Wrestler founder Ben Forman attends the Forbes 30 under 30 summit in Hong Kong, and comes back with a new dream for New Zealand.

Colenso BBDO head of transformation Edwin Rozells looks into how client marketers can improve their customer experience efforts with the open customer architecture.

Graham Medcalf takes a look at the week that was, covering 25 years of digital advertising, agency/client relationships and understanding audiences.

Graham Medcalf takes a look at the week that was, covering the future of OTT, the spending power of the iGeneration, competitors taking their competition to the ASA, and brand safety across different categories.

A few weeks ago I left agency land for a dip into the real world. It’s been a refreshing combination of digital cold turkey, road trips back and forth between Auckland and Northland, and the peace, calm and tranquility of being underwater. As I came up for air last week I realised that back in agency land it was Cannes week. While I’m sure there was a lot of back-slapping for ideas well made in France, I encountered a couple of ideas closer to home that made me take notice—despite all attempts to continue my advertising detox—and deserve a nod of approval.

I had the privilege of serving on the Direct jury at Cannes this year and learned a lot about what made the winners worthy of hauling extra luggage home this year. So I thought I’d share what I learned with anyone who would quite like a return on that not insignificant investment.

Gray Matters: Using music in advertising, the future of radio, where to next on social media, and taking sexism out of the industry.

It probably seems weird to publish a piece titled like this after such a successful Beacons recently, but I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last four years. Some of them were unavoidable (but taught me a lesson), some should have been avoided. Almost without exception, these happen because of rushing, or lack of process. Hopefully, this article will help you to avoid making the same mistakes – and remind me to repeat them a little less often too.

Graham Medcalf takes a look at the week that was, covering stereotypes in advertising,

Wendy Thompson is the founder and CEO of the successful social media marketing agency Socialites, and has 16 years’ digital marketing experience in some of New Zealand’s top advertising agencies. However. that doesn’t mean she hasn’t made her fair share of mistakes in her career. Here, in her typically colourful way, she shares four mistakes she’s learnt from all her years in business – and the important lessons she learnt from them.

Graham Medcalf takes a look at the week that was, covering accuracy in research, communicate to a socially-conscious younger market, and geo-marketing.

Ben Rose, general manager of newspapers at Stuff, reflects on discussions about the future journalism and business models for print at the World News Media Congress.

Graham Medcalf takes a look at the week that was, covering magazines and paywalls, influencers and objectives, the privacy act, and artificial intelligence taking over marketing.

Michael Goldthorpe, Hunch managing partner, on Volkswagen’s latest campaign.

Graham Medcalf takes a look at the week that was, covering the definition of masculinity, the link between sex and hygiene products, political advertising and mood tracking.

Amber Conroy, PHD business director, asks: How do we continue to evolve our creativity and ideas at the same rate as the industry we work in?

Competitions are frequently used by brands on social media, so we wanted to dig a little deeper to investigate whether they are truly effective at driving engagement.