There’s nothing more beautiful than seeing a man at his most natural and a new spot for Speight’s Summit lager by Publicis Mojo that was directed by The Sweet Shop’s Steve Ayson has got all the required elements to become a new contender for beer ad of the early summer (ie man standing in river, man growing luxurious beard, man hurling rock, man yelling from mountaintop, man chasing deer, man punching boar and, of course, man drinking beer). It’s certainly much better—and much easier to understand—than man being teleported and running around the Savannah being chased by a Lion. 

More stunning moves than Kasparov versus Deep Blue.

After purchasing the former Pinto plant in Tauranga, signing a big distribution deal in the UK and welcoming former Fisher Funds Management chief investment officer Warren Couillault into the shareholding fold this year, Kiwi-based VnC Cocktails is well and truly beefing up and planning on tripling its already impressive sales next year. And winning a highly competitive global tender to supply its premium pre-mixed cocktails to Etihad Airways’ First Class services is certainly a pretty good start.

In November last year L’Oréal announced it would be parting ways with its media agency ZenithOptimedia after three years together and that a new agency would be announced in May this year. Zenith had inherited the business after L’Oréal’s agency Universal McCann ran into trouble in New Zealand a few years back, but although it was invited to pitch for the business, it declined. Since then, the business has been floating around and Zenith remained in place during the tendering process (some insiders feel the delay is because no-one actually wanted the account due to low margins and L’Oréal’s reputation as a fairly difficult client). But Universal McCann is now back in the fold and will take up the role as media agency in the Australia/New Zealand region. 

You know you’ve done something right (or wrong) if you get a concerned call from Bill Ralston after posting a story. And that’s what happened when we found out Pauline Hanton had resigned from her sales director position at Adshel to take up a role with a retail/instore media outfit supposedly linked to Ogilvy. Turns out the rumours were true and now Hanton, along with Paul Kenny and Suzi Hood in sales, have officially set their new, fully integrated in-store media channel and shopper marketing specialist Hypermedia into the wild, with Countdown as the flagship client.

This week on the telly, the battle of the supermarkets heats up, with Countdown still gobbling up all of ONE’s weekday 6.10pm news spots and New World: the musical going live. Also of note, an amazing spot (and an amazing lead man) for Blind Week, the Interislander gets summery, Hyundai revs up a new one, Nescafe starts up a new rewards programme, New Zealand Post toys with the emotions to get the people primed for Christmas, and the latest feelgood instalment of TelstraClear’s nationwide journey hits the screens.

Lorenz Perry co-founded the small indie agency Splinter Group two years ago following stints with a few of the big boys. But he has decided bigger is actually better and started as the creative director at Interbrand this week, replacing Debbie Hyde.

… including Tui HQ’s gloating, a few more accusations of creative plagiarism, Dettol, Halloween chocolate, Kodak’s 20th anniversary, 42 Below taking the Glad Wrap approach, the Langham’s new twins, New World’s new data toy, sexy posters, amazing photographers, more Alt Group domination and practically everything else you can possibly imagine.

The Auckland Chamber of Commerce has just released its 2010 salary survey and, given the economic events of the last few years, it’s not a huge surprise to find that Auckland business is still “running on lean” and—block your ears children—sales and marketing salaries have dropped. So check out the rates so you know whether you should cackle maniacally with Scrooge McDuck-esque glee as you roll about on your bed with wads of cash, or go crying to the boss about not getting paid enough.

Sick and tired of slaving away in your unsatisfying sweatshop? Well then, you’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for something better, because, after almost 31,000 employees from 245 organisations across the country gave confidential feedback to rate their employers for the JRA Workplace survey, 35 finalists across the four categories have been announced, with notable performances in the marcomms sphere from PR shop Porter Novelli, signage and display company DE Group, directories service Gopher and news portal Yahoo!Xtra.

Like any new form of marketing, there was plenty of trepidation when social media began to go mainstream. And some senior executives still feel the jury is out when it comes to investing large chunks of budget in it. They want to know how it’s going to feed back into the business, and rightly so. So while the first phase of social media—the one where people jump online and create profiles—has already happened, companies are still figuring out how to make the central theory behind social media (conversation, not broadcast) relevant to the entire business.

It’s all go at MediaWorks TV at the moment. Demographic targets have been tweaked by the new puppetmaster Jason Paris, the Special Groupies are now turning their golden hands to channel rebrands and relaunches and the latest news is that MediaWorks TV has made yet another internal promotion, with Graeme Underwood (aka Woody) taking up the position of general manager, national sales, a role that was vacated by Linda Farrelly when she was promoted to director of sales.

Online niche retailer Natureshop isn’t particularly well known in New Zealand. But in these modern and increasingly environmentally-conscious economic times, that doesn’t necessarily matter, because through a combination of extensive online marketing, high quality e-commerce websites and a focus on sustainability, it was named New Zealand’s fastest growing exporter, fastest growing retail or consumer products business and second-fastest growing company at the 10th annual Deloitte Fast 50 index.

The Gruen Transfer, an Aussie TV show that screens on ABC and delves into the mysterious, manipulative and wonderful world of advertising, has been a surprising ratings success across the ditch. But who really wants those pesky moving images and sounds when you could have a book instead? Cue The Gruen Transfer, now in handy non-moving, literary form. You can win one of three copies of this very funny, good lookin’, highly entertaining, educational and quote-filled tome about what one academic described as the ‘poetry of capitalism’ and all you need to do is either tell us an amazing fact/quote/lie/myth/statistic/story about advertising. Or, if you’re struggling for inspiration, just go for the lowest common denominator and tell us your best Australian joke.

Ben Lightfoot, the can’t-do-no-wrong boss of McCann Worldgroup’s New Zealand operations, has been appointed chief executive officer of McCann’s Singapore office, a promotion that’s just reward for Lightfoot’s efforts in relaunching a Kiwi face for McCann two years ago, according to Michael McLaren, regional director of McCann Worldgroup, Asia Pacific.

Comedy Central canned two of its most popular shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in September because the licences had expired. Cue protests, outrage and steam coming out of viewers’ ears. But, not one to let an opportunity pass it by, Comedy Central has, in truly arse about face fashion, now decided to create its own “campaign” to make the network change their own stupid minds.

… with ACP Media, Sugar, DB Breweries and Alcatel-Lucent all issuing a few new swipe cards.

In a bid to capture consumers in the lead-up to Christmas (which is—deep breath—less than eight weeks away), HP and Microsoft have teamed up and established a temporary pop-up store in central Auckland. Called Ten O’Connell, the store opened on Thursday night  and will remain popped-up for …

With Tourism New Zealand’s campaigns to China, Japan, Australia, the UK, USA and Germany now firmly unleashed, comes good news for New Zealand’s tourism market, with fresh figures from the Tourism Satellite Account: 2010 showing spending by international tourists in New Zealand increased 1.6 percent ($149 million …

The wheels of change seem to have been spinning in opposite directions in New Zealand’s bike industry, with online cycle magazine RoadCycling.co.nz announcing its retirement last week and Spot On Publications this week announcing the launch of New Zealand’s first dedicated road cycling magazine, New Zealand …

As the UK plunges into the depths of a freezing, grey winter, tonnes of Kiwi’s look as if they want to give it up, opting instead for beaches, BBQ’s and that season called summer. Marmite’s Bringing Home the Kiwis competition, which will bring home 100 Kiwis for …

Next year is the 75th anniversary of Tip Top. So, as part of the celebrations that are sure to come in the new year (and to herald the arrival of the prime time ice cream consumption period sometimes known as summer), Colenso BBDO and up and coming Sweet Shop directors Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland have gone to town—and country—and made eight almost documentary style, nostalgia-inducing commercials that are filled to bursting with all the ingredients of the classic Kiwi summer.

It’s that time of year again: Sausages are consumed voraciously, jandal-adorned feet almost instantly become sunburned, refreshing beverages are sought and summer advertising campaigns are released. And, following on from the man-heavy launch spot for the new Ranfurly Frontier lager a few weeks back, Lion Nathan and Publicis Mojo have also entered the masculine mainstream beer fray with a new number for Speight’s, which documents a rather urban Southern Man’s domestic journey to dish out a few cold Gold Medal Ales to the boys.