Air New Zealand is well aware of integral this environment is in terms of attracting tourists to New Zealand, which is evidenced by the airline throwing its weight behind the Department of Conservation (DOC) in recent years (the partnership is worth about $1 million annually). And this partnership continued last week with the release of a new video clip by creative agency True promoting the Great Walk programme. PLUS: experience the Great Walks through Google’s street view.

Vodafone’s Keith the postie and piggy Sue celebrate Christmas.

Recently, ASB re-developed Kashin the money box to bring it in line with the increasingly cashless society. And for its latest campaign in support of St John, the bank is keeping the focus on children by telling the story of an animated toy ambulance saving a solitary teddybear lying in the garden.

News outlets are increasingly experimenting with virtual reality in a bid to bring viewers closer to the action. Henry Oliver looks at some of best examples of the news being experienced rather than read or watched.

Every year, Canada’s Strategy Magazine asks local agencies to indulge in some creative self-flagellation to celebrate its agency of the year awards. Last year, there were riffs on vending machine stunts, the industry’s culture of long hours and many other advertising-specific issues. And this year is no different, with fun poked at everything from brands co-opting female empowerment to the ridiculousness of “spec” work to the benefits of early targeting.

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

Like all forms of traditional media, photography has also been rocked by the digital age, leaving those who ply this trade in a very uncertain position. And while it’s relatively easy to now access photography of just about anything, a new campaign from Canon shows the important role good photography can still play in telling stories.

Industry happenings at RNZ, Tangible Media, Ogilvy & Mather, ASB, MediaWorks, Reel Factory, Google, Lightbox, Porter Novelli and Nielsen.

After Craig Herbison was appointed as BNZ’s chief marketing officer in 2011, his first big act was to launch the new brand platform in the form of a polarising, existential teaser campaign that asked whether money was good or bad (answer: neither, it’s what you make of it that counts). Since then he’s made ‘Be Good with Money’ a central pillar of the business and around one year ago, he was promoted to director of retail banking and marketing. So, after saying goodbye to the Airpoints scheme and launching another confronting campaign about the perils of not planning ahead, are the marketing efforts paying dividends?

Following a pitch process involving four agencies, New Zealand Police has appointed Ogilvy & Mather as its lead agency to drive its recruitment campaigns.

Speaker geeks are perpetually dissatisfied, constantly tinkering with their audio systems to get that perfect sound. And now, Sonos has thrown them a bone by releasing an automatic speaker tuning app that takes some of the grunt work out of the process.

Depending on your viewpoint, Facebook is set to get either creepier or more effective because the social media giant has announced the introduction of photo recognition to its popular Messenger app.

Several weeks ago, Lightbox released a research claiming that one in five people were likely to drop their Sky subscription following the Rugby World Cup. From the outset, it was clear that Lightbox was having a go at Sky and looking to win subscribers from the paid TV broadcaster. And although Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock said the emphasis on Sky was simply a by-product of the research, there’s little or no ambiguity in terms of which who Lightbox is referring to in its latest TVC. PLUS: Niblock calls for the industry work on portraying ‘binge-watching’ in a more positive light.

Burgers are so hot right now and weirder and more wonderful offerings at popular events like Wellington on a Plate’s ‘Burger Wellington’ competition have shown the levels of experimentation burger eaters are willing to indulge. These gentrified consumer tastes have given rise to the ‘better burger’ movement, a niche occupied by chains like Burger Fuel and Burger Wisconsin and popular restaurants like Auckland’s Burger Burger. Even that bastion of standardised beef and cheese, McDonald’s, has announced moves to posh up their burgers by allowing customers to create their own. But ‘bourgeois burgery’ has now moved to the humble Kiwi BBQ, if the entries to Tip Top’s ‘Build a Better Burger Challenge’ are anything to go by.

Those working in marketing, advertising and media are generally suckers for a new trend and live in constant fear that are somehow behind the times. Like magpies, they swoop around, find shiny things to take back to their nests and regularly attack cyclists. Many are betting big on virtual reality being the next big platform and a range of brands—from Samsung’s live-streamed birth to Jaguar NZ’s recent ‘actual reality’ stunt—have jumped on that bandwagon recently. The New York Times has also embraced it (with the help of Google Cardboard) and sees it a nascent form of storytelling, but The New Yorker is slightly less convinced the technology will be able to improve the reading experience, as the very funny video about its ‘mind-blowing virtual reality experience’ shows.

Data is, as they say, big. It’s everywhere. We’re all creating it all the time. And within all the data are stories. Millions and millions of stories. And to help us make sense of those stories, a new breed of data visualisation from the likes of Pitch Interactive’s Wes Grubbs has arisen to deepen and broaden our understanding of the world around us. PLUS: some of our favourite data visualisations.

Last night, the Fair Go team headed to the Cityworks depot in Auckland to host the 2015 edition of the Fair Go Ad Awards in the space occupied by the Food Truck. And at this year’s edition Hyundai ‘get lost’ spot earned the wooden spoon, while Lotto Powerball’s ‘Imagine’ spot earned the most votes.

Globally, eSports is surprisingly big (at least to non-gamers). And, with news that a local tournament is set to come to a Sky TV pop-up channel, it’s starting to gain traction in New Zealand. At this stage, MyRepublic has put its name on the hoardings, but sponsors are few and far between for the local event and it’s not clear if Sky will sell advertising around it. But due to the growing popularity of eSports among the hard to reach younger (and predominantly male) demographics, it is starting to attract interest from major brands, including Snickers, which recently punked thousands of people on the gaming platform Twitch.tv.

It’s not Christmas without carols, trees and ads. And while New Zealand retail brands aren’t going as large as those in the UK, whose Christmas campaigns tend to be looked forward to and often clock up views in the millions, there are signs that things might be heading in a more emotional direction here too.