The latest agency news, campaigns and client wins (and losses) making headlines across Aotearoa.
In this edition of Ads@6, there’s one dominant and quite unusual theme, with Countdown continuing to go for the media jugular and blast everyone for two minutes (but only on ONE) with its ‘Meet the Colemans’ soap launch, its Richard Till spots and a few other Countdown-related comms.
Following on from requests from local advertisers and in an effort to replicate the success of parent ninemsn’s opt-in email initiatives, MSN New Zealand has released a new service called Hotmail Featured Offers that allows advertisers to promote their wares to local Windows Live Hotmail users.
The last time we heard from the Toot Group they were trying to spread the meaty truth and destroy the sausagey lies as part of a campaign for Harrington’s Sausages (in fact, the ‘Know Your Sausage’ poster made as part of the Sausage Awareness Week still hangs proudly from the StopPress walls). And now the gang is back with some more good work for The Trusty Delivery Co., a new grocery service modelled on a successful business in Australia that is aimed at busy, environmentally conscious shoppers who can’t be arsed going to the supermarket.
A relative outsider has stormed through the pack to take out the supreme award in the inaugural New Zealand edition of The Maggies, with the January 2010 issue of women’s surf and snow magazine Curl beating out the big boys to take Magazine Cover of the Year.
Who’s it for: Telecom by Saatchi & Saatchi and Prodigy Films
Why we like it: 2010 was a year Telecom would probably rather forget, but it’s obviously hoping to go out on a good note and has gone back to the advertising it knows best with this …
New Zealand Post has been in the news recently after announcing the arrival of ‘Localist’, a start-up directory business that aims to target Auckland’s small to medium sized businesses, where the local advertising market is thought to be worth around $600 million a year. Yellow responded to the threat with an $8 million investment and the promise of 100 new national sales roles. But away from all that excitement, New Zealand Post Targeted Communications has launched another marketing toy called iTRY, a digital-to-mail sampling solution that gives companies an opportunity to get their products and services into the hands of consumers to trial.
State’s recent ‘My 3 Things’ campaign aimed to show Kiwi consumers the company was actually very nice, cared about your stuff and, quite perplexingly, was looking to find a way to insure the things that were uninsurable. Now DDB New Zealand and AMI Insurance have taken a similar—although more light-hearted and colloquial—approach with a new campaign and repositioning statement for the company that aims to show it ‘Insuring New Zealandness’.
Much like watching an All Black return from injury, the marcomms sector always keeps a very close eye on the communications work of companies that have recently suffered some kind of PR crisis. Certainly, when Telecom’s Paul Reynolds came out in his waders in Glenorchy after the XT debacle with an apologetic number asking New Zealand for forgiveness, opinions on whether or not this was appropriate spewed forth. Since then there have been plenty of ads promoting specific deals and products (sadly, the on-air proposal didn’t really work out either), but Telecom and Saatchi & Saatchi now appear to have resumed normal branding transmission with the release of a beautiful new TVC (by Prodigy films), print campaign and positioning statement ‘From here we can do anything’.
After a period of relative silence on the self-promotional front, Ogilvy has been making up for lost time recently and trumpeting a host of its new work. And the latest addition is a new, characteristically quirky summer campaign for L&P that aims to appeal to young Kiwi malingerers.
Y&R New Zealand’s digital and interactive specialist arm VML@Y&R is now up and running, with Nigel Hammersley and Michael Gregg, two of New Zealand’s most experienced digital practitioners, taking charge of the newest addition to the global network.
As the well-known Queenstown saying goes: “It’s tourist season, but, sadly, you can’t shoot them”. And to try and further increase visitors over the upcoming summer boom time, Tourism New Zealand has launched a fresh marketing offensive in China and expanded its digital campaigns in Japan, USA, Canada, UK and Germany, all of which signify a marked change of strategy following the addition of digital specialists Amnesia Razorfish to its agency roster.
The myth of the subliminal message in advertising is a long-standing one. But Ogilvy and All Good Bananas haven’t given up on that marketing dream and have employed the services of some cool instore technology called ‘Audio Spotlight’ to impart a message about fair trade and environmentally friendly bananas directly into the ears—and brains—of unsuspecting Kiwi shoppers.
Given the stellar performance of the yellow orb known as ‘Old Brighty’ over the long weekend, you probably didn’t receive your regular dose of television advertisements. So here’s a whole heap of them to welcome you back. This time round the love-hate relationship with Tower’s Brian and Lisa continues; TelstraClear launches its big TV push to celebrate 20 years of Kiwi service; the next ad in the RaboPlus ‘It Pays To Focus’ series continues the good form; and, despite threats to pull its advertising from TVNZ following the Paul Henry furore, Countdown instead releases a massive new soap opera and forks over a whole heap of cash to block out ONE’s ad break.
If you miss today’s 5pm deadline to enter the New Zealand Marketing Association’s RSVP and Nexus Awards, they would like to alert you slackers to the fact that, if you pay your extension fee, there’s a maximum of one extra week to get your entries in. Also, early bird discounts for Social Media Junction 2 run out next week.
Oliver Maisey takes up some new creative reins, Naked adds two senior comms planners to its roster and Perceptive loses one of its account managers to social media.
The NBR gave Stuff’s digital billboard promotion a bit of grief this week after it suffered from a few technical difficulties. But the glitches have obviously been ironed out and Fairfax is now using arbitrary capitalisation to trumpet the arrival of “New Zealand’s First Interactive News Billboard” in Aotea Square in Auckland.
It started with a kiss, it led to an unexpected addition to the family and it’s ended with a massive new campaign for Countdown. So, meet the Colemans, the newest soap operatic addition to New Zealand’s advertising landscape.
It’s the world’s biggest and fastest auction, it handles more micro-payments than all of the world’s stock exchanges and it was deemed fairly risky when it was launched almost exactly ten years ago, both by those responsible for coming up with it and by others. So bow down and give praise to (or, if you’re in the newspaper business, swear at) the game changing advertising system known as AdWords, a system built by a team of Google engineers and salespeople who bet big on a few core insights and won.
We reported on the unofficial results that placed New Zealand ninth best country overall soon after the big leonine haul at Cannes this year, and the just-released official report has confirmed our position in the top ten—and not per head of population, either, just flat out ninth most creative country in the world based on the awards Kiwi agencies won at the prestigious advertising event.
There seems to be an underlying disdain for the persuasive arts among the masses, something that can presumably be put down to a combination of outright envy and the (slightly) misguided belief that you dastardly marcomms schemers are somehow able to trick them into parting with their cash through the wonder of advertising. But there’s certainly no shortage of interest from the aforementioned masses in the commercial messages that grace their screens and, much like Paul Henry, this strange love-hate formula creates TV gold, as evidenced by the continuing popularity of the Fair Go Ad Awards.
MediaWorks TV launched its new season line-up in Wellington this morning. And the Auckland launch is scheduled for tomorrow. But there’s sure to be slightly more interest in some the programming decisions than there usually is after it announced today that its two major channels are set for a rejig, with C4 being re-launched as a mainstream entertainment channel known as FOUR and TV3 moving directly into TV One’s demographic territory.
Dunedin’s well-received new campaign tapped into its local networks to try and discover some of the region’s quirks and secrets. And Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism has taken a similar approach for its new tourism push, although instead of crowd-sourcing ideas from the hoi polloi, it’s using “global TV star” and proud Cantabrian Phil Keoghan as its ambassador.
Helen Souness is the Kiwi marketing director responsible for managing SEEK, the hugely successful online trans-Tasman employment brand. She’s based at the company’s Melbourne HQ but regularly returns to New Zealand to develop and test campaigns and jumped back across the ditch last week to host a series of local marketing workshops and forums for SEEK’s diverse bunch of large and small advertisers, where she provided plenty of insights around how it became a celebrated employer and consumer brand.
Behold these vespertine delights! Bluebird’s ‘Do us a flavour’ experiment reaches the stores; Vodafone’s new brand campaign is the pick of the always competitive telco bunch; the Big Mac and Quarter Pounder spots out of DDB Sydney hit the mark; Honda embraces Michaelangelo for its new Insight ad; the National Bank follows up its big brand relaunch with a suitably quirky home loan spot; Sam Neill multiplies for Kiwibank; the rise of Wilson continues; and Dan Carter strips off and goes extreme unicycling for Rexona.
Of note in this collection of commercial messages, the Groove Armada track is changed in the Fresh n Fruity ‘wrecking balls’ ad; Goldstein’s final fling hits the screens; Marmite celebrates its 100th birthday; Burger King takes a comical approach to comparative advertising by using shock tactics; Len Brown takes the political TV ad title over John Banks’ very rushed effort; OPSM gets busy with a new global campaign; and is the old chap in the Colour Steel ad actually a puppet?
Time is running short for your shot at 2010 RSVP and Nexus Awards glory. So make sure you get your entries in to the good folk at the NZMA by 5pm this Friday. Or else.
Listen to any social media evangelist yabber on for a few minutes and you’re likely to hear the words honesty, authenticity and openness mentioned. The thing many of them seem to overlook is the fact that as long as there is competition, many companies will presumably continue to be dishonest, fake and secretive. After all, it’s what business was originally founded on (oh, and greed). There are exceptions, of course, and, to be fair, the rise of social media has forced a number of previously PR-driven, corporate speaky companies to get real with their customers. Which is a very roundabout way of getting to Fisher & Paykel’s new campaign, Inside Stories, a feelgood marketing initiative that aims to show what really goes on behind the scenes with stories that are told through the eyes of its staff, rather than through its appliances.
TelstraClear, as we wrote in the cover story of the May/June edition of NZ Marketing, is something of a quiet yet consistent achiever among the major telcos. And, to celebrate its 20th year in New Zealand, show off its network and tell Kiwis what the company is all about, it has sent its ‘mascots’, the modern TC and his misanthropic old partner Bill, on a journey around the countryside.
The winds of change have blown for two titles in the Tangible Media stable, with the rejigged weekly Groove Guide set to launch with a renewed pop cultural zest and a new but familiar editor at the helm, as well as a relaunch and an editorial reshuffle at sustainable living magazine Good.
Who’s it for: Sky TV by DDB NZ and Capital City films
Why we like it: The DDB/Sky relationship has been a particularly fruitful one recently. The Arts Channel campaign won every award in the world. The ‘Your Happy Place’ content campaign also got a few …
The shock tactics directed at young drivers on TV don’t seem to have the desired effect anymore. So Ogilvy instead decided to use shock tactics with a hoax ad and a fake but fairly intense phone message to try and drive home the point that fast cars can be deadly.
Regional branding efforts and their associated tourism pushes often have a whiff of desperation about them. But there seems to have been a coming of age in New Zealand recently, with some solid and distinctly uncringeworthy new marketing initiatives from Wellington, Christchurch and, most recently, Dunedin, which has just launched its new brand with an outdoor and online campaign.
As Westpac chief economist Brendan O’Donovan said at a CAANZ/ANZA seminar ‘Nurturing the Green Shoots earlier this year, when economic times are tough, they’re usually much worse in the marcomms sector. But, conversely, when things start looking up, it reacts faster than the economy. And, judging by the just released third quarter television advertising revenue figures from the New Zealand Television Broadcasters council (as well as the outdoor results released last week) the long-awaited upswing appears to have cometh.
In this edition of Ads@6, the iPad shows its stuff, the Vogel’s campaign keeps hitting the mark, the House of Travel inspires plenty of holiday envy, Telstra Clear and 2degrees face off with their respective monthly mobile plans and there’s even an ad for Lancaster Bomber magazine.
Three men, three very different presentations and a multitude of ideas about what could be around the marcomms corner … for your viewing pleasure, Pure Productions has released recordings of the sage words of Colenso BBDO’s planning director James Hurman, TVWorks chief executive Jason Paris and Image Centre Group’s Mike Hutcheson from the Future of Television Advertising event it held recently. So, if you weren’t cool or important enough to actually be there, they’re certainly worth a gander.
As draconian media overlord and Rhys Darby lookalike Vincent Heeringa opined soon after the recent New Zealand International Business awards were handed out this week, the creative economy used to be something that cute, boutique Kiwi businesses talked about. Now, however, design and intellectual property have become an integral aspect of the really big New Zealand exporters as well and they were the two elements that bound many of the winners—and particularly the supreme award-winning Pumpkin Patch—together.