New Zealand is often accurately cast as the poorer, smaller, less productive (but slightly less boorish and better looking) cousin of Australia. And while the following predictions about the ‘Twentytens’ from social researcher and futurist Mark McCrindle of McCrindle Research are all based on Australian data and research, there are enough similarities between the lucky country and New Zealand for the insights to have some relevance to local marketers. Plus, it’s Australia Day on 26 January, so consider reading this post a show of solidarity with our Tasman neighbours.

Media Monitors, “the market leader in New Zealand and across the Asia Pacific for media monitoring and analysis of media content”, can puff its chest out a little further in 2010 after it was recognised as the international measurement company of the year at the Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communications Awards held in London late last year.

‘I am Dunedin’ is to get the chop as Dunedin’s slogan and a nationwide search is underway to find a new tagline and promotional strategy.

Recent studies have shown and all experts agree: StopPress readers are much more intelligent and good looking than other people.

Behold! The last ads@6 of the whole decade. Please don’t cry, because we’ll be back next year with more ads than you can shake a very large stick at.

If you were to picture an archetypal media magnate, Harold Mitchell would be a pretty good fit.

Tourism New Zealand will have a new chief executive for the first time in a decade when Kevin Bowler takes over in January. He’ll have the big shoes of George Hickton to fill, but he’s looking forward to sinking his teeth into the new role, in which he will be responsible for overseeing the international marketing for New Zealand in over 15 countries.

Whatever the atheists can do, the ecclesiastics can do better. Auckland’s St Matthew in the City, a church that has made quite a name for itself as a result of its provocative billboards, has ruffled feathers again, this time with a rather risqué yuletide number that lampoons the literalism of the omnipotent lovin’ supposedly dished out to Mary by the cosmically virile Yaweh.

Humans love lists (especially at the end of the year). And humans also love videos (particularly of cats, funny dances and fellow humans injuring and/or embarrassing themselves). So there’s almost no better combination – aside, of course, from raspberry and coke – than the annual most-watched YouTube video list.

The Advertising Standards Authority has given Telecom a smack on the hand, partially upholding a complaint that was laid by its feisty new competitor 2degrees about misleading advertising in its XT brochures.

The second installment of Media Mingle, Mingle Bells, took place last week in the dark, underground lair at Clooney. There was quail in spoons, there was champagne in flutes, there were nametags on chests and there were numerous jovial media types engaging in some hearty festive mingling.

It’s not too often you see the words colon, poo and bowel-movements on a press package. And it’s particularly rare when that press package relates to a new breakfast cereal.

Christmas is a time of family, binge-eating and falling asleep in the ambrosia at 3pm. But for some of our fellow beasts, as you can see in the Save the Children fund’s top-notch stop motion Animal Love dating video, Christmas often just enhances their crushing loneliness.

Auckland gelato store Giapo is “in business to put a smile on children’s faces”. But Gianpaolo Grazioli, the store’s founder, is attempting to raise $10,000 for 300 kids who can’t make it to the store this year because they have to spend Christmas in the Starship Hospital.

Just over a year ago, The Wine Vault would have been categorised as your traditional, conservative, small New Zealand business. Its marketing tactics consisted of leaflet drops, direct mail campaigns, a monthly email to the customer database and a few fairly unsuccessful radio ads. But owner Jayson Bryant changed all that when he decided to dive head-first into the then-nascent world of social media retailing in New Zealand.

‘They’ say it’s never been done in New Zealand—a wedding planned entirely via social media. But Orewa bride-to-be Pauline Stockhausen has vowed to use only suppliers she has met through Twitter, Facebook and the like for her March nuptials, and Waiwera Thermal Resort has jumped on board, offering a reception venue and spa makeover in return for frequent mentions on her blog.

Sochi 2014 recently launched its new brand, emblem and tagline (‘Gateway to the Future’) for the winter Olympics, introducing the first ever Olympic Games emblem that also forms a web address.

Clemenger’s Alphabet Soup will merge with Raydar, starting January 2010.

Monteith’s new website Worth Talking Over aggregates all the things Kiwis are yakking about online, making it easier for you to figure out what to discuss at the dinner party.

In a move likely to bring plague, pestilence and horrible smoting upon the land (but a smile to the dial of Richard Dawkins), an atheist group has launched a campaign to raise $10,000 for “ads carrying atheist and humanist messages on buses in major NZ cities, encouraging Kiwis to think critically about their beliefs”.

DNA design have just launched the first issue of their new online publication Open, “a forum for exploring what’s happening in the evolving world of consumers”.

Westpac Australia recently raised the interest rate on its variable mortgages by nearly twice the level of the Reserve Bank’s increase, to the chagrin of many of its ever-poorer customers. So, it decided to release a patronising little animation entitled Cool Bananas to justify the decision.