Following a pitch process involving four agencies, New Zealand Police has appointed Ogilvy & Mather as its lead agency to drive its recruitment campaigns.

Speaker geeks are perpetually dissatisfied, constantly tinkering with their audio systems to get that perfect sound. And now, Sonos has thrown them a bone by releasing an automatic speaker tuning app that takes some of the grunt work out of the process.

Depending on your viewpoint, Facebook is set to get either creepier or more effective because the social media giant has announced the introduction of photo recognition to its popular Messenger app.

Several weeks ago, Lightbox released a research claiming that one in five people were likely to drop their Sky subscription following the Rugby World Cup. From the outset, it was clear that Lightbox was having a go at Sky and looking to win subscribers from the paid TV broadcaster. And although Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock said the emphasis on Sky was simply a by-product of the research, there’s little or no ambiguity in terms of which who Lightbox is referring to in its latest TVC. PLUS: Niblock calls for the industry work on portraying ‘binge-watching’ in a more positive light.

Burgers are so hot right now and weirder and more wonderful offerings at popular events like Wellington on a Plate’s ‘Burger Wellington’ competition have shown the levels of experimentation burger eaters are willing to indulge. These gentrified consumer tastes have given rise to the ‘better burger’ movement, a niche occupied by chains like Burger Fuel and Burger Wisconsin and popular restaurants like Auckland’s Burger Burger. Even that bastion of standardised beef and cheese, McDonald’s, has announced moves to posh up their burgers by allowing customers to create their own. But ‘bourgeois burgery’ has now moved to the humble Kiwi BBQ, if the entries to Tip Top’s ‘Build a Better Burger Challenge’ are anything to go by.

Those working in marketing, advertising and media are generally suckers for a new trend and live in constant fear that are somehow behind the times. Like magpies, they swoop around, find shiny things to take back to their nests and regularly attack cyclists. Many are betting big on virtual reality being the next big platform and a range of brands—from Samsung’s live-streamed birth to Jaguar NZ’s recent ‘actual reality’ stunt—have jumped on that bandwagon recently. The New York Times has also embraced it (with the help of Google Cardboard) and sees it a nascent form of storytelling, but The New Yorker is slightly less convinced the technology will be able to improve the reading experience, as the very funny video about its ‘mind-blowing virtual reality experience’ shows.

Data is, as they say, big. It’s everywhere. We’re all creating it all the time. And within all the data are stories. Millions and millions of stories. And to help us make sense of those stories, a new breed of data visualisation from the likes of Pitch Interactive’s Wes Grubbs has arisen to deepen and broaden our understanding of the world around us. PLUS: some of our favourite data visualisations.

Last night, the Fair Go team headed to the Cityworks depot in Auckland to host the 2015 edition of the Fair Go Ad Awards in the space occupied by the Food Truck. And at this year’s edition Hyundai ‘get lost’ spot earned the wooden spoon, while Lotto Powerball’s ‘Imagine’ spot earned the most votes.

Globally, eSports is surprisingly big (at least to non-gamers). And, with news that a local tournament is set to come to a Sky TV pop-up channel, it’s starting to gain traction in New Zealand. At this stage, MyRepublic has put its name on the hoardings, but sponsors are few and far between for the local event and it’s not clear if Sky will sell advertising around it. But due to the growing popularity of eSports among the hard to reach younger (and predominantly male) demographics, it is starting to attract interest from major brands, including Snickers, which recently punked thousands of people on the gaming platform Twitch.tv.

It’s not Christmas without carols, trees and ads. And while New Zealand retail brands aren’t going as large as those in the UK, whose Christmas campaigns tend to be looked forward to and often clock up views in the millions, there are signs that things might be heading in a more emotional direction here too.

We’ve created an extremely prestigious, potentially quite scandalous list*. Don’t tell us you’re not on it.

While the profligate days of very long lunches and company credit card-funded excess are seemingly—and for some, unfortunately—well behind us, there’s no doubt that many of those in the persuasive arts still engage a fair bit of corporate hospitality. Colenso BBDO’s ex-chief executive Nick Garrett, who recently took on a job at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne after five and a bit years in the role, was certainly in that category. So what better way to honour his legacy than with a visual reminder of one of his favourite haunts, SPQR in Ponsonby.

Wellington-based online video storage company Wipster has announced the end of limits to storage capacity at a price of $15 per month, so StopPress asked a few Wellington-based videographers what they thought of the move.

Rebel Sport has kicked off its summer promotional push, with a brand campaign by Ogilvy & Mather that calls on Kiwis to take advantage of the warmer weather by getting outside and breaking a sweat. PLUS: Red Bull tries to get its brand messaging into consumers ears through Pandora.

New Zealand menswear retailer I Love Ugly has juxtaposed kids with the older generation in a striking new campaign showing that the appeal of its range extends across age groups.

MediaWorks’ decision this week to review 3D was, much like in the case of Campbell Live, met with a unanimous groan across the industry, as another sign that journalism isn’t commercially viable. But this isn’t entirely true. Current affairs reporting has a future, but the way it’s presented might need to change.

Garage Project, a Wellington-based craft brewery, has taken the number one ranking on this year’s Deloitte Fast 50 with a three year growth rate of 664%.

Canadian agency John St has developed a reputation for skewering the latest marketing trends with its parody videos. So far it’s taken aim at click farming, real-time marketing, fear-inducing experiential and the internet’s undying love of cats. And now it’s released another gem showing how it can co-opt the idea of female empowerment that brands like Dove and Always have tapped into and prey on female insecurities to help sell more stuff.

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

Trampers can now traverse New Zealand from the comfort of their living rooms, beds or wherever they plug in their computers after the country’s Great Walks were added to Google’s Street View.

While we generally prefer to write about good advertising campaigns here at StopPress, we’re happy to give the bad ones a prod from time to time, whether it’s for blatant rugby bandwagon jumping or cringey beach cricket. So here are a few that have got our goats recently.

Spanning two wars and a bit of rugby in between, Dave Gallagher’s story, which is presented on a Steinlager ad alongside vintage photos and props, makes for compelling reading—and it comes as little surprise that the judging panel for the Newspaper Ad of the Month singled it out as the standout creative in September.

At the recent CAANZ session ‘Who’s buying? The future of content commercialisation in NZ’, several industry commentators weighed in on whether content marketing is nothing more than an annoyance. Here’s a rundown of what Metro’s Simon Wilson, The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive, MediaWorks’ Alana O’Neill, Fairfax’s Ellen Read and former Herald editor-in-chief Tim Murphy had to say.