A new app from UK luxury car brand Bentley lets drivers design their own vehicle according to their emotions. Well, kinda.

Newspapers love big events, as brands hoping to show their tactical advertising flair tend to gravitate towards them. That was certainly the case after the 2011 Rugby World Cup win, as it was on Monday when the team backed that performance up by beating the Aussies. But we found a few more full-pagers in a special World Cup lift-out in the Herald this week, as well as some other rugby-related efforts.

Facebook announced a stonking third quarter result today, beating analysts’ expectations with US$4.5 billion in revenue and a 14 percent increase in the number of monthly active users. But, much more importantly for the world’s largest social network, Richie McCaw has finally signed up and got the blue tick after a bit of pressure from the socially savvy Dan ‘Mince on Toast’ Carter. And, just a couple of days in, he’s already close to the 300,000 fan mark. If he keeps that up, he’ll soon be getting thousands to post ‘authentic’ pictures of him in his Versatile house, wearing his Beats headphones and using his favourite teeth whitening brand.

The mode of delivery for audio has changed markedly in the past few decades, to the point where young folk tend to see a cassette tape as the modern-day equivalent of a gramophone. And a PwC report into the contribution of the music industry to the New Zealand economy shows that while the total retail sales are down significantly on 2012 as a result of shifting listening habits and illegal downloading, the significant growth in online streaming is making up some of the lost ground.

In response to continued problem of victim blaming in cases of rape cases, the Crown Prosecution Service in the United Kingdom has released an online clip that uses a simile that will resonate with every Briton – a cup of tea.

A few months back Vodafone launched a campaign aimed at teaching parents how to keep their kids safe online. But sometimes you need more than a parent’s guidance. You need technology. And Torch, a special router for parents that claims to stop kids from accessing dodgy content and imposes limits on the amount of time they spend online, created an ad that shows how innocent search terms are not always so innocent.

Something that stood out during our research for the influencer feature in the latest edition of NZ Marketing was the willingness of brands to relinquish creative control to the content creators they work with. So we followed suit by handing the cover creation duties over to a few brands we interviewed for the issue.

Given this eternal struggle of finding a shirt that exposes just enough chest hair, men’s shirt brand Johnnie-O has released a hilarious spot that provides a guide of what’s just the right amount to show.

Here at StopPress headquarters in Auckland, we unfortunately don’t have the promise of snow days during winter to get us excited for a few unexpected moments away from office. However, various states across the US get covered in a white blanket so thick during the colder months that it renders it virtually impossible for citizens to get to work or school. And rather than mourning the confinement that often coincides with snow days, Nike has decided to celebrate the freedom these moments offer in a new spot by Wieden + Kennedy.

With hefty student loans and a growing consensus among international businesses that undergraduate degrees aren’t necessary for entry-level jobs, some are beginning to question whether dedicating three years to a single certificate is really worthwhile. Fortunately, Boundary Road’s Brewniversity offers an alternative. And the best part is that it only takes five minutes to complete the exam.

Contact Energy, Parkinson’s New Zealand and Craigs Investment win this week’s round.

The accuracy of online targeting tools when viewed alongside the ageing Kiwi population raises a few questions regarding the continued relevance of TV’s 25-54 trading demographic model. StopPress investigates whether this model has become little more than a blunt instrument in the age of big data insights.

There was plenty of marketing activity during the Rugby World Cup and that has continued after the All Blacks lifted the trophy, with brands celebrating the win on social media and in print.

When he’s not lending his voice to Pak ‘n Save’s Stickman, Paul Ego is mocking Jeremy Corbett on 7 Days or performing on the stand-up circuit across the country. And when not entertaining the masses with his brand of dry and often self-deprecating humour, Ego likes to engage in some very risqué use of the fax machine.

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

Mr Whippy is often licked, he can never be beaten (at least when it comes to puns). But we have a late contender for the final instalment of The Big Game, a prestigious award dished out by StopPress to the best example of desperate euphemism usage from non-sponsors hoping to ride the rugby attention train. We’ve already seen Moa sneak into the stands of the Rugby World Cup with its fairly blatant ‘Four More Years’ brew. And while actual sponsors ASB and even Steinlager are promoting the consumption of hot beverages while watching the game, Hallertau Brewery has crafted a specially made breakfast beer ahead of Sunday’s final. Let’s hope David Seymour gets his hands on one.

After six years as the executive director at Ogilvy & Mather NZ, Paul Manning has resigned from his post to take up the managing director role at .99.

Everyone loves a good .gif. There are even awards to celebrate the art form. And now gif hunting site Giphy has created a fairly mad ad that riffs on classic cooking programmes to show people how to make one.

While the knee-jerk reaction to a pre-roll is generally an attempt to hit the skip button as quickly as possible, this isn’t always the case. Not all pre-rolls are created equal—and Mountain Dew and the Wall Street Journal are showing why a bit of creativity pays when it comes to producing these ads.

While there are many exciting uses for drones, the most consumer-friendly use of the technology is film. Many birds don’t take too kindly to the space invaders. Privacy advocates don’t like them much either. And, as a clip that got picked up yesterday from Kor Creative showed, neither do schoolkids from Rosmini College. So in honour of the destructive kick, here are few other drone-based clips.

At a presentation held yesterday, Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock said that recent research conducted for the SVOD provider indicated that a fifth of current Sky subscribers said they were likely to leave the service after the Rugby World Cup and one in four are likely to add a streaming service in the near future. But Sky’s director of communications Kirsty Way thinks these figures will come to fruition.

For the upcoming Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards, Vodafone is following in the footsteps of the Coachella organisers by enabling those not in attendance to experience the event through Snapchat. And the telco hopes this will get the event to reach thousands of Kiwis beyond the 8,500 capacity of the venue.

You may not have noticed, but the Rugby World Cup final looms on Sunday morning. And still the brands attempt to squeeze blood from the rugby stone. And this week’s winner of The Big Game, a prestigious award dished out by StopPress to the best example of desperate euphemism usage from non-sponsors hoping to ride the attention train, goes to Mr Whippy for its glorious pun-based treat.