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

The business world is infested with buzzwords, which is why it’s important for comical raps to try and jolt people back into reality and show them just how douchey they sound when using them.

Air New Zealand is crazy about rugby. And, given the number of Aussies that come to New Zealand for the snow, it’s also quite a big fan of skiing. Now, with the help of Host Sydney and Diaries Downunder, it’s combined the two in spectacular fashion as part of its online video campaign ‘Meanwhile in… New Zealand’.

A new anti-obesity campaign released by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has gone nuts on the internet for its portrayal of a pair of parents driving their child to an early grave by enabling his poor eating habits. The spot, shot in reverse chronology, moves from a scene of the son in the hospital through various key events that link to the moment. As the narrative progresses, it soon becomes evident that the parents have been integrally involved in not only creating the son’s bad eating habits but also in facilitating them.

In moves parallel to Nextdoor in the US, Kiwi private neighbourhood website Neighbourly is shacking up with councils. Last month it signed an agreement with Rotorua District Council to be an official communications platform to complement existing channels, and Neighbourly says it’s in discussion with a further 26 around New Zealand.

While Apple is busy showing off some of the esoteric ways you can use its smartphone, downloading an app that could make fart sounds is, for many, still one of the most attractive features of this technology. And Beat Bowel Cancer Aotearoa (BBCA) and Whybin\TBWA have decided to embrace the entertainment value of anal whisperings with bumsarefullofsurprises.org.nz, a website that lets the public add fart sounds to any YouTube video.

Vodafone has collaborated with Image Centre-owned* digital media agency Ngage and APN Outdoor to launch a series of interactive LED billboards that members of the public will be able to engage with via their mobile phones. The content displayed on each of the three billboards, currently on display in Ponsonby, Eden Terrace and Parnell, is delivered in real time via Vodafone’s machine-to-machine technology, which negates the need for additional cabling and infrastructure.

Mobile development company Sush Mobile kicked off in 2008 and quickly gained a solid reputation for its various apps and solutions. And just six years later it has been bought by Asia Pacific financial tech company Finzsoft for $1.9 million.

For this year’s edition of National Rail Safety Week, KiwiRail and TrackSafe NZ have followed in the New Zealand Transport Association’s footsteps by launching a game to get their message across to the masses.

Mensa-wannabes rejoice – you can massage your neuroplasticity with a Mensa-supported Brain Training Zone by Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs. It’s a site with hundreds of brain training games, puzzles and IQ tests “to get your cognitive thinking up to scratch”.

Colenso BBDO has partnered with Mountain Dew to develop a novel range of skateboard decks that reveal a hidden message as the skater grinds away the bottom. And what makes this project even more interesting is that Colenso owns a share of the IP that comes with the innovation, meaning that the agency could stand to profit if the concept attracts interest from players in the skating industry (production company Finch officially owns the IP and Colenso shares in it).

Over the last few weeks the nation’s political parties have been furiously hammering stakes into the ground in an effort to erect their campaign posters. And while most political ads feature smiling politicians with perfectly combed hair, the Conservative Party’s Colin Craig has instead opted for a monochrome death stare for his campaign.

Vine is still fairly nascent platform and, aside from V Energy, we haven’t noticed a huge number of Kiwi brands using it too creatively. But, just a few spots further down the alphabet, Z Energy is giving it a crack and we enjoyed its attempt to draw attention to its super long hoses as part of its ZipThru campaign.

Foodstuffs has collaborated with one-to-one agency JustOne to launch a new loyalty programme exclusive to New World. In the past, the company has relied on the Fly Buys reward scheme to give its customers added incentive to shop at the store, but Foodstuffs group general marketing manager Steve Bayliss says that it was time to develop something discrete. And while this is a novel move for New World, it comes well after Countdown first launched its loyalty programme in 1994.

AJ Park patent specialists Anton Blijlevens and Jillian Lim touch on some interesting patents to look out for in the future.

In an age where click-hungry online publishers are looking for their next hit, a celebrity death is basically manna from heaven. Philip Seymour Hoffman was the last major case (The Sydney Daily Telegraph got a telling off for this headline). And Robin Williams was found dead in his house this morning, so, unsurprisingly, the story has been dominating many of the world’s major news websites. So is it a case of a bottom-feeding media doing everything it can to increase its audience, or a concerned media attempting to offer a fitting tribute? Or both?

Not knowing about sports and then commenting on them is a surefire way to get some laughs, as Bad British Sports Commentary shows. That relationship was flipped around by NBC Sports last year to promote its coverage of the English Premier League when it got some laffs by creating an ad featuring a US football coach (played by Jason Sudeikis) who became a UK football coach. That didn’t go so well, and now Coach Lasso is back in a new role, with star US goalkeeper Tim Howard in support.

Back in the day, the Yellow Pages ruled. Business names were sometimes based on where they would end up in the book (that’s why there are so many accommodation options starting with A and the Krasilovky Brothers of New York took that to extremes with their long-running listing battle). But for many consumers the online realm is a much more efficient way of finding businesses and Google has taken its toll on the print-based directories and forced them to find new revenue streams. So why are there still so many online business directories in operation?

David Seymour, the Act Party’s Epsom candidate, released a campaign video in May that has been bouncing around YouTube for the last few months. And from the evidence on show in the nearly three-minute clip, it appears that Seymour might be a little new to the on-screen political game.

Following its identity change on Friday, Spark released its first ad campaign over the weekend. Dubbed ‘never stop starting’ and created by Saatchi & Saatchi NZ, the campaign’s first 60-second TVC brings the imagery used in the teaser posters to life by featuring a protagonist walking toward and talking to the camera. As the ad progresses, the actor takes on a variety of different characters and speaks about the importance of starting anew.

We took a quick look at the popularity of slow TV in Norway.