To some degree banks have always been publishers, producing voluminous pamphlets and documents relating to their accounts, interest rates and credit card deals. And while this has served the utilitarian purpose of providing information to both current and potential clients, it has always been a bit vapid in the story-telling department. So, in an effort to fill the narrative-shaped hole in its offering, ANZ has launched BlueNotes, a digital publishing site updated daily with news stories directly relevant to the bank and the financial industry.

Every brand and his dog is trying to get in on the action for the Football World Cup. And here are a few more ads from Twitter, GoPro and Adidas.

Ogilvy Beijing recently terrified a cinema of moviegoers with a clever campaign that showed how multi-screen technology can be used to relay an idea. After the audience took their seats, the pre-roll advertisements started playing on the screen. And what at first seems like a standard car ad quickly shifts into something quite different when all those sitting in the cinema receive text messages. While everyone is looking down at their phones, the car that was casually driving along the road suddenly careens off the road and smashes into a tree.

With the 2014 FIFA World Cup just around the corner, brands are doing their best to link with this prestigious event any way they can. Nike has just done it again with their latest spot titled “The Last Game”.

There’s a fair bit of excitement over Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s What We do in the Shadows, which opens on June 19. And Wellington, a renowned film-friendly city, is getting behind it with a vampirical addition to its ‘blown away’ sign. PLUS: ‘The vampire’s guide to Vellington’.

After a competitive pitch, Post Creative has been brought on to ‘engineer influence’ for the Green Party’s upcoming election campaign. PLUS: which agencies are working with the other major parties?

In an effort to encourage Kiwi men to open up, Men’s Health Week (which runs from 9 to 15 June) was launched late last night via a cheeky marketing campaign by M&C Saatchi. The ‘Speak Up’ campaign will see a series of speech bubbles being attached to existing advertisements in the Auckland CBD, Karangahape Road, Newmarket, Grey Lynn and Ponsonby—all areas that have been pinpointed as areas of concern.

Today’s consumers are fickle. It’s becoming harder to find loyal customers who won’t jump ship at the sight of a sweeter deal. They demand more for less, and are more willing than ever to shop around rather than sticking with a ‘preferred’ brand or provider. The telco industry knows this better than most. And you can find out how some of the country’s biggest players are dealing with it, differentiating themselves and inspiring customer loyalty and at the MA’s next Knowledge Bites event on Tuesday.

In the age of vines and five-second films, the 15 minutes of a YouTube-hosted documentary seems like a veritable viewing mountain. So, in an effort to keep the decreasing attention spans of its growing digital audience interested, APN’s online publishing team has penned a one-off partnership with filmmakers Loading Docs to host a series of ten three-minute documentaries on the NZ Herald website.

In a world where celebrity weddings tend to get more attention than serious environmental issues, it’s getting harder to avoid the curse of MEGO (my eyes glaze over). That means drawing attention to those issues often requires a more creative approach, which is exactly what Greenpeace has done ahead of World Oceans day through a collaboration with the creators of popular online video series Beached Az. PLUS: Sealord’s augmented reality experience pushes a very different message.

A ball hasn’t even been kicked yet, but this year’s World Cup has already served up a fair amount of entertainment in terms of the ads that have come from major corporates. While Nike, Adidas and Puma have in the past been the trifecta of good sports advertising, other brands are also starting to intrude on this space by producing ads that are comparable if not better than those produced by the sports juggernauts.

McDonald’s seems to have taken a leaf out of Dude Perfect’s book with their latest ad. To highlight their association with the 2014 FIFA World Cup the golden arches has made a video featuring some pretty amazing trick shots. Whether they are all real is still yet to be seen.

Google recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Rubik’s cube with a special doodle that allowed users to a play with a digital version of the popular toy. And now, following on from the success of this initiative, the website has launched a video that uses the Rubik’s code as a premise to inspire innovation among the youth.

Is the thought of knowing who your neighbours are, sharing fruit with them, discussing neighbourhood crime and having a street barbie rather retro? Well, those golden times of safe, strong neighbourhoods could be coming back if new private website, neighbourly.co.nz, has anything to do with it.

Back in 2005, Cyber Monday kicked off the US and has become the biggest single online shopping day in the country (and possibly helped reduce the numbers of tramplings, brawls and taserings on Black Friday); in China, Singles Day is now the biggest online shopping day of the year worldwide; and a number of other countries have replicated these events. New Zealand has been a little late to this e-commerce party, but, following on from the success of its inaugural Click Madness event last year, The Warehouse Group is set to kick off another one on Friday 13 June.

Former Wall Street security analyst, venture capitalist and all-round data genius Mary Meeker recently published her 2014 internet trends presentation on the KPCB website. Comprising 164 slides of dense data, the voluminous analysis of the industry provides an interesting cross-section of the major trends taking shape this year.

For better or for worse, the world has gone social and as the number of normal humans using social platforms increases, brands have invited themselves to their party. Social Media Club Auckland’s growth shows there’s plenty of interest in the scene from a commercial point of view and now it’s calling for nominations for the inaugural #SMCAKL Awards, with categories including Meteoric Rise on Social Media, Most Epic Tweet, Social Media Whoopsie, Best Display of Social Conscience and Best use of Social Media By a Brand or Company.

Coca-Cola has been on something of a self-flagellation mission of late in its advertising campaigns. In what can be seen as an effort to undo some of the environmental harm it has done due to the sheer number of empty plastic bottles strewn all over the world, the company has been focused on relaying a strong recycling message in many of its recent campaigns.