We all know the story: a duopoly, a gap in the market, products to fit into that gap, a great ad campaign, a much-loved frontman, a truckload of marketing cash, some big award wins, well over 200,000 customers in the first year and plans to take a bit more of its bigger competitors’ market share. The rise of 2degrees has been a pleasure to watch in 2010. So, take it away chief marketing officer Larrie Moore.

He’s one of the main brains behind Social Media Junction, he co-founded Media Mingle, Social Media Club Auckland and the marketing-related Twitter discussion #markchat, and he’s one of those rare creatures, a man working in PR. So here’s what floated—and sank—the boat of Bullet PR’s Alex Erasmus this year.

Clare Morgan, the general manager of marketing at DB Breweries, has been busy ‘inspiring good times’ in 2010, presiding over a massive refresh of the DB Export family, the launch of a new ultra premium beer called Monteith’s Single Source and the efforts to leverage Heineken’s Rugby World Cup sponsorship. And here’s what piqued her interest in the world of marketing this year.

Why work when you could peruse a few end of year lists and gain some marketing inspiration for 2011 instead? Advertising Age has compiled the admittedly quite US centric ‘Book of Tens’ for 2010, which showcases what it deems to be the year’s best creative, best apps, best iPad apps, best magazine covers and coolest out-of-home ideas, among many others. Marketing in the UK has also joined the list party and chosen its favourite moments of 2010. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Check out the year’s most popular YouTube videos (with Paul Henry’s Qantas acceptance speech taking top spot in the New Zealand list and Air New Zealand nabbing second and third spots with Rico and Crazy About Rugby).

In the just released January/February edition of NZ Marketing magazine, we looked back on the year’s biggest events/campaigns/achievements/flops/stoushes and compiled an obligatory—and extremely definitive—end of year list. But we figured it would pay to ask a few more industry high-rollers for their thoughts on the year in marketing. We’ll be posting their responses to our questionnaire over the next week. But to get the ball rolling, watch the opinions fly as Courtney Lambert offers her take on 2010’s goods, bads and uglies.

With less than a month until Christmas the festive retail market could best be described as challenging. The latest consumer confidence survey by ANZ – Roy Morgan suggests most consumers remain cautious about their spending plans this festive season. And, despite personal tax cuts, 38 percent of those surveyed in November said they were worse off financially than a year ago. So now, more than ever, it is essential that our advertising and marketing is effective.

Six international speakers and a range of local big brains from varied marketing and communication backgrounds came together in Auckland this week for the second edition of Social Media Junction and  presented their perspectives on acheiving ROI from social media activity. But ROI is perhaps the wrong phrase to describe what was discussed. With the benefit of hindsight, it was more about content marketing: you’re on social media platforms, but what are you saying, how are you saying it, when are you saying it and are the customers listening and then actually buying or recommending to someone else who buys? Anyway, enough with the questions, here’s what the speakers had to say.

I’m always reluctant to get into discussions about logos because I don’t think I’m overly qualified to talk about them (and because everyone else thinks they are overly qualified to talk about them). Generally, those that bleat the most about logos are those that know the least about marketing; the ones who think branding is a sticker you put on an apple before you export it to Japan. But I feel the need to make a wee exception.

It must be written into our neighbouring country’s constitution that all television commercials promoting the region must include some kind of extremely cheesy musical element. The all singing, all dancing ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ epic by DDB was touch and go, but it’s Queensland, the same province that brought the world the amazing, multi-award-winning ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign, that really deserves to be taken to task, because it is responsible for two of the biggest toe curlers in recent memory. 

“They are a Saatchi client, they are a Colenso client, they are a DDB client”. I hear this all the time from ad agencies and I hate to break it to you, but the deep romance you have with your peacock, trophy brands is often not reciprocated.

Trinity P3’s founder and chief ‘pitch doctor’ Darren Woolley was one of more than 30 agency management consultants and search company representatives who attended the AdForum CEO Summit in New York last week and found out where the advertising industry was heading and how the agencies were taking it there. The consultants represented more than 530 agency searches each year, or the equivalent of $9 billion in billings, from marketers around the globe looking to find agencies with the right chemistry for their needs. And here’s what he learned from the six day conflab.

One of the most successful people in New Zealand social media was on telly last week. On 60 Minutes, even, a little global current affairs franchise you may have heard of. He doesn’t have an American accent and he doesn’t have an iPhone. You’ll all know him but not all of you will like him: Cameron Slater aka Whaleoil.