This Sunday the All Blacks will take on the United States in a widely hyped exhibition match in Chicago. While the United States certainly can’t be described as a rugby playing nation, all 61,500 seats at the Soldier Field have been sold out. Such is the star power of the All Blacks that they are capable of filling a stadium in a country where rugby ranks below badminton, ten-pin bowling and pro wrestling in terms of popularity. And given the seeming supernatural ability of those who don the increasingly tight black shirts to make people interested in things that they don’t necessarily care about, it comes as little surprise that Kiwi brands have shown such a willingness to attach their labels to rugby players. StopPress looks at how rugby players are helping brands get noticed.

As part of our series with the One Percent Collective that’s dedicated to celebrating good work and inspiring a bit more generosity, Ant Salmon, managing director of Big Communications, doffs his cap to Andy McDowell and all the others who have done their own thing.

For those of you that thought social media was just for sharing selfies and pretending your life’s way better than it actually is, think again. New Zealand brands and their fans are using the medium for a lot more than that. They are using it together to make things happen. PLUS: we look at examples of crowd-sourcing gone wrong.

A battle is raging between online advertisers and those who don’t want to be followed on the Web, and New Zealand news websites are harbouring a surprising amount of trackers. Journalists and privacy experts have recently been pointing the finger at news websites as some of the worst offenders when it comes to collecting people’s data without any formal disclosure. Much of this is happening through online ‘trackers’, hidden pieces of code in websites that track how a user clicks, or even hovers, on a site.

Following the recent unveiling of its ambitious ‘Boroughs’ project, which will see five high-tech basketball courts introduced in Auckland, Spark has now announced a marketing partnership with the National Basketball Association. As part of this deal, Spark will offer its home broadband customers NBA League Pass and League Pass Premium annual subscriptions beginning next month, giving customers 15 percent off the full price of either a full season or a one-month subscription.

Since Vine launched in January 2013 it’s fair to say the six-second video app has taken off. According to Vine, every month now more than 100 million people watch Vines across the web. Owned by Twitter, the social media platform boasts 1 billion views or ‘loops’ of videos every day, with the majority of users being teens. The largest age group on Vine is 18 – 20 year olds. But are Kiwi brands slower on the uptake than our global counterparts?

Wires are so noughties. And, as speaker and headphone company JBL shows, they’re bloody annoying too. PLUS: eggs, popcorn, radiation and people struggling with everyday tasks.

As noted in a series of articles published on the Getty Images website last year, publishers and brands are starting to shift away from the stereotypical images that have until now typified what advertisers had constructed as perfection. The investigation into visual trends found that women were increasingly represented in positions of power, same-sex relationships were sometimes used in lieu of straight imagery, older people were appearing with greater regularity and beauty was being given a more flexible definition. Interestingly, the top 20 Getty images that have been downloaded by Kiwis since the beginning of the year also indicate that these international trends are starting to take shape in New Zealand. However, trends don’t emerge instantaneously, and this means there were still some more conventional images included on the final list.

Hell Pizza is offering an explosive short-term deal with their pizza delivery – and they’re hoping it’s going to net them a record week of sales. A campaign offering a fireworks delivery along with your pizza kicked off last week with the company opening a fireworks preorder for the Guy Fawkes period.

In a bid to get Spark connected with young Aucklanders, a group it struggled to reach in the Telecom days, the company is partnering with Kiwi NBA player Steven Adams and the Auckland council to bring five high-tech basketball courts to the city.

Artist Sarah Larnach has lent her creative talents to winemaker Whitecliff for a new branding campaign that prominently features the company’s tree silhouette in the artwork.

Ikea Singapore is not afraid to scare the crap out of its customers with a tongue-in-cheek ad out just in time for Halloween. PLUS: a few other branded tricks and treats.

Over the weekend, Fairfax distributed a revamp of Sunday, the magazine insert included on a weekly basis with the Sunday Star-Times. The new version features an updated portrait layout, more pages and a combination of new content and the return of various favourites that have thus far appeared in the pages of the magazine over the last ten years. To incorporate the new design elements, Fairfax brought in art director Delaney Tabron to work closely with Sunday editor Rebecca Kamm, who joined the publication in January.

Whether it’s booking flights, deciding where to stay or finding your way when you’re on holiday, the internet era has turned the travel industry on its head. Jessy Edwards looks at how some of the traditional businesses like Destinations, For the Love of Travel and House of Travel are transitioning and how new businesses are profiting.

OK Go has produced some phenomenally creative music videos, from treadmills to Rube Goldberg machines to visual trickery (that Apple seems to have been ‘inspired’ by). And its latest effort adds to that ouevre.

The elusive Honey-billed William is like catnip to brands (and media). And after he announced his return to rugby earlier this year, Adidas swooped in and signed him up as an ambassador in May. Now it’s released a short clip telling his story as part of its #leaveyourmark campaign. PLUS: exciting jersey-related news.

ANZ holds around one third of the country’s home loan market and it’s made a concerted push to retain that—and presumably improve that—recently with a new campaign showing the frisson of buying property at auction. Last year it put its name beside TVNZ’s Art of the Architect and now it’s backing the other team, signing on as a production partner for the upcoming New Zealand version of Grand Designs New Zealand.

In times of crisis, the media is meant to serve as helpful tool in keeping the public informed. However, with the recent increase in the number of ebola cases around the world, some arms of the American media have seemingly lost their minds and resorted to blatant fear mongering instead. Here’s what a few comedians think about the ebola madness going on at the moment.

We live in increasingly visual times. And no-one’s got time to read those pesky words anymore. So every week we’ll choose a few of our favourite graphs. In honour of the heated discussion around magazines on these pages in recent days, here’s a couple that show what’s been happening to magazine circulation in New Zealand over the past ten years.

Travel review website Trip Advisor is the king of user-generated content, and it’s recently backed that up by running a competition for fan-made ads.

Between Two Ferns is a big favourite of those who prefer their chat shows awksome, and it hit the big time when president Obama stopped by to talk about the affordable healthcare act a few months ago. Now, after a bit of a break, Zach Galafianakis has returned ans his latest victim is Brad Pitt/Bradley Pitts/Bart Pit. And there’s even a cameo from Louis CK.