent between 2006 and 2013 according to census data. But also worthy of a mention is the rise of PR. A 56 per cent increase between 2006 and 2013 resulted in public relations professionals outnumbering print, television and radio journalists three to one in 2013. So what this mean for the fourth estate?

It’s been a rocky year for German carmaker Volkswagen, with data from CNN money showing that global car sales fell 5.3 percent in October after news of the emissions scandal broke. But have these shockwaves stretched across the world to also affect sales in the local market?

Banks aren’t generally renowned for the clarity of their language. Some cynics might even argue that they’re intentionally confusing. So it’s commendable that ANZ, which relied on pretty simple messaging and big media spend to let New Zealand know about the ‘merger’ with National Bank, won a few more Plain Language Awards recently. But, in what could be seen as a new strand of Muphry’s Law, where you inevitably make a mistake when criticising someone’s writing, it’s certainly not commendable to promote a post on Facebook with so many basic errors in it. Or is it a bad joke about reading like a ten-year-old that just made them look a bit thick?

Web Series Channel founder unfazed by arrival of watchme, sees big difference between the two platforms.

It’s a Christmas miracle. An Auckland man came back from the dead this week after Housing New Zealand reported him dead.

Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.

Dropit hopes punters and retailers will say yes to ‘no reserve’ and sign up to take part in reverse auctions. Last week, Dropit soft-launched its auction website where items have no reserve price. However, this is a good thing for the punter because the longer the auction lasts, the cheaper the item becomes. We chat to the company’s chief executive and marketing manager Peter Howell about how this all works.

During the press conference announcing the deal and their new Auckland to Los Angeles route, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce and American Airlines chief executive Doug Parker were both very complimentary of Air New Zealand, heaping praise on the quality of the service offered. And the team at Air New Zealand was clearly watching these proceedings with interest, because not long thereafter the airline released an auto-tune mashup, via creative agency True, in which the pair of executives are shown seemingly pointing out the quality of the Kiwi airline’s service.

It’s not easy to get past all the tech gobbledygook and make customers understand the benefits of the cloud. But Microsoft has done it by asking a simple question: what would your office do with the extra space if you could get rid of your server room?

To celebrate the impending release of the latest movie in the franchise, the Google has launched a pair of quirky digital activations that will almost certainly appeal to fans across the world.

A new public health campaign is asking young people to creatively and anonymously condemn those who smoke by sending images through Snapchat.

Walk around the streets of many of New Zealand’s urban centres and you’re more than likely to see people on the streets, in stores and sometimes even on sports fields clad entirely in the latest activewear from the likes of Puma, Adidas or Nike. Viewed from a distance, it would be easy to mistake these individuals as veritable fitness freaks, doing the hard yards to get abs on abs. However, upon closer inspection, it quickly becomes apparent that activewear serves broader purposes than just exercising. In fact, as illustrated in a recent satirical video by content creators the Van Vuuren Bros, activewear is often used for purposes quite contrary to getting fitter.

Last week, Stolen Spirits raised a toast after selling a controlling interest in the company to US-based venture capital funds Liquid Asset Brands and Spirits Investment Partners for NZ$21 million. Before this premium vodka 42Below became a global brand when it was sold to Bacardi. And a number of other Kiwi craft spirits appear to be following close behind.