The latest agency news, campaigns and client wins (and losses) making headlines across Aotearoa.
RAPP Tribal Wellington recently said goodbye to its general manager Sean Keaney after he took up a position with AIM Proximity. But it’s balanced out that bit of bad news with some good after winning the Salvation Army business for the New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga territories after a competitive pitch against two other agencies.
Maori Television is the most watched free-to-air broadcaster for Rugby World Cup 2011 and its total cumulative audience rose to more than two million individual viewers, the largest for any broadcaster covering the tournament.
Carlson Marketing, a proprietary loyalty programme company that has 27 offices in 15 countries, including branches in Auckland, Sydney, and Melbourne, and claims to be New Zealand’s largest loyalty programme provider, is soon to be no more due to a rebrand that will align it with global parent company Aimia.
McDonald’s first foray into the world of Facebook games has proven to be a winner.
It’s been a tough year for the Christchurch-helmed Strategy Design and Advertising. But last week was a well-deserved good one, with its first Effie (one bronze for Christchurch City Council’s Share an Idea) and five golds at the Best Awards. Now it’s getting international attention for its brand development work for new foreign exchange trading website MahiFX—and particularly for an online gimmick that allows visitors to compare their income to renowned supertrader John Paulson.
The Journal is fresh from a massive Effie haul last week. And it’s also won big at the international ECHO Awards held in Boston, with the innovative campaign for the Ministry of Health winning yet another gold award.
The double whammee of the recession and the digital revolution means it’s been a pretty tough time in the print industry of late. Geon was bailed out by its bankers not long ago, Benefitz has shifted its focus away from the dwindling offset printing market and the troubled Blue Star Group recently agreed upon a capital restructuring in an effort to trade its way out of $300 million worth of trouble. But Webstar, the specialist web printing division of Blue Star Group New Zealand—and the latest entrant to the local magazine printing sector—is still optimistic and has signed up as a strategic business partner of the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA).
As we’ve now come to expect, the *, #, ##, ** and ^ flowed freely as the two big commercial radio players made their usual claims for the top spots following the release of the latest National Commercial Radio Survey figures. And, despite the typical murmurings about the methodology of the Research International study, which gets respondents around the country to fill in a diary about their listening habits, Gill Stewart, general manager of The Radio Bureau, says the results paint a fairly positive picture when compared to the previous year.
Over 700 designy folk attended the DINZ Best Awards event on Friday night at the swanky new Auckland Viaduct Events Centre. And with a record 812 entries, the highest in the 23 year history of the event, a multitude of Gold, Silver and Bronze pins were handed out, with five winners—Avanti, Wellington Airport, Fisher & Paykel’s Social Kitchen by Alt Group, Sarah Maxey and typographer Kris Sowersby, and Resn for Toyota’s Sponsafier—picking up a coveted Purple Pin.
Before
After
There’s been a bit of green-fingered, grow-your-own food renaissance around the developed world in recent years, to the point where the approximately $600 million New Zealand gardening market is one of the few retail sectors currently moving in the right direction. To help those numbers keep growing, Hotfoot and Tangible Media have chucked a bit of fertiliser on the Nurserymen and Gardeners Industry Association and launched a one-year long Go Gardening campaign that aims to get more Kiwis in the garden.
New Zealand was on top of the world when it came to passing the dutchie to the left hand side. But, as the latest infographics.co.nz piece de resistance shows, we’re at the bottom of the heap when it comes to being corrupt (being at the bottom is a good thing in this case). Perhaps the two are linked? Speaking of corruption, they also decided to figure out which quarter-finalists had the most lawyers and while that data was unavailable, they did find out which country has the highest demand for lawyers based on cost-per-click advertising. Ireland takes that particular trophy. And, interestingly, despite being the most corrupt, Argentina has the lowest demand.
Coca-Cola claims the number one spot, again, while technology dominates and luxury brands continue to shine in Interbrand’s 2011 Best Global Brands report.
Overseas, interactive catalogues are well-established and many large brands such as Tesco and Morrisons in the UK are complementing—and usually reducing the cost of—their printed material by producing something akin to a regular digital magazine. Some local retailers have already dipped their toes in this water, but .99 and Farmers believe their new interactive catalogue is something unique in the New Zealand market.
…as Robert Harvey gets set to take up Philip O’Neill’s slack, DB’s Rene de Monchy departs for Singaporean shores, MEC announces a new arrival and a couple of internal promotions and TVNZ’s head of news and current affairs Anthony Flannery gets set to head back to Australia.
DraftFCB and the Ministry of Health are a pretty bloody good team, as evidenced by the numerous awards the duo has won in recent years. And, after it was beaten by Colenso’s supreme award-winning catfood campaign for Whiskas last year, they’ve managed to wipe away those salty tears and make amends by taking out a fair swag of the big gongs at this year’s Effies at SkyCity, including most effective agency and most effective client.
We’ve seen Rob Fyfe and various staff prancing about in the nude, the puerile puppet of indeterminate provenance and the All Blacks and Richard Simmons in the safety videos. And now we welcome Mason & Jason, “the truly inseparable sheep twins”.
Last week it was GE Capital, this week it’s Cigna Insurance in New Zealand… what will Y&R pull out of the box next week?
If the results of the 2011 Pentawards are anything to go by, Kiwis seem to have it wrapped when it comes to creating effective and innovative packaging design in the designer food side of things.
It’s just a billboard/radio show… yeah right.
If men had their way, chips and dip would probably have its own segment on the food pyramid. And now, following on from the very successful launch of Mammoth Supply Co. yogurt, ice-cream and iced coffee ranges last year, Fonterra and Shine have referenced that manly desire with a very funny new ad for its new range of peri-peri, Kiwi onion, nacho cheese and spare rib dips that makes fun of nerds and nibbles and once again features the husky cowboy tones of Sam Elliot.
…as Sean Keaney moves closer to the Capitol, new indie True adds a partner to the mix and iSite Media announces a group agency manager.
Australasian food giant Goodman Fielder is apparently cutting staff from its New Zealand operations.
Rugby World Cup orientated advertising continues to find touch in this latest round of Ads@6, with Hayley Westenra, RWC 2011, the Warehouse and Mastercard gaining territory. Elsewhere, Jude Dobson keeps you regular and optimises bowel health for Phloe. Crash test dummies take one for the team. “Ew it’s a big giant hand thingy” scaring Bruce and Brian, for 2 Degrees. And fortunately Jane Eyre makes an appearance and raises the tone.
Heineken’s global ‘Enjoy Heineken Responsibly’ campaign aims to “inform and educate consumers about the safe and responsible consumption of alcohol”—and, ideally, the safe and responsible consumption of Heineken. And now it’s ramping up its efforts to drill that message in at the business end of the RWC with the official launch of its ‘let a sober driver take you home’ taxi campaign in Auckland.
Who’s it for: ASB by Droga5 and The Sweet Shop
Why we like it: It’s a good way to explain why ASB is better than its competitors. It’s got some added gravitas with the voice talent of Dame Judi Dench. And it’s a nice …
Ahhh wine. You like to drink it. We like to give it away. And we’ve got a special gift box of four varieties of Stoneleigh’s new range of Marlborough Latitude wines (Sauvignon Blanc, 2011 Pinot Gris, 2010 Chardonnay and 2010 Pinot Noir) to give to one lucky reader. So add a comment to the wall telling us why you deserve it and we’ll send out the $110 pack to the best effort.
iSite Media, New Zealand’s largest out of home advertising supplier, can now purchase all of OTW Advertising’s billboard sites after the Commerce Commission gave it the nod.
Despite a large number of Rugby World Cup-related press ads dominating September’s newspapers, .99 has won this month’s NAB Newspaper Ad award with its call plan ad for Vodafone.
Vodafone’s been on a bit of a horror run with bureaucratic entities recently. It’s already been pinged twice for misleading advertising and there are four more court dates with ComCom for separate offences on the horizon. And now it’s been pulled up by the ASA for an ad made by .99 that featured the always dodgy fork and toaster combo.
Steinlager’s impressive ‘We Believe’ campaign to celebrate 25 years sponsoring the All Blacks has so far managed to evade the legal clutches of the IRB/IMG gatekeepers, despite stepping on Heineken’s toes and stealing a big chunk of its RWC thunder. But it hasn’t managed to evade the legal clutches of the ASA, which has smacked Lion on the hand for a print ad that featured a picture of the white can with the line ’30 names we can believe in’. The ad featured in the papers the day after the All Blacks squad had been named and was deemed by a majority of the complaints board to contravene the restrictions around heroes of the young. But does this ruling show the letter of the law is being taken too far?
As Jon Bon Jovi knows, going out in a blaze of glory is always the best way. And Arch West, the man who founded Doritos, is doing just that for his funeral, as a full-page—and slightly macabre—print ad that featured in the Herald attests.
As the old phrase says, you go into a bank looking for your girlfriend and end up leaving with her mother. And while a likable bank may seem like the quintessential oxymoron, ASB is typically near the top of the customer satisfaction charts in comparison to the other big competitors. Now, following on from the first and fairly controversial incarnation of the big Creating Futures rebrand, it has taken a step in a slightly different direction with the launch its new ‘Experience ASB’ campaign over the weekend.
Big ups to NZ Book Month and its agency Rapport Advertising and Marketing for taking out four awards at the prestigious 2011 Promo Awards in Chicago. It was the only New Zealand ad agency to be honoured, alongside other winners such as P&G, Coca-Cola and Kelloggs.
In news that’s sure to warm Don Brash’s libertarian cockles, it turns out we’re leading the rugby world when it comes to smokin the ‘erb, as this wee infographics.co.nz ditty shows. If the IRB gives out a $10,000 fine to Samoan player Alesana Tuilagi for wearing a branded mouthguard, one can only imagine how much it’ll cost the All Blacks when Graham Henry makes a bong out of the Webb Ellis trophy on October 23 for a celebratory toke with the team.
…as Clems hires an experienced digi-boffin, Designworks adds another senior string to its management bow and Reach Media and Positively Wellington Tourism both announce new business development managers.
In another pump of patriotism McD’s has released a third ad saluting the unconventional spirit of Kiwis, and celebrating our innate ability to tinker with things in an effort to make them better.