Modica Group has appointed Jono Tucker, previously business development manager/account manager at leading mobile marketing company Run the Red, to the position of senior account manager.

Social media is proving its worth for the organisers of the 2011 Rugby World Cup: with more than 250,000 fans, the RWC 2011 Facebook page is now the biggest in New Zealand.

If you’re sick of hearing about how consumers don’t trust brands anymore and feel as though they’re being constantly bombarded by trashy advertising that makes them stupid, drunk and morbidly obese, then Doug Pray’s Art & Copy, “a dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion”, could be the film for you: it focuses on some of the positive aspects of advertising and interviews the inspirational brains behind some of the world’s most successful campaigns. And it’s coming to the Documentary Edge film festival in Auckland in March.

In an attempt to court increasingly environmental tourists – and reward environmentally-minded accommodation providers – AA Guides and Qualmark this week released a travel guide listing only businesses that meet both Qualmark quality and environmental criteria.

The end of summer is usually a miserable time, with the relentless passage of the earth around the sun typically leading to an epidemic of Kiwi self-pity and climate-related woe. But Monteith’s is instead celebrating the changing seasons by releasing its first autumn beer, Monteith’s First Harvest ale, in late March.

The NSC Group, a company that specialises in the “design, implementation, management and support of highly sophisticated business technology solutions”, has completed a six-month brand refresh. And poor old Ashburton is, like, whatever.

Over the past few years, there have been numerous attempts to make magazines more interactive. Sadly, most of those attempts tended to revolve around gimmicky, impractical augmented reality stunts, where a magazine might be held up to the computer screen and a photo ‘comes to life’. There was already a medium for this: it was called video. And there was plenty of it on that thing called the internet. But for the first time in a long time, if some of the app demonstrations deliver what they promise, the integrated digital content soon to be offered up appears to offer actual benefits to everyone involved in the process—the readers, the advertisers and, if the money starts coming back, the publishers.

At any given moment we can log on to Facebook or Twitter and tell our friends what we have been up to without actually having to talk to them. Ah, technology. Bless. But for those who want more precision, two clever Kiwis have come up with a snappy wee iPhone and web-based application that blends maps and photos to instantly enable you to show your friends not only what you’ve been up to, but where you were when you got up to whatever it is you were up to. Got it?

Just when you thought New Zealand was a relatively paparazzi-scandal-free zone, think again: ACP Media, publishers of Woman’s Day, have hit back at allegations made by Ali Mau on TVNZ’s Breakfast in which she claimed the magazine has been stalking her and her family.

Professor Sylvie Chetty, a marketing researcher from Massey University, and Professor Colin Campbell Hunt of Otago University, have won a prestigious award for a 2004 article that challenged existing theories and showed companies export in their own “Kiwi way”.

The Warehouse Design for Everyone programme is going strong, with a new handbag range called Saben Says that has been designed exclusively for The Warehouse by Saben owner and designer Roanne Jacobson set to go on sale in Extra stores from 17 March.

January was a record month for MSN.co.nz, with some of its new editorial offerings, particularly its healthy living portal and virtual sports category, bringing in a slew of online punters.

Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy Group, takes to the stage at the TED conference to opine on the benefits of intangible value, placebos and how tinkering with perception can be better than trying to fix reality. An erudite and rather comical talk from the quintessential adman about the psychology of marketing. And his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life. Highlight of the speech: his idea to solve the world’s environmental problems by making all convicted paedophiles drive Porsche Cayennes.

In this installment of Michael Carney’s Marketing Week: The latest readership results are out. Grim reading, of course. But don’t wallow in self-pity. Laugh at the misfortune of others instead. Telecom announces modest sales of TiVo. But can CASPA change that? Can the iPad do for TV what the iPod did for music? The Travel Channel gets set for landing. The case of the missing asterisk. ComCom cracks down on misleading promotions.

To celebrate the weekly arrival of Ads@6, Vincent Heeringa, esteemed publisher and gadabout, has penned a song: “Ads@6/Ads@6/Oh how we love you Ads@6/Studies have shown/And experts agree/that a surprising number of viewers seem to like them more than the actual news/”. Nice isn’t it. Best use of fingers in an ad this week goes to Webjet. And Westpac features on the list of big ad spenders, which is a good enough excuse to link to this rather boganic financial promotion.

The Australasian Promotional Marketing Association (APMA) is putting out the call for entries for the 2010 APMA Star Awards, which are designed to generate both industry and public recognition of excellence in the area of promotional marketing.

It’s DB’s 80th anniversary this year. So what better way to celebrate than to add a host of new staff to the roster and welcome back a former employee from secondment.

Kapiti Ice Cream is jumping on the pop-up ‘brandwagon’ this week and opening three temporary exhibitions around Auckland to showcase the best of New Zealand design and dish out a few of their creamy ‘pop-upsicles’ to wandering freegans.

Loyalty New Zealand, the operator of Fly Buys, has signed a contract with Universal Music New Zealand, upping the number of songs available to download on Fly Buys Music – and be paid for with Fly Buys points – to 280,000.

Loyalty New Zealand head of marketing and product development Chris …

Around 50 social media practitioners, digital natives and sneezers gathered together in meatspace last night for the inaugural Auckland Social Media Club event at the 42Below Bar on Commerce St and, with online video set to be a key topic in media circles in the coming months, Jayson Bryant of Wine Vault TV took the floor to speak about how incorporating video blogging into his business has helped drive extra revenue.

Search marketing agency First Rate, the first Google Analytics accredited company in New Zealand, has been appointed as the exclusive licensee in New Zealand and Australia of the search engine marketing (SEM) technology SearchIgnite.

As Mother always said, free money is the best kind of money. And BBC.com is offering three prize packs worth a total of NZ$33,000 to New Zealand media buyers and marketers. Each pack includes NZ$1,000 cash for the winning buyer and NZ$10,000 in online advertising media for their lucky client.

In May last year the Consumer’s Institute announced the release of its new endorsement scheme Consumer Recommends. But since then Sue Chetwin, chief executive of the Consumer’s Institute, says only “seven or eight” companies have signed up to use the brandmark in their advertising and promotional activities.