New Zealand cycle brand Avanti has given its logo a makeover, via Onfire Design, for the first time since the ’90s.

Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things, inspiring things and other things from inside the intertubes.

The news earlier this week that Air New Zealand would pull out of Fly Buys led to a stream of commentary on what this meant not only for the nation’s largest loyalty programme but also for the loyalty industry in general.

Jim Beam has ambushed the iPhone 7 launch by taking a leaf out of Apple’s book to announce its own product innovation – an Apple Watch.

Slingshot has unveiled a quirky new TVC where it promotes its fibre offering for the first time, having previously focused on promoting its DSL products. And elsewhere in broadband land, Stuff Fibre has launched today, providing a fibre-only service and further competition in an already contested market.

The New Zealand Blood Service took part in the largest ever global donor recruitment campaign last month, where the letters A and O were removed from logos, brand names and social media accounts to draw attention to the urgent need for more donors. We chat to NZBS National Manager Marketing and Communications, Asuka Burge about the experience rolling out the campaign in New Zealand and what challenges came with it.

Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock announced in an email today that she has resigned, but will stay in her current role until the end of the year.

A Ukrainian campaign encouraging youngsters to quit smoking has taken a ‘show not tell’ approach, by redesigning matches to show the mark cigarettes leave on the lungs.

Vodafone has thrown its weight behind bike safety by trialling a Dutch-developed smart jacket designed for cyclists on local roads. The jacket connects to the cyclist’s smartphone via an app, which, once pre-programmed with a desired travel route, communicates directions to the cyclist and surrounding traffic.

For New Zealanders and folk around the world, this month marks the beginning of Blue September, an initiative launched to raise awareness of prostate cancer. So, to draw attention to the illness the Prostate Cancer Foundation brought aboard a few well-known Kiwis to face their fears for the cause.

Last Friday, Kiwi businesses discarded the suits, ties, high heels and pencil skirts for an entirely different sartorial approach. Across Kiwi offices, we had double denim bogans, Mario and Luigi, superheroes, rockstar bunnies, actual rockstars, book stars and more. All in all, it was a very colourful indication that Kiwis care.

Walk into the average West or South Auckland bar, and you’re unlikely to find your Ponsonby-styled cardboard cut-out, featuring slim-fit jeans, pointy shoes and tailored suit jacket. What you are likely to find are a few Woodstock drinkers, who’ve seen some things in their day. In its first campaign since winning the Independent Liquor account earlier this year, Whybin\TBWA veered away from the traditional advertising trope of conventionally beautiful people to instead celebrate the folks who actually consume Woodies.

If the new Morgan thriller doesn’t scare viewers about AI enough, the fact its trailer was made by a computer might.

Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things, inspiring things and other things from inside the intertubes.

In the first of an irregular series of podcasts where we interview an assortment of highly creative, annoyingly successful and sometimes completely mad humans from across the marketing, media and advertising industries, we’ve set the bar pretty high: Bob Hoffman, AKA The Ad Contrarian.