As part of its new season launch, TVNZ announced the impending introduction of a short-form platform called OnDemand Shorts, which will be housed with the overarching TVNZ OnDemand offering and feature three- to five-minute video clips. And the broadcaster’s looking to collaborate with advertisers to fill the new platform with content.
After an intensive judging process that saw entries scrutinised by 200 preliminary judges and 70 category judges, CAANZ has announced a shortlist of 99 finalists for the 2015 New Effie Awards. Leading the pack this year is Colenso BBDO with 24 nominations across the 15 categories in the award ceremony this year. This is followed by FCB with 17, Saatchi & Saatchi with ten, DDB with eight, JWT and Barnes Catmur & Friends with five apiece, and .99/JustOne with four.
Over the past few years YouTube celebrities and content creators have become a great platform for advertisers to market through. The target market already actively seeks out the material, so all they need to do is weave a bit of marketing magic into the content and see themselves put in front of a million pairs of eyes. Here’s New Zealand’s top 10 subscribed-to accounts making waves over the interwebs.
We’ve seen a few clever queue hacking campaign ideas in recent years, from Samsung’s Smartphone Line to Spark’s Emoji Queue. And Spark’s employed 3D printing technology for what it’s calling the world’s smallest queue for the world’s biggest phone launch.
While e-commerce only contributes a small percentage of sales to the overall revenue of the retail industry, Ogilvy managing director Paul Manning argues the influence of digital can’t be emphasised enough. With shoppable content, personalisation and real-time customer service becoming increasingly common, digital touchpoints often serve as important links to the final purchase—and this is only set to become more prominent as the industry evolves.
Kenyan javelin thrower Julius Yego recently won a gold medal at the IAAF World Athletics Championships event with a mammoth throw of 92.72m. Having already won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games, the All Africa Games and African Championships, this recent victory confirmed Yego’s talent in a full field of international talent.
When former Saatchi & Saatchi boss and ICG executive director Mike Hutcheson decided to do a master’s thesis on New Zealand creativity, he didn’t want to produce an unreadable 60,000-word treatise. Instead he used interviews with four senior New Zealand business leaders – former Saatchi colleague Kevin Roberts, Les Mills International chief executive Phillip Mills, Hobbiton director and ex-Tourism NZ head George Hickton, and Innovation Council chief executive Louise Webster – to put together a 30-minute video examining the paradox that New Zealanders come up with great ideas and largely fail to commercialise them. But the attitude that creates the problem may also be part of its solution, he says.
And as was the case at last year’s Brandcast event, Google again spared no expense as it put on an elaborate affair aimed at selling YouTube and the content creators to those who hold the purse strings in the industry.
We’ve all had it. You’re having a nice relaxing evening at home after a busy day, and then you hear it. The dreaded door knock. You think, ‘But I’m not expecting anyone’. Then you open the door to see someone standing there, smiling nervously, clipboard in hand before they start awkwardly or over-enthusiastically bumbling through their speech on how you should switch internet provider, switch power company or switch religion. As you stare at them trying to look earnest, nodding and lapping up a healthy dose of second-hand apprehension and embarrassment you think to yourself, why must doorknockers exist? Power company Energy Online, which has vowed not to have doorknockers, has released an ad showing the most ideal doorknocking scenario.
iSite Media has invested heavily in its own measurement and planning tools over the past few years, with its efforts to provide better targeting and planning tools for buses in 2013 earning it a host of awards and some new customers. And now it’s applying a similar model to billboards.
From handjob karaoke to human tetris to the crazy screaming man, the Japanese are renowned for making some pretty mad TV. And now that madness has come to New Zealand, with Japanese variety/documentary show Unbelievable finding inspiration in Land Rover and Y&R’s Valentine’s Day campaign from earlier this year.
While not rational by any stretch of the imagination, superstition is an integral part of sporting culture. And as the World Cup approaches, fans across the country will dust off their lucky trinkets and get them ready for the biggest tournament in the rugby calendar. However, these magical items aren’t only pulled out during big sporting events. When we need luck, they’re also dragged from the dark recesses of our wardrobes and put to good use. And in quirky new spot, ASB has through Saatchi & Saatchi poked fun at the tradition of rugby fans to wear their lucky jerseys during important events.
We often hear about the good work celebrities are doing for charities and communities, but it’s quite rare that we get the opportunity to celebrate those who are out there, unrecognised, doing good deeds every day. To celebrate these individuals, Genesis Energy has released a heart-warming new campaign through .99 which praises the “ordinary, yet extraordinary” things these unsung heroes are doing in our local communities.
There’s been plenty of ink and a fair bit of fury dedicated to yesterday’s launch of scout.co.nz, MediaWorks’ first digital-only brand and joint venture with gossipmonger Rachel Glucina. Most of that seemed to be of the ‘please God, tell me it isn’t so, we are all doomed’ variety. And while many believe the media’s focus on celebrity and entertainment—and the takedown culture often associated with it—is bad for society, Glen Kyne, director of integrated content at MediaWorks, is right when he says it’s also bloody popular. So how is the site going to make money? And how did it perform on its first day?
Living in the relative safety of a western democracy means that we are often disconnected from the struggles of those living in war-torn regions. Because we don’t see or experience the suffering on a daily basis, we don’t often feel the need to act against it. So, in an effort to bring the plight of Syrian refugees home to Australians, Amnesty International has released a new mobile-based campaign that illustrates what little choice those in these situations often have.
Blue Cross, an organisation which specialises in rehoming and veterinary help for pets as well as education on how to care for them, has released a new spot, featuring a neglected dog who sings a heart-warming version of ‘I will survive’.
Funky dancers, inflatable orcas, Viking lightning swords and lucky jerseys are thrown into the mix as Kiwibank, Genesis Energy, Cure Kids and ASB get creative this week.
The Alternative Commentary Collective aka the ACC who made a name for themselves after commentating on the ICC Cricket World Cup earlier this year have struck back, this time to report on the Rugby World Cup 2015 and have teamed up with Jockey as part of its ‘Lucky Jockeys’ campaign to find an eighth member of the collective to join the current crew in London.
For some time now, reporting on the newspaper results has been a repetitive exercise of commenting on the downward trends in the print industry. Each time the results come out, it again confirms that the print is in decline. Rather predictably, the latest slew of results again told a similar story. However, despite all the doomsday prophesying in the industry, there were a handful of standout papers that bucked the overall trend and successfully managed to lift their readership results. And none more so than the Otago Daily Times.
In the first instalment of a series that showcases how some of the winners from this year’s Magazine Media Awards are adapting to the modern era and helping advertisers grow their businesses, Ben Fahy talks to Kate Coughlan, editor of the supreme magazine of the year, NZ Life & Leisure.
Late last week Cure Kids’ campaign consisting of a video clip for a song, dubbed Team, Ball, Player, Thing as a fight against Batten disease and a Rugby World Cup sendoff featuring, well, pretty much every New Zealand celebrity blew up, with news of the clip dotted all over the internet. Cure Kids and Augusto worked tirelessly on the campaign and faced some big challenges (like not having all of the featured celebs in the same room when filming, for instance). Here’s a look behind the scenes to see how this enormous project came together.
Brushing aside strong competition from the Australian metropolitan publications, the New Zealand Herald has been judged the Newspaper of the Year at the annual Pacific Area Newspapers Publishers’ Association (Panpa) awards. PLUS: Jared Savage wins Hegarty Award and Fairfax also picks up a few gongs.
For a small country New Zealand fared well at the Spikes Asia awards held late last week, winning Spikes in most categories, with DDB bringing home two Grand Prix awards and Colenso BBDO bringing home one, as well as winning ‘Agency of the Year’. Here’s a rundown of the NZ wins.
Most people have that private dance that they turn on when no one is looking. It’s generally typified by an awkward shuffle that stutters its way across the floor to the beat of whatever sound might be playing in the background. Music is optional, and in most cases the elaborate dance moves are brought to a neck-breaking halt if any spectators—beyond the most trusted—suddenly appear on the scene. However, over the last year, Kiwibank has through its ‘Indepen-dance’ campaign given these private dance moves the exposure they deserve. And for the latest iteration of the campaign, the bank has turned to its employees for content.
The difference between consumers’ claimed behaviour and actual behaviour is often vast. And while marketers like to have concrete data to make plans, Andrew Lewis thinks they need to become better at observing customer behaviour.
As a still-nascent format, digital video can be a confusing realm for brands to navigate. So do you need it? And if you do, then what? Facebook video or YouTube? Long form or short form? DIY or through a production or media company? Pre-roll, in-feed, standalone or the whole kit and kaboodle? Once you’ve built it, will they come? And if they do come, how do you measure success? Fortunately, we’ve gathered together a gang of big brains to answer those questions, guide you through some of the trends and help you get better results at an event on Tuesday September 22.
Anchor recently released a black milk bottle to differentiate itself in the aisle (and show its support for the All Blacks, because nothing else matters and because it got back together with the national team after an 80-ish year delay). We cast our eye to the darkest corners of the internet to find some other dairy-based promotions attempting to stand out. They say dairy gives you weird dreams, so perhaps these marketers overdosed on the products they were attempting to sell.
As the All Blacks depart to defend the Webb Ellis cup in the UK, the nation is gearing up for a few weeks of early morning code watching. It’s obviously a pretty big deal for a rugby-loving nation and, as we saw during the Cricket World Cup, the clicks are likely to follow. But the Herald might be taking it a bit far with the branding of its rugby hub, which is sponsored by—who else?—Steinlager. Syrian refugee crisis? Pfffffff.
As has increasingly become clear, content marketing is an effective, progressive and less intrusive way of reaching an audience. The modern audience has less time for shouty or obvious tactics. We’ve grown smarter, wiser and more distracted with a myriad of content options to consume, particularly the millennial audience, which is spending less and less time in front of the television. While perhaps a few years ago it would have been hard to see it coming, banks have gotten very good at employing content marketing tactics, particularly when targeting a younger audience. We thought we’d take a look at a few examples from the main players.
Changes at Ikon, AMP, Hypermedia, Publicity PR and Southern Discoveries.