The latest agency news, campaigns and client wins (and losses) making headlines across Aotearoa.
After a series of technical glitches pushed back the date from December last year, Neon is set to launch on Friday, 13 February. And, not to be outdone by news of its competitor’s arrival, Lightbox has sent out a release to various media publications in which it gloats about the strong results of Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul.
With much of the world turning to digital media, book makers generally aren’t in a position to turn down potential readers. But a prototype cover for the Art Director’s Club annual in the Netherlands does just that by scanning the face in front of it and, like some kind of literary chasity belt, only opening if it deems the reader to be in a non-judgemental state of mind.
In a world where teenagers and adults alike seem to be checking their mobile devices every few minutes (or seconds), ignoring your compelling conversation to scroll aimlessly down their Facebook newsfeeds, uploading selfies to Instagram or sending the odd Tweet, it comes as no surprise that social media sites are an excellent platform for advertising. And a few big brands in New Zealand have now started using image and video-sharing mobile app Snapchat as a marketing tool. Here’s what Spark, Vodafone, ASB, Skinny Mobile and a few others have been up to.
Series three of House of Cards is set to go live at the end of February, and, given the response to the first two seasons of the show, there’s plenty of excitement about it. So there was plenty of surprise when ten episodes of the new season went up online early today. Some wondered whether this was a marketing ploy and if Netflix has ‘pulled a Beyonce’. But Netflix says it was a technical error. Judging by the House of Cards Twitter handle, however, maybe it wasn’t quite so accidental.
Last year, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) exhibited its interest in digital technology with the production of the Force Fit app, which provided a very modern solution to the growing problem of unfitness among young people. But the NZDF doesn’t only dabble in digital technology for the purposes of marketing. The military organisation also sees it as integral to the sovereignty and safety of New Zealand. So, given the changing landscape, StopPress recently chatted to a spokesperson at the National Cyber Policy Office about the government’s approach to digital security.
Apparently, data is the new oil. But, just like oil, data needs to be refined to be useful. And Dot, a ten-strong Wellington company that mixes analytics with storytelling is doing just that in an effort to find influencers, reduce churn and even beat the bookies.
Kiwis are now choosing to pay to stream TV and videos instead of turning to BitTorent for pirated content and online shoppers are looking to China for their precious goods, according to recent data-gathering by Slingshot.
After a creative pitch last year, it is thought the NZ Fire Service is set to appoint FCB as its creative agency. UPDATE: Ministry of Justice confirms it is also working with FCB.
It’s no secret that Stuff leads the Herald in terms of the number of pageviews, audience reach and unique user base it attracts on a monthly basis, but this is by no means the only metric that advertisers are interested in tracking. Engagement stats, particularly through social media, are becoming increasingly important in terms of determining the value of a placing an ad on a digital media property. So, in order to gauge the effectiveness of both publications in terms of engagement, Frank Feinstein, director at Feinstein Doaks, surveyed 2.5 million Facebook interactions on the flagship Facebook pages of both the Herald and Stuff.
These days I find it near impossible to think of heat pumps without thinking of Stephen Fleming, and that’s not about to change as Fleming stars alongside fellow former cricket giant Nathan Astle in Fujitsu’s latest advertising campaign.
Tui’s Catch-a-Million campaign captured the imagination of the Kiwi public, the Kiwi media and global ad awards judges last season. And, with a bit of tweaking, the idea is back for the ICC Cricket World Cup, which kicks off on Saturday in Christchurch. PLUS: ANZ pimps out a pitch as part of its Dream Big campaign.
For this year’s edition of Heart Week, Barnes, Catmur & Friends has given heart disease the shadowy face of serial killer being interviewed by a faux reporter.
Apparently, idle hands are the devil’s plaything. So, with mobile phones ensuring there are very few idle hands these days, you might think that’s a good thing. But what does that devotion to the screen mean for creativity? And should we be switching off and looking around rather than down? A project by WYNC podcast New Tech City thinks so and it’s aiming to get people to appreciate the joy of spacing out with Bored and Brilliant.
A paranoid man, indepen-dancers, a personified disease and Aesopian characters star for Westpac, Kiwibank, the New Zealand Heart Foundation and Air New Zealand this week.
Nothing says summer like scraping toxic fire extinguishing chemicals off the lamb. Colenso BBDO’s ad for State Insurance has referenced this great Kiwi tradition with its ‘get insurance fast because things happen fast’ campaign and for their trouble they’ve taken out the December edition of News Works’ Ad of the Month.
Special Group has been appointed the new creative agency for the Vodafone Warriors, following a creative pitch that involved four agencies.
TVNZ’s new reality DIY show Our First Home is showing early signs that it might have what it takes to dispossess The Block NZ (screened by MediaWorks) of its throne as the nation’s most-watched reno-reality show. According to data from Nielsen, the show had a viewer rating of 456,000 for its first episode—and TVNZ’s commissioner of factual entertainment Tony Manson believes that the show has enough substance to keep Kiwis entertained throughout the season. Update: ratings in the 25-44 demographic.
The Radio Bureau has announced the first Orca winner of 2015, and the gong has gone to JWT’s Mike Ramsay and Mariona Wesselo-Comas for their work on the ‘Drunky Pants’ spot that was created for Auckland Transport as part of the Drunksense campaign, which has been developed to relay the message that stupid things—such as driving home—tend to make sense to drunk people.
Dating app Tinder and hair removal brand Gillette have teamed up on a campaign, which might cause us to see a few more clean-shaven faces around.
Westpac has unleashed a delightfully awkward, tinfoil-hat-wearing protagonist in a new spot that aims to show that contactless payments are so secure that even the most paranoid person in existence would be okay with using them.
Kiwibank has been beating the drum of independence since it was founded in 2001 and it made it very explicit in its last ad when it printed out a bunch of bank records, made them into a huge banner and shouted it from the rooftops. That ad featured a range of proudly independent staff and its next effort, also via Assignment, features proud customers dancing a dance of financial independence.
In a country as diverse as New Zealand, simplicity in writing is essential when it comes to large-scale publications that aim to reach readers of different backgrounds (not all native English speakers) and varying education levels. So, are Kiwi publications obeying this rule of simplicity and is it being reflected in the articles published on mainstream media on a daily basis? To find out, StopPress ran some of the nation’s websites through a readability test. Here’s how they fared.
New Zealanders love when famous people mention their country. Eating Media Lunch devoted a section to it back in the day. And, with Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul premiering in New Zealand tonight on Lightbox, we’ve got a special (manufactured) message from Bob Odenkirk, better known as seedy strip-mall lawyer Saul Goodman.
No stranger to controversy, electricity company Powershop says it’s bringing power “back to the people” with its latest campaign, which is based around famous acts of protest and standing up against the status quo.
As we wrote recently, SMI data shows the country’s top 15 media agencies are spending much more on digital than print, while TV maintained its place at the top with $412 million of the total $882 million. So how does that compare to other markets?
Just over 30 years ago, on 1 January 1985, while standing in London’s Parliament Square, Michael Harrison called his father Sir Ernest Harrison, the founder of Vodafone, using the (barely) portable Vodafone VT1—a moment that would go down as Britain’s first commercial mobile phone. Over the next three decades mobile phone technology would progress and proliferate and become a ubiquitous part of the modern landscape.
ANZ launched its GAYTM campaign last week, following on from a successful effort in Australia. And this video shows how Kiwi artist Reuben Paterson spent 300 hours bedazzling a Ponsonby cash dispenser with 120,000 rhinestones. PLUS: Is Kevin the ATM destined for a jzushing?
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Carnivore Club, an artisan meat club thay delivers monthly to its members, has launched a hilarious new advertising campaign under the guise of a fake insurance company called ‘F-up insurance’.
Coca-Cola has been forced to suspend its #MakeItHappy campaign after an elaborate prank from blog site Gawker had the brand relaying several lines from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Charity organisation Shine is raising awareness of domestic abuse after sporting matches with the launch ‘No Excuses,’ a hard-hitting radio campaign by creative agency Whybin/TBWA that features high profile rugby commentators Tony ‘TJ’ Johnson and Scott ‘Sumo’ Stevenson in three different radio clips.
According to TVNZ’s Lyndsey Francis, Tech in a Sec is the only piece of communication that crossed over from the Telecom rebrand into Spark. And, as evidence of its popularity, it’s into year three and has added a few new mascots. Vodafone also wants to help customers ‘Do their thing better’ so it has released a clip online promoting a digital activation that lets users pick their top three interests from the Top 30 Things Kiwis most love to do and then delivers a selection of the best smartphone apps and online articles. But it’s not of the quality you’d expect from one of the world’s biggest telcos.
Redditors are renowned for their unique sense of humour/aggressive trolling. And, following on from some interesting discussion about the legality of gardens in New Zealand recently, now the world is learning some interesting facts about New Zealand’s penchant for arachnid cuisine.
As mentioned last week, ANZ decided to embrace the rainbow by bringing GAYTMs to New Zealand. And, as of today, they’re out and proud in Auckland and Wellington.
The Alternative Commentary Collective (ACC) has since its inception in 2012 become a standard part of the Kiwi cricket experience for many fans, who tune in to enjoy a comedic twist on the usual ball-by-ball rundown of the games. Following on from the success of the iHeartRadio-hosted show, frequent contributors Leigh Hart and Jason Hoyte in March 2014 launched Sports Bhuja, a sports-related chat, comedy and music show, which initially aired on radio Hauraki on Saturday mornings—and the segment has proven so popular, that the pair have now been given a slot on Radio Hauraki’s drive time show.
Jockey is continuing its long tradition of stripping the All Blacks down to their tighty whiteys with its latest winter All Colour campaign. But this year it’s all about the bright colours.