When it comes to Pacific destinations, Tonga is a long way down the consideration list and has smaller visitor numbers than Fiji, Samoa, Rarotonga and Vanuatu, primarily because, unlike those countries, it has never really invested in promoting itself. But for the first time in its history, the Kingdom has taken to TV with a trans-Tasman campaign that aims to build on the 2012 launch of ‘the True South Pacific’ brand and show what its 176 islands can offer visitors.

A round up of the news from Google’s I/O conference, including news of a new streaming music service, redesigns everywhere, map goodness and tools for frazzled Android developers.

Ever wondered how David Ogilvy wrote an ad? Well wonder no more, because Letters of Note has shown us with a response to a question from Mr. Calt that is featured in The Unpublished David Ogilvy: A Selection of His Writings from the Files of His Partners.

After trekking through remote New Zealand with five Nikon D800 cameras, 16 lenses, 30 batteries, and four tripods and bespoke rigs, photographer and artist Joe Michael and his crew were able to shoot parts of New Zealand that many never see. And the end result is Dark Cloud: White Light, a new media arts project showing at Pataka Art + Museumfrom July 14—October 13.

Given the size—and growth—of the pet industry, and the increasingly close relationship humans have with their animals, it’s not unusual to see strange new products being launched (I’m looking at you cat soufflé). Not surprisingly, most of the products are aimed at pets that are still alive. But ‘cardboard engineer’ Mat Bogust and his wife Jane have seen a gap in the market and launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and give their cardboard casket business Rest in Pets a leg up.

Hitting the front page of Reddit is usually like hitting marketing gold, bringing with it the sweet sweet traffic generated by the never-sleeping internet horde. DraftFCB has had a taste of that delicious Reddit link love for its ‘Say Yeah, Nah’ alcohol responsibility TVC for the Health Promotion Agency – although many denizens of the online community are left confused if what they’ve watched is actually a beer commercial in disguise.

Hosts Paul Spain and Sim Ahmed pick the brain of former Telecom social media manager and current New Zealand Cricket online and social manager Richard Irvine about his career as the voice (and face) of the country’s largest telco on Twitter and Facebook.

Snakk Media (which listed on the New Zealand Alternative Stock Exchange back in March) has opened a New Zealand sales office, run by former APN group sales manager Rowan Spinks.

All it took was an afternoon alone with the Sony Alpha 99 camera for me to fall in love with it (or at least like it as much as a man can like an inanimate object, without it being creepy). Sony completely hits it out of the park with this flagship full frame delight and as soon as I get a raise or win the Lotto (the latter is more likely) I’m buying into this system.

Kickstarter has hosted (and funded) some dubious ideas in its time. There’s even a website dedicated to the weirdest of the bunch. But Kurt Braunohler’s Cloud Project, which raised over $6,000 to have ‘How do I land?’ written in the sky above Los Angeles, is one of our favourites.

In a communications crisis, speed kills. And nothing speeds like social media, says Jennifer Duval-Smith. So it pays to be prepared.

From the launch party being held in the rural Australian town of Wee Waa to the recording session that Pharrell Williams apparently doesn’t remember after being given a mysterious pill to Alan Partridge ‘Getting Lucky’, it’s hard to think of an album launch in recent times that’s had more attention than Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories (you can stream the whole album via iTunes ahead of its official release here on Friday). But let’s just hope that Brassft Punk gets the attention it deserves too.

String Theory and Buck’s ‘Metamorphosis’ for Oxfam’s Good Books charity was a deserving winner of the craft grand prix at the Axis Awards last week. The visual craft involved in such a production is fairly obvious. But the sonic craft is less so. Thankfully, creative music studio Antfood has put together a behind-the-scenes case study to show how it concocted its crazy audio brew.

Ever wondered what would happen if instead of feeding the trolls on social media, you tried to beat them to a pulp? Well, thanks to Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro, a restaurant in Arizona that Gordon Ramsay was unable to help as part of his Kitchen Nightmares show, we now know. And it’s not pretty.

Marian Salzman, chief executive of Havas PR North America, PR Week’s 2011 PR professional of the year, a 2012 addition to PR News’ Hall of Fame and one of Business Insider’s 25 most powerful people in PR, is venturing to New Zealand as the keynote speaker for CAANZ’s international Marcomms forum on 3 July. Here’s what the award-winning blogger, brand marketer, public relations executive and social media innovator had to say about the global move towards real-time creativity, the role of digital and social and how the industry can do more good.

Netflix has released the trailer for the fourth season of cult comedy show Arrested Development and it’s full of more inside jokes than you can shake a Cornballer at (of course you wouldn’t shake a Cornballer because it’s likely burn your flesh off).

DraftFCB continues its ‘Ease up on the drink’ campaign for the government with a new take on an old problem in the New Zealand drinking psyche: peer pressure.

The Canadians won the space race the moment they sent commander Chris Hadfield into space. In his time aboard the International Space Station he’s taken gorgeous photos of New Zealand, answered numerous questions on Reddit and still found time to undertake the sciency things the Canadians sent him into space to do in the first place.