Brands hoping to reach a generation that’s turning away from traditional media and getting their entertainment in different ways are increasingly joining forces with influencers who can spread their messages to existing social networks. And for the past year communications company Spark PHD and hair care company TREsemme have been doing just that with a campaign that claims to seek remediation for our country’s (supposed) lack of innovation in the hair styling department.

Tourism Australia has announced that it wishes to procure the services of suitably qualified companies to provide public relations services to support Tourism Australia’s marketing activities in a range of countries.

Vehicle servicing company Midas New Zealand has used a little-known production company to create its latest set of TV advertisements. The clips were made by 26-year-old Ben Journee from Side Project based in Auckland’s North Shore, a company which he says is made up of “… pretty much just me”.

While Volvo is owned by a Chinese automaker, its marketing slogan is Made of Sweden. And its latest ad campaign celebrates the photogenic misery of the northern winter.

Look at the cover of any fitness magazine—or the imagery used by gyms like Les Mills—and you’re likely to see beautiful, fit people with flat stomachs, toned limbs, great tans and big smiles. But This Girl Can, a national campaign by Sport England and other organisations that aims to get “women to do their thing, no matter how well they do it, how they look or even how red their face gets”, has taken a more realistic approach by showing everyday women being active. PLUS: The Sun calls time on page 3 girls after 44 years.

Netflix recently launched a pair of new spots that show how much a Netflix subscription is capable of changing a viewer’s life. And while binge-watching shows until your eyes go red might not seem all that beneficial, the pair of new spots credit Netflix with the potential to increase compatibility between couples, make people more adventurous and remedy the frowns on sullen teenage faces. One thing it cannot, however, do is make you the leader of an alien race.

As evidenced by the likes of Women Laughing Alone with Salad and Completely Unusable Stock Photos, stock imagery​ is a fairly easy target. Enter The Stock Photobomber, who inserts himself into shots for comedic effect.

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement have taken to crowd-funding website Kickstarter in a bid to raise $400,000 to take the mockumentary ‘What we do in the Shadows’ to cinemas in 70 cities across the United States. But this move hasn’t been met with a positive response from all ranks, with some Kiwi Reddit commenters pointing out that Waititi’s last campaign on the platform left many backers rather dissatisfied.

Content marketing is by no means a new marketing innovation to slide off the ceaseless production line dedicated to marketing jargon. Since Procter & Gamble’s early dabbling in sponsored content on a radio-based soap opera, content marketing has chugged along, evolving along the way and has now become a formidable beast that is present in countless marketing plans. But as the beast has grown, so too has the trepidation that brands often feel when finding the best way to approach it. So, in an effort to demystify content marketing slightly and make it seem a little more approachable, Getty Images has released a new infographic that gives marketers a quick breakdown on strategies that could help to effectively integrate content marketing into campaigns.

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

In a decade which has seen a rapid increase of reality television, it comes as no surprise that New Zealanders will have a new one to watch this year in the form of The Bachelor. And Michael Hill Jeweller has jumped on the romantic bandwagon and will act as broadcast sponsor in the first series of the New Zealand version.

Skewering the earnestness and, at times, outright ridiculousness, of the fashion industry is fairly common. But it’s less common coming from the naming rights sponsor of a major fashion event. And that’s what Mercedes Benz has done with its entertaining, cliche-slapping film Fistful of Wolves.

To say 2014 was an unfortunate year for Malaysia Airlines would be a massive understatement. Like a twisted game of snakes and ladders, the airline made steps to recover from the loss of 239 passengers on flight MH370, only to be knocked by a second tragedy in July in the Ukraine, resulting in a further loss of 298 passengers. And, after a misguided bucket list campaign last year, it’s employed the services of Malaysian-born, Australian-raised Poh Ling Yeow to take viewers on a video tour of Kuala Lumpur.

Aussie e-commerce site ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, as the name implies, started offering glitter bombs as a service to those hoping to annoy the hell out of people they hate. It’s trolling in the real world. And it’s been too popular for its own good.

In an increasingly digital, ephemeral world, tangibility still has power. And MEA Mobile’s photo printing app Printicular is profiting from that. PLUS: Other companies bringing online and offline closer together.

You can do some amazing things with light these days, with the likes of Philips’ Hue and GE’s Link giving humans the ability to control their lights via apps, create a disco in their living room or respond to other data (like calendars, or through ‘if this then that’). And Infiniti Middle East and TBWA/RAAD in Dubai has also done something pretty cool with lights for its Inspired Light project.

Where do creative types find their inspiration? New research by Adobe shows it’s increasingly in the online realm. PLUS: the creative skills deemed to be most in-demand in 2015.

Every year around this time, banks attempt to grease up the young’uns heading off to expand/erode their minds at University. But banks are rarely at the top of the priorities list at this stage of life and erecting a makeshift tent and handing out branded pens at a festival or over Orientation Week just doesn’t cut it anymore. So ASB is running a Snapchat campaign called Snap Scholarships—replete with the obligatory prizes—to try and lure them in.

The potential for digital sensors and big data to make our cities easier to navigate and more efficient, whether it’s for parking, lighting or, in the case of Sensing City, pretty much the whole of Christchurch, is immense. Cisco has been banging on about the possibilities of the internet of things for a few years now, and, as its latest campaign, Building Tomorrow Today, shows, it thinks technology will soon render traffic jams extinct.

Because we all know the best way to lose weight starts with a hearty dose of self loathing.

Newcastle Brown Ale has long been know for taking the mickey with their advertising. So much so that it has become a central part of their brand identity. Now they are taking another stab at their favourite target, Super Bowl ads, with possibly their weirdest idea yet.

After more than a decade as managing director at SC Johnson, three years in the same role at Lion Breweries, then nearly 20 years as the boss of Fonterra Brands, there’s not much Peter McClure doesn’t know about how to launch a product. As he steps down from the role he tells Amanda Sachtleben about grabbing shoppers’ eyeballs in eight seconds, why that lightproof milk bottle wasn’t actually a flop and the reason entrepreneurs have a marketing jump on the corporates.

McDonald’s, fresh from launching a new brand that ups the love and aims to halt sliding sales, launched a new ad during the Golden Globes that showed how the signs outside its restaurants in the US “have been used to spread messages of love, hope and respect”. Of course, whenever there is a sign, there will be those who manipulate them for comedic effect. And College Humour has put together a different, more puerile version.

Whether it’s a BMW skidding on an aircraft carrier, Volvo’s Live Test series, Hyundai’s empty car convoy or, closer to home, Holden’s Heartracing or Mini’s Driving Dogs, there’s no doubt automotive brands love a good stunt. And you can add Ford to that list after it launched a two minute clip featuring a host of Falcon fanatics who were recruited to line up along a custom-made racetrack in fetching blue overalls as Mark Winterbottom tried his best to avoid them.