News
Merger mania: promising pairs that came unstuck
With the Commerce Commission ruling against an NZME/Fairfax merger, we take a look back at some instances where a merger hasn’t quite worked out for the best.
Get the latest direct to your inbox twice a week. Sign up today.
News
Disappointment from Fairfax and NZME executives as merger fails
As the Commerce Commission announced this morning that it would not approve the merger between NZME and Fairfax New Zealand, the heads of both organisations published official statements expressing their disappointment at the decision. We look at how it all went down.
Opinion
Anarchy in the New Zealand media landscape
Amidst the sea of change sweeping over the media industry, the Commerce Commission has the temerity to stand like King Canute – doing its best to thwart the waves of progress by saying ‘no’ to mergers like this one, writes JustOne’s Ben Goodale.
Opinion
Why the social feed is the future of TV
Receptive.tv director Sam Aldred reckons that the growing prominence of live video on social feeds will play an important role in defining the future of broadcast television (despite all the controversies concerning extreme footage).
News
Park like a dick? Prepare to be ‘dicketed’
Fed up with the depressingly low quality of parking on our streets, two FCB creatives have launched their own form of flesh coloured justice.
News
ASA’s annual ad spend figures return after one-year hiatus (with a few changes)
After choosing not to release advertising revenue figures last year, the Advertising Standards Authority has changed its methodology and released reports for 2015 and 2016 to show digital, in all forms, is where the growth is.
News
VMO launches first outdoor programmatic ad, industry experts respond
Val Morgan Outdoor has launched its programmatic offering in New Zealand, with Subway serving as the guinea pig. We ask programmatic experts Richard Thompson and Zane Furtado what they think about the move.
News
Art for the concrete jungle
For most of us city dwelling folk, Phantom Billstickers’ much-lauded Poetry Project—the poster company’s ongoing mission to have verbal inspiration dotted around unassuming urban settings—has become a familiar and welcome sight. Now, with the Phantom Art Project, the company’s looking to extend the initiative’s ethos to showcase the best of local visual talent.
News
Ads of the Week: 2 May
The Green Party, Electrolux, Survivor New Zealand and Spark Lab show us how it’s done.
News
Cannes Young Lions 2017: DDB and FCB creatives heading to the Riviera in June
Two teams of young local creatives will be jetting off to Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity to represent New Zealand in the next round of the Young Lions competition after Val Morgan New Zealand announced the winners of its National Young Lions competition at an awards show last week.
Opinion
Damon Stapleton: Judging D&AD, the hustle and strive
Damon Stapleton argues that you never go to D&AD expecting to win a pencil. And that’s exactly what makes the show special.
News
Electrolux returns to TV for first time in six years
Electrolux Vacuums NZ has returned to local TV for the first time in six years with a local campaign pulled together by project strategist Daniel Piper with creative directors Guy Johnson and Phil Parsonage.
News
2016 Winners
The TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards were held on Thursday 1 September 2016 at The Langham, Auckland. See all the 2016 winners here.
Opinion
David Storey shares a few of his favourite things
As part of its Design Month, Idealog picked the brains of some of the most interesting individuals in the industry to find out their favourite design-related things, their not-so-secretive side hustles and what inspires them creatively. Here’s Insight Creative’s David Storey.
News
The bulletproof poster
With US gun laws not strong enough to protect the country’s citizens from gun violence, Ogilvy & Mather Chicago has created a bulletproof poster to do the job.
Opinion
Nick McFarlane on Hunting the Killer Idea
How hard is it to write a book, exactly? What about one that’s about how to harness your best ideas? FCB Senior designer and author of the book Hunting the Killer Idea Nick McFarlane explains the highs and lows of the creative process of writing a book about creativity (creativity-ception). Plus: Win one of three copies of his book up for grabs – see below for how to enter.
News
Fan with your phone
Burger King Israel is getting into the spirit of Israeli Independence Day by giving its fans some barbeque practice via their phones.
News
A virtual car yard: Land Rover creates immersive SUV experience
Virtual reality technology has recently emerged as the shiny new tool for marketers and Land Rover has jumped on the trend to sell its SUVs before they’ve even arrived in the country.
Partner articles
Designing the future from paradise
Rolling waves rather than a sea of traffic have proven an inspiring backdrop to the changing tides of the design industry for Bay of Plenty agency, Woods.
News
TVNZ rolls out Survivor with a burst of contemporary style
With Survivor New Zealand set to hit screens on 7 May, TVNZ has released another round of its campaign with a colourful, energetic video via TVNZ Blacksand, as well as unveiling the contestants. We chat to executive creative director Jens Hertzum about giving the local format a contemporary and fun feel.
News
‘Straight from the heart, no bullshit’: Double Denim and Jarred Bishop talk rebranding the Green Party
Product and company rebrands are an almost-daily occurrence across the industry, but redesigning a political party is a rarer task, usually restricted to an election year. And as Double Denim and designer Jarred Bishop recently learnt, tinkering with a political brand carries great weight.
News
Quantcast is on a mission to shift ad placement from human hands to AI algorithms
As Quantcast opens an office in Auckland, the company’s founder Konrad Feldman talks to us about why machines rather than humans will determine where ads are placed in the future.
News
The Compendium: 28 April
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
News
Raydar CEO Darryl McClay to step down
Darryl McClay, longtime CEO of shopper marketing agency Raydar, will be leaving the agency at the end of June. Managing director Troy Fuller has been announced as his replacement.
News
Swipe right for Sudan
Been on Tinder lately and come across a white rhino? Don’t be fooled, that’s not what New Zealand blokes look like. The profile is a campaign to save Sudan, the world’s last male white rhino.
News
D&AD 2017: Allbirds, DDB and The Sweet Shop among local winners
Last night in London, local agencies showed off their talent at the D&AD Awards to win 12 pencils, including five Graphite Pencils and seven Wood.
Partner articles
Finding Z: the generation to fit them all
Demographics are dead. Or, at the very least, they’re no longer accurate. And the reason for that, writes Ben Reid, creative director at design agency Milk, is because consumers are no longer willing, or even able to be boxed into predictable generational sets of traits.
News
Spark Lab shows off its mentoring expertise in new campaign
Spark Lab is on a mission to show that it offers more than just events, so it’s pulled in Sir Ray Avery, Dame Rosanne Meo, Dr Michelle Dickinson (aka Nano Girl) and Eat my Lunch co-founder Lisa King for a new campaign to demonstrate the leadership and mentoring that’s on offer to businesses that get involved.
News
Nocturnal cultural observations from the dance floor
TRA consultant Vanisha Narsey shares her experiences of Auckland’s nightlife to examine how we meet people, react to storytelling and why customer experiences matter.
News
Survey: Qrious looks to gauge the mood of marketers
Spark’s data analytics subsidiary Qrious has launched a new survey aimed at looking at the issues marketers are most concerned about.