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.

Michael Bay, the typically over the top director whose filmic style is probably best described as oversexed soap-operatic with explosions has taken it to a new level of cheese with his new Victoria’s Secret commercial, tongue and cheekily (we hope) referencing the teasing movie trailers he’s so adept at creating.

When two worlds collide, bad/cringey/entertaining things usually happen, as the exclamation mark-laden, uber-tech geek Christmas message from HP and its PR agency Acumen Republic shows.

Rejoice anachronists! It’s 8 December, much more commonly known as pretend to be a time traveller day, so be not afraid if you happen to come across any Victorian gentlemen, dystopian warriors, robot butlers or maybe even workers flying home on their jetpacks this evening.

The official release has been sent and no-one’s particularly surprised with its content: Clemenger Group has appointed Nick Garrett as managing director of Colenso BBDO, beginning 1 March 2010.

Eighty Kiwi marketing heavyweights (and a few lowly journalists) ventured to the floating pavilion in Auckland yesterday for a cup of tea and numerous pearls of wisdom that were delivered by a host of marketing thought leaders as part of the Marketing Association’s inaugural marketing forum.

Carat New Zealand has delivered a digital media first in the New Zealand market by creating a new campaign for Tourism Australia entitled ‘Short Breaks’.

As we all know, ’tis been a season of flux and upheaval in adland. And the Colenso stable will have a distinctly different look to it in the new year.

The Christmas ads were all-pervasive this week, with plenty of new, mostly terrible albums on the stocking stuffer ad agenda. And Coke’s summer campaign also kicked off. Big, dumb fun in the water, just like the old days. Look how much fun those virile, tanned young things are having splashing their sticky beverages over each other!

In our semi-non-regular (regular?) hexagonally-themed question and answer section devoted to helping you find out more about some of the Heppest Cats in the Kiwi marcomms industry, we go in for the probe with Nick Fracture.

Esquire magazine recently released its new ‘augmented reality’ December issue. Readers were implored to download an app and then hold their magazine up to a webcam to make Robert Downey Jr (an appropriate subject given his well-publicised penchant for reality augmentation in the past) come to over-excited life. There’s also a weather-dependent fashion portfolio, a time-sensitive updated Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman and a few other slick features on offer.

Extreme sports aficionados, ravers, sugary-drink loving youngsters and other NZ Herald readers will soon be getting their mits on the The Red Bulletin, a self-styled “almost independent” monthly lifestyle magazine that covers music, art, culture, society and sport.

Auckland film-maker and critic Lewis Bostock is aiming big by thinking small: he’s trying to create the largest collaborative film ever made.

In June last year there was a blaze of publicity surrounding Flossie.com, a female-centric masthead that brought together the ‘best of the best’ female focused websites. But the blaze has well and truly subsided, advertising reality has bitten and Flossie Media Group has now decided to turn its back on the display advertising model.

Our generous friends at Perceptive have developed a website that aims to provide “a growing hub of intelligence for Kiwi marketers”. And they’re offering StopPress readers a chance to get a free taste of the insightful action.