Given that it relies on bored workers to shop during the workday, hotel-booking website Last Minute has incorporated a defense mechanism into its homepage to ensure that workers are always only a single click away from the safety of a spreadsheet. A small link titled ‘the boss is coming – look busy’ navigates users away from the pink glow of the website to the safety of a jargon-filled spreadsheet.

On Friday, Twitter announced the Kiwi launch of Twitter Ads, a self-serve ad platform that aims to provide advertising options for small and medium-sized businesses. Twitter Ads has already been launched in 21 international markets, and it will almost certainly come as a welcome marketing tool to smaller businesses that have thus far been precluded from using Twitter’s advertising services due to the minimum spend threshold that the company previously set for its advertising services. We chat to Nick Bowditch, Twitter Australia’s small business evangelist, to find out what this means for the Kiwi market.

Punk-zine turned media-empire Vice re-launched its website this week with the promise of an “explosion of new content,” and New Zealand is not being left out of the blast. Vice head of communications for Australia and New Zealand Josh Gardiner says Kiwis can look forward to more local stories, including a New Zealand documentary.

To some, the term corporate social responsibility is an oxymoron; more keeping up appearances than a legitimate attempt to make the world a better place. Nigel Latta looked into what the booze companies are doing in terms of promoting their products and, to a lesser degree, responsible drinking, in his recent series. And South Park has shown the paradox of the alcohol-funded ‘drink responsibly’ message perfectly (NSFW)

Over the last decade the digital age has swept over the cornerstones of newspaper publishing and eroded them with unforgiving consistency. Now, each time the Nielsen’s print readership and the ABC’s circulation results are released, what remains of the major publications look a little smaller than what they were the quarter or year before.

The numbers using public transport in Auckland are increasing, but it’s still something of a running joke and the much-trumpeted rail link is facing problems as the bureaucrats question the costs. Auckland Transport and Work Communications have been trying to convince more people to take the bus, train or boat and they won a TVNZ-NZ Marketing Award for their trouble. They’ve also got Jerome Kaino onboard to help spread the message and, at the smaller, more Colin Craig-ish end of the mascot spectrum, comedian and Radio Hauraki DJ Tim Batt has gone on a crusade to get people’s views on what the new transport network for West Auckland should look like.

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim aren’t big fans of bad marketing and advertising. But that hasn’t stopped them making heaps of good ads, with its recent spot with Jeff Goldblum for, of all companies, GE, their Old Spice ads with Terry Crews and some utter madness for Absolut with Zach Galafianakis all hitting the spot. And now they’ve cranked up the crazy for Totino’s Pizza Rolls.

The Better Drinks Company has just released its first batch of Charlie’s Straight Up Cola, and it was produced and canned in only 10 weeks. And while this might be impressive, the speed of the product development isn’t even the most interesting part of the project. As part of the launch, Charlie’s is asking customers to take to social media and say exactly how they feel about the new product. The company is giving Kiwis the chance to share their opinions, and only if the feedback is positive, will another batch be produced.

More than 80 percent of a worldwide research panel (including over 3,000 advertisers, marketers, service providers and technology developers across 17 countries, including New Zealand) said that data plays an important role in supporting their respective efforts. And 92 percent said they expect data to contribute even more substantially to their advertising and marketing efforts over the coming years.

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

Charlie’s has just launched its new straight up cola, which has “honest stuff like actual kola nuts, real malt, natural cane sugar and a cheeky squeeze of lemon”. But, in a nice touch, it’s also decided to tell drinkers what isn’t in the can just to see if they’re still paying attention.

Since the beginning of the week, Men’s Health has been causing people across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to do some serious double takes, thanks to a controversial set of posters that are designed to encourage men to talk about their health issues. But Men’s Health isn’t the only organisation making Kiwis gawk. Love Your Condom has continued its risque approach to raising awareness about condom usage among the nation’s gay men with a new campaign that features the chiseled body of poster boy James Luck.

As Santa is to kids, so is the John Lewis Christmas ad to the creative community. And once again it has slid down the collective chimney and landed with an emotional, animal-related thud.

As we wrote last week, the classic endorsement approach in New Zealand seems to be bunging a rugby player (or even a coach) on your ad. But Invivo’s strategy is at the other end of the spectrum, with international talk show host and self-proclaimed he-devil Graham Norton called on to help create—and now help promote—a very special wine.

Internationally, McDonald’s recent financial results were well down on the same time last year, and it’s trying a range of things to counter the decline, including offering customised burgers. In New Zealand, sales figures weren’t available for this year, but the arrival of Georgie Pie helped lift performance in 2013. And it’s aiming to continue that growth by offering McCafe coffee via drive-thru.

As recently as the 1990s it would’ve been difficult to imagine a catalogue of oddly numbered lists turning into one of new media’s biggest success stories. But now, as we find ourselves neck deep in the zeros and ones of the digital age, the question ‘Have you seen that BuzzFeed list on …?’ has become a phrase as familiar—and commonly used—as ‘Google it’ or ‘there’s an app for that’. Andy Wiedlin, BuzzFeed’s chief revenue officer, is someone who has first-hand experience of BuzzFeed’s journey from being a quirky idea to a pop culture phenomenon.

Pickling enthusiasts will be pleased to find that the new Google Calendar app for Android embraces this niche hobby.

Planned obsolescence and apparel manufacturers go together like chimichurri and steak, with small changes to jerseys requiring true fans to buy new ones regularly. But, at a launch event in London ahead of its northern tour, Adidas claims to have made some big changes to the fancy new hi-tech All Blacks jersey by getting rid of the white collar, adding gun-metal grey lettering and, after player feedback, making two versions: one for the forwards and one for the backs.

To spare online shoppers the chore of scouring through scores of deals featuring massages, fairy lights and costume jewellery in the lead up to Christmas, GrabOne has launched the Giftinator, an online tool that allows users to narrow their searches to find gifts that match their interests. As New Zealand’s biggest daily deal providers, GrabOne publishes over 1,700 deals a week, which means that there might be more than 1,600 offers available on the site at any given time. And while choice is a good thing, it can be frustrating for time-pressed gift-buyers to scour through everything available to find what they want. By launching the Giftinator, GrabOne now enables customers to streamline their search for gifts in terms who the gift is for, the amount they’re willing to spend, and the age group and interests of the recipient. PLUS: we look at some of the risks that come with brands recommending items.

Two years ago, after a trip to Wellington Zoo, Chris Smith and Ezel Kokcu founded STQRY, a “storytelling mobile experience company”. The story goes that the pair was reading about pelicans at the zoo and wanted to know more, sparking the idea of an app where people could garner more of an experience from an object. This idea was pitched to the zoo, which picked up immediately. Soon thereafter, Gareth Morgan also threw its weight behind the company. Now, STQRY has 17 staff, and the company’s young founders have set their sights on a range new projects. So, StopPress sat down with the pair to find out where they’re headed next.

A Baltimore based woman used crowdfunding to pay for her expensive late night Uber ride. PLUS other crowdfunding oddities.

Aldi Mobile pulls together a trio of the worst employees ever to illustrate that consumers tend to be different.

With the rise social media, the way marketers think about experiential marketing has changed. Not long ago, the term experiential was used as a synonym for on-site promotion and often annoyingly manifested itself as a brand lurking about a car park, shopping aisle or public venue. The fact that consumers can now publish their responses instantly to massive audiences means that brands need to be more strategic about how they incorporate experiential marketing. The experience that they offer needs to be something worth talking about. So, as part of its sponsorship partnership with the Armageddon event, V Energy brought in Colenso BBDO and Beryl to create an experience that fans would be willing to share.

Auckland Airport is inviting ‘full-service’ agencies or agency groups to register their interest to be its lead advertising agency partner.

The bar for long-form advertising on YouTube has been raised by the ambitious projects several major brands over the last few years. Guinness, Chipotle, Johnnie Walker and Chanel No 5 have all commissioned the development of creative projects that seemingly conflate the disparate worlds of advertising and entertainment. And recently, when Honda released a series of teasers for its upcoming campaign, it seemed as though the online community would be treated to another online advert posing as a short story. But, what we got was something quite different.

Consumer New Zealand is calling for door-to-door salesman to be locked out in a new campaign released earlier this week. The consumer watchdog’s chief executive Sue Chetwin says the organisation often gets complaints about the “hard-sell and exploitative sales tactics” the doorknockers use. To counter against this problem, the organisation is distributing free “Do not knock” stickers to protect consumers from unwanted intrusion.