As Bonnie Prince Willy jaunts around New Zealand on his regal tour with around 60 foreign journalists capturing his every forced smile and hoping he’ll spill tomato sauce on his suit at the upcoming governmental barbecue, much has been written about the value to ‘brand New Zealand’ in terms of the positive exposure his jet-lag infused trip will generate.

Shocking results from further in-depth studies conducted over the summer break by the diligent researchers at Dresden’s Bikini Institute prove that fictional studies from late 2009 were correct: StopPress readers are in fact far superior to their peers in almost every conceivable way and also haven’t put on any weight over Christmas.

Lemonade, “a film about 16 advertising professionals who lost their jobs and found their calling,” encourages people to listen to that little voice inside their head that asks ‘What if?

Fairfax Media, publisher of stuff.co.nz has appointed journalist and blogger Greer McDonald, who has been a news reporter specialising in online issues at The Dominion Post for the last two years, as its first social media editor.

Over the holidays, when you weren’t eating sausages, perfecting your extreme hammocking or tipping a car on its roof and setting it on fire while giving the cops the fingers to celebrate the new year, you may have laid your peepers on this cougar viral that was created by the team at Grabaseat.

Music composition and audio production company Soundtrax and music supervision and licensing company Mana Music have merged and will now offer composition, music supervision and licensing and audio post services under one roof. 

The new year has been rung in, and so have changes to the nzherald.co.nz team, with a new recruit and an increased focus on direct advertising sales.

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.