Election marketing is all about values and pork barrels. But sometimes you wish candidates would cut the frills – that’s just what Auckland mayoral hopeful Penny Bright has done.

Vodafone hopes to launch its SmartPass mobile payments app in the next few months and in the meantime is trialling it on Samsung’s Galaxy S3 and HTC’s One, in partnership with Visa and BNZ.

If your dream is to live out retirement surrounded by cats and stacks of old newspapers, this informercial parody by US students for Tenth Life Cat rescue could show you how to get there.

Tourism New Zealand is taking its message to key new Latin American and Indonesian emerging markets with new versions of the newzealand.com. The four new translated editions for Chile, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia bring the total number of market versions to 20.

GrabOne, best known for its daily deals, is marketing itself to a new audience with a booking and information site for national travellers.

Recently, Tui put up a few Yeah Right billboards that said ‘My shout, I’ve got shares in Moa beer’, which was a jab at the fact that its stock price dropped by around 32 percent after it failed to meet its sales targets. And Moa has responded in typically comical fashion by showing how hard it is to get hold of Tui’s owners.

Columbus Coffee kicked off in 1995 and it’s grown considerably since then, with 54 stores now dotted around the country. But after an 18 month project to breathe some new life into the brand, the chain is celebrating a new look, a new menu, new fit outs, new products and a host of new partnerships.

Every now and then a gem of an email comes to us – this time it’s from a “a digital agency that cares about New Zealand and Kiwis” that’s giving ordinary Joe Public the chance to slap John Key with a fish.
It’s all about the GCSB, bro!

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

The Nokia Deutschland Twitter account @Nokiahomebase was the scene of a battle in the escalating mobile device war with the Finnish company slaughtering a rival Samsung phone.

No-one does absurd advertising better than Old Spice and W+K. And to celebrate the launch of the NFL season it’s released four absolute pearlers that continue the trend of its bar soaps campaign and parody the hell out of the ‘transportation’ genre of advertising.

Everyone loves critiquing a logo, which means that releasing a new one is a fairly nerve-racking experience for any business. But Yahoo! has taken a different, slightly more democratic approach to the unveiling of its new logo, offering up 29 different variations over the past month and asking for feedback. Which one would you choose?

Tech entrepreneur Rowan Simpson has launched a directory of Kiwi companies including desktop and mobile software firms, SaaS companies and ecommerce players.

EzyFlix.tv is joining rival Quickflix by launching in New Zealand. The Access Digital Entertainment service, which recently launched across the Tasman, lets users pay to view content on demand, or download it to own.

The news that Volkswagen was reviewing its relationship with DDB was a surprise to many given the brand’s performance in recent years, and BMW, which managed to reclaim the top spot in the premium stakes from Audi with DraftFCB in the passenger seat, is following suit.

It’s the time of year when you get to have a say in who should take home an award at the NZ Innovators Awards. Before we announce the finalists in the different categories, we are opening up nominations for the People’s Choice Award, the award that is all about who you – the people! – think should be recognised.

Tony Abbott’s been in the news for a string of gaffes, now his rivals are imagining tweets that would make him really unpopular. Nothing’s new in the murky world of political campaigning, except perhaps catchy music.

Google was up to K for the latest version of its Android OS, 4.4 – this time generic sweet treats have taken a back seat to some Kitkat campaign deliciousness. These chocolate bars are the perfect second screen companion, compatible with all liquid accessories.

The Labour Party is taking to Scoop’s website for ‘virtual hustings’ meetings, alongside the 12 roadshow events its potential new leaders are holding nationally this week. A blog by the party says the online initiative is a bid to get more member participation.

First there was Scotaganus. Now there’s the smouldering Robert Pattinson doing some smell the fart acting, driving down the beach in an old BMW with some babes, running on a roof and having a roll in the hay with Camile Rowe in the new Dior Homme ad.

Telecom has given Fashion Week a digital edge with a new mobile site called Sheek. The HTML site offers a quiz challenge with a chance to win a $5000 wardrobe with choices from Kiwi designers Hailwood, Andrea Moore, Zambesi, Annah Stretton, Huffer, Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester, Cybele and Twentyseven Names.

The mobile apps that virtually put you aboard America’s Cup boats hint at the immersive experience sports events could become, says Ian Taylor, head of Animation Research, which collaborated to make them.

The Warehouse Group, which includes Noel Leeming, Torpedo 7, pet.co.nz, Warehouse Stationery and the iconic Red Sheds, has announced the launch of a new online shopping site for Kiwis looking for health and beauty products – www.ilovebeauty.co.nz.

Spanning over six generations and almost twice as many brewers, the Duncan family have been brewing Founders in Nelson for almost 160 years. But the company is thinking a bit bigger than boutique and its newly refreshed range of craft beers are now available around the nation.

Kiwi marketers can tap into new revenue streams in the world of social sports gaming, played out at events and internet cafes and watched via online TV, a Wellington researcher says. Victoria University’s Dr Yuri Seo says the eSports world is a far as you can get from hibernating at home playing games. And it means new ways for brands to reach consumers through games.

Red Bull has launched its shiny new poster boy for the Peugeot 208 GTI, Jaden Leeming, in a new web and TVC campaign made in house. The 90 second version was made for its web channels while 15 and 30 second cuts will soon hit TV screens.

For the past three months, Heineken has been plucking real men out of their daily lives, dropping them into the great unknown and making them do ridiculous things as part of its Dropped campaign. And the fifth and final episode, which features two chaps on a desert island in the Philippines who are handcuffed to each other and have only one survival kit between them, has just been launched.

Ever wanted a product to come to your country so badly you just had to have a whinge to the maker? These Canadian fans really wished they hadn’t when Taco Bell went a bit loco and made them literally eat their words.