Yesterday, Sky was again reminded of how intense and instantaneous online outrage can be when advertisers don’t deliver on what’s promised. In this case, the promise involved simulcast streaming of the new season of Game of Thrones at the same time as viewers located in the United States. Sadly, as 1pm rolled in, the stream failed and the online fury ignited. And while it wasn’t difficult to find scathing comments about Sky’s streaming mishap, it was quite entertaining to see Slingshot engage in a bit of corporate banter.

According to a story in Digiday, The Onion makes 90 percent of its ad revenue through content creation, with a number of big brands looking to infuse a dash of the site’s humour into their commercial messages. And this series for Honda about an unassuming office worker who is convinced by a stuffed wolf to pack in his job, buy a motorbike and ride the road “righting wrongs and making wrongs right” is one of our favourites.

In 2012, Dave Schiff started ad agency Made in a coffee shop in Boulder, Colorado with two friends. They had no money, no clients and no idea how to run a business. Just three years later Made has more than 40 employees with a client list including a host of internationally recognised brands. And this week, Schiff is in Auckland to speak at Project15 on modern disruption and cause-based advertising.

Advertising veterans George Logothetis and Graham Clifford took part in a bit of blasphemous product placement over Easter, with their Product Placement Bible. The result is a humorous (or not so humorous depending on the individual) website which imagines scripture sponsored by some of the world’s top brands.

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

Netflix has finally arrived on New Zealand’s shores, and naturally one of our first responses is to parody the service in true Kiwi fashion, with the help of Taika Waititi.

Tim Murphy, the editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald has decided to step down after a 30 years with the publication. This announcement brings an end to Murphy’s three-year stint in the role that he took on after serving as an NZ Herald editor for ten years.

There are currently only 29,000 rhinos left in the wild, and this number continues to reduce every year as poachers continue killing these magnificent herbivores for their horns. And given that the conservation efforts are failing to stop this from happening, tourists on safaris often take advantage of what is becoming a quickly diminishing opportunity to take snapshots of the animals in their natural habitat. However, the problem with this is that smartphones often geo-tag images, giving poachers pinpoint coordinates to the the rhinos they so desperately covet.

ANZ has teamed up with the RSA to launch an online campaign that gives Kiwis the opportunity to publicly honour the heroes who were part of the troops that landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Hosted online on a microsite dubbed called Shadow Battalion, the campaign allows visitors to select a hero and then provide a reason for remembering this person.

Recent market research has forecast the economic impact of drone technology in the USA alone to be $82 billion dollars by 2025 and it’s predicted that 80 percent of the commercial market for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) will eventually be for agricultural uses. Given our reliance on that sector, and our history of agricultural innovation, New Zealand stands to benefit from this development. But Callaghan Innovation is also hoping to drive its use in the film and screen industry through an innovation competition.

The rapidly growing ‘better burger’ segment has brought joy to the mouths of many New Zealanders—and some concern to the cheaper, more quotidian fast food incumbents (in a classic case of if you can’t beat them, join them, McDonald’s is attempting to ride the premium train with some new ‘create your own’ options). Burger Burger has quickly become one of Auckland’s favourite posh burger establishments since Mimi Gilmour, she of Mexico fame, launched it last year and Motion Sickness Studio (MSS) has helped make that happen.

The Whittaker’s Big Egg Hunt NZ in support of The Starship Foundation ran again this Easter and saw 100 giant eggs created by leading and emerging artists hidden in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The public had to scramble the streets for the artworks and download the app for a chance win four gold Whittaker’s Wabbit necklaces crafted by Partridge Jewellers. And of course, there were several brands involved.

Japanese advertising agency TBWAHakuhodo created amazingly intricate 3D-printed ice cubes for a campaign for its client Suntory Whisky.

After some high-profile accidents, there’s plenty of attention on cycle safety at the moment—and some positive signs that the powers that be are taking heed and starting to create cyclist friendly infrastructure in our bigger cities. Various campaigns have tried to get drivers to look for cyclists—and tried to get cyclists to make sure they can be seen—and now Volvo has developed a cool new product that will help both sides: Life Paint.

Wellington or Wellywood as it is affectionately (or scathingly) known remains the film capital of New Zealand, while Auckland is the TV capital, according to information released by Statistics NZ on the screen industry revenue from last year.

A well-designed future may be informed by trends but shouldn’t be determined by them, says Brian Slade.

So regularly was Sky TV’s ‘Bring Down the King’ promotion for season four of Game of Thrones awarded at the recent Axis Awards that host Jesse Mulligan at one stage sarcastically quipped “you might’ve heard of this campaign,” before handing out yet another gold to ‘Bring down the king’. And the campaign has certainly travelled around, picking up a slew of gongs for DDB on the international circuit. Now, following on from the success of this campaign, DDB and Sky have again combined social media and experiential elements for the promotion of the latest season of the hit show.

Last month, DDB digital CD Haydn Kerr attended the Facebook Creative Hackathon, where he was the only creative from outside the US and the UK. Here’s what he learned.

For the most part, recruiters serve as the link between the skills employers want and the capabilities employees have. At its simplest, this implies that a clearly defined role necessitates an employee with a very specific skill set. However, when it comes to digital roles, specificity is exactly what’s absent. These roles are constantly evolving, meaning that employers sometimes don’t even know exactly what they should be looking for. And to overcome this problem, the Digital Store founder and consultant Louise Lawton believes that agencies should turn to recruiters who specialise in digital recruitment.

Sadly for the French, they often have to wait up until a year for an American show to broadcast after its US launch. BETC Paris has depicted their struggle through this Game of Thrones-esque parody ad that seems stuck in slow motion.

A non-profit organisation in India has come up with an incredible initiative to ensure Indian women are getting enough iodine by administering the essential mineral through bindis (or ‘life-saving dots’ as they have been dubbed).

From the outset of the announcement that the Paul Henry Show would run concurrently across TV and radio, MediaWorks made clear its intention to drive its audience share in the morning slots, which have until now been dominated by NZME on the radio side and TVNZ on TV. But NZME isn’t simply sitting back and spectating the arrival of Henry. For the first time in ten years, Newstalk ZB has released a TVC, which is somewhat unsurprisingly voiced-over by NZME’s cross-channel star Mike Hosking.

Tax season is upon us, and in its stead it brings long complicated IRD forms, scary non-compliance letters and a slew of advertisements that promise tax refunds. These marketing campaigns extend across all available channels and offer users a faster means by which to complete the sometimes arduous process of applying for a tax refund. Over the last few years, MyTax.co.nz has been one of a handful of companies encouraging Kiwis to look into whether or not they qualify for a tax refund—and this year is no different.

JP Sears is an infinite pool of spiritual wisdom. Through his YouTube channel you can learn ‘How to Make Real Friends’, ‘How to Become Ultra Spiritual’, ‘How to Become a Vegetarian’ and more. And in one of his latest clips he takes aim at those who are gluten intolerant.

After nine years of owner and directorship of Bare PR, Rebecca Purdy has announced she has sold the business in order to focus on The Generalist PR, a company she started to represent clients who did not fit under the natural umbrella.

Throughout the month of March, Auckland was host to an international fleet of racing yachts and their crews taking part in the Volvo Ocean Race. After winning a three-way competitive pitch, experiential agency Fluxx was asked to come up with activation and sponsorship concepts for the SCA (known as Asaleo are in NZ) all-female racing team. In response to this brief, Fluxx worked with the global SCA and local Asaleo Care teams to bring their activation ideas to life.

Approximately 300 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute—and the vast majority of it is created by regular users who capture personal experiences with Go Pros, smartphones and laptop cameras. So prolific is this trend of user-generated content that millennials are now sometimes referred to as Generation C, for Generation Content.