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2015 Magazine Media Awards: NZ Life & Leisure takes top honour, Bauer lands biggest haul and Ben Fahy claims all the credit
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Last night, laptops across the magazine industry were closed a little earlier than usual as journalists, publishers, editors and sales people headed to Shed 10 to attend the 2015 Magazine Media Awards to celebrate another year of storytelling across print and online. 44 awards were handed out over the course of the event, and it was a particularly good night for NZ Life & Leisure and StopPress/NZ Marketing’s Ben Fahy.

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Collect your own (magazine)! Get the good oil on the best in the business with NZ Marketing’s awards special
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The country’s best marketing thinking and execution was recognised last week at the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards. All subscribers to NZ Marketing magazine should have received their personalised copy of the latest edition (and hopefully popped out the perforated ‘collectables’ featured on the cover). Inside you can find out why Jules Lloyd-Jones, Sam Forrest, Theresa Gattung, Chorus, Data Insight, Douglas Pharmaceuticals, Farmers Trading Company, Health Promotion Agency, Independent Liquor, Land Rover New Zealand, MediaWorks, Mitre 10, New Zealand Automobile Association, World Vision, Refresh Renovations, Sky City Auckland, Slingshot, Tait Communications and Westpac/Air New Zealand were victorious. And these case studies offer marketers of all stripes plenty of lessons worth replicating.

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From the newspaper to the computer screen: what are the benefits of online comics?
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The rise of the digital has disrupted many aspects of life: from the way we research, to the way we contact one another, to the way we lock our houses. The disruption of newspapers and magazines is common knowledge, and this in turn has affected the way cartoonists work. Over the years the Sunday funnies page has had less space allocated to the funny and often thought-provoking illustrations and many cartoonists have headed over to the digital realm. One of these is Toby Morris, a cartoonist for RNZ and The Wireless. He tells us how his craft has changed, and how this isn’t such a bad thing. We also chat to fellow cartoonists award-winning Anna Crichton and long time cartoonist Brendon Boughen for their perspective.

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Sven Baker finds a silver lining in rejected flag designs
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Designworks chief executive Sven Baker was at good odds to get one of his designs through to the final four of the Flag Consideration Project given he had five make the first cut. Alas, it was not to be, and after the decision was announced a few days ago, there’s been no shortage of commentary about the chosen options, with ‘lost opportunity’ being the prevailing theme among the design community and the opinionated folk of social media. But rather than wallow in self-pity at the injustice of it all, he decided to make the best of a bad situation. And what better way to drown a few design-related sorrows than with a nice vintage.

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From TV dinners to content jostling, suicide pacts and toilet watchers: Kym Niblock on Lightbox’s first year
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Just over a year ago, various journalists across the industry had a TV dinner delivered to to their homes. In addition to providing a night off cooking for many, this unusual delivery served to announce the launch of Spark’s subscription video on-demand streaming service Lightbox. Since then, TV dinners have been removed from the menu, and Kiwi viewers have instead been feasting on the content offered by service, clocking in 12 million hours of streaming time via the service. The company’s chief executive Kym Niblock talks about the journey thus far.

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Holding a smile
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Seeing someone smile at you is one of life’s great pleasures. And those who can see take that completely for granted. But Listerine and JWT London wanted to find a way to give those who can’t see warm fuzzies (and sell more mouthwash), so it created an app that plays a sound or vibrates when it detects a smile.

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Too cool for burger school
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McDonald’s is having a reasonably rough time of it at the moment, with falling sales in some of its bigger markets and more trouble brewing with those pesky, transparency-seeking, provenance-loving, fast-casual fans known as millennials not really lovin’ it as much as they once did. But it’s trying to change and, as a recent campaign in Australia shows, it’s trying to be ‘very unMcDonald’s’, whether it’s through the launch of premium burgers, new branding, clever packaging or global days of creativity. It’s also looking to recruit digitally savvy staff as it aims to bring “a start-up mindset to one of the world’s largest and most iconic brands” and, in an ad on LinkedIn, it seems to have attempted to illustrate what it thinks those staff might look like.

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It’s business time
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Uber, the ultimate disruptor, proven perhaps by the increasingly frequent reference of other tech innovations being dubbed as “The Uber of [insert tech innovation]”. And, it’s easy to see why. Recent results show Uber for business travel is doing extremely well with several companies jumping aboard the Uber bandwagon/cab.

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Future tense: Stuff’s projects team on visual journalism, reporters working with developers and unusual faces in the newsroom
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Following on from our story on the work of NZ Herald data editor Harkanwal Singh, we recently also got glimpse of some of the work that the Stuff projects team is doing in the data journalism space. Stuff projects editor John Hartevelt chats about why the newsroom will become increasingly occupied by specialists not traditionally associated with journalism.

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All hail Victoria: iSite claims a victory in outdoor space race with country’s biggest digital billboard
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There’s plenty of action in the outdoor space at the moment, with yet more consolidation, a major new arrival and a continuing focus on developing digital out-of-home networks. And now iSite Media’s got a big new toy to play with, switching on its 8m wide x 16m high digital billboard in the Auckland CBD that has taken the crown as the nation’s largest.

Movings & Shakings
Executive shuffle: NZME announces two senior appointments; Fraser leaves MediaWorks—UPDATED
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This week has seen an executive shuffle at two of the nation’s major media players. Following on from reports that MediaWorks group head of revenue Liz Fraser had resigned from her post to take up a new position at Air New Zealand, NZME has today announced the appointment of Laura Maxwell as its group head of revenue and Sandra King as general manger of market solutions.

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ANZ muscles into the rugby limelight with its Dream Big initiative
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During the Cricket World Cup, ANZ used its Dream Big initiative to get cut-through the marketing noise during the Cricket World Cup. Rather than focusing exclusively on the event, the bank brought its Black Caps sponsorship to life by travelling around the country showing its support for grassroots cricket by upgrading the facilities at various grounds around the country. And now, with the Rugby World Cup fast approaching, ANZ is at it again, this time renovating Waitemata Rugby Club in a new video posted to Facebook. The difference in this instance is that ANZ isn’t even a sponsor of Rugby New Zealand, the All Blacks or the Rugby World Cup.

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It’s a trap
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We all have those friends or know at least one person who only smokes when they drink, who’s a “social smoker” or who will only buy a pack in the weekends. 72and Sunny released an ad tackling the issue of social smoking called ‘It’s a Trap’.

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Turbulent Tweeters and the fickle fallibility of the national memory: the NZ flag saga continues
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Today the Flag Consideration Panel announced the shortlist of the flag designs consisting of four, which eligible voters will rank in the first binding postal referendum later this year. Twitter responses on the matter range from ambivalent, to angry and some of them are, from our view, quite funny. The somewhat heated responses reminds us of other flag designs and national symbols which people loathed to begin with before they became beloved national icons. We take a look at a few examples after sharing some of our favourite tweets on the shortlisted designs.

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Blue September calls on Kiwis to give prostate cancer the finger
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As is often the case with cancer, the sufferer’s chances of recovery are drastically increased by early detection of the disease. However, when it comes to prostate cancer, many men tend to have inhibitions about having the rectal examination necessary to check for prostate abnormalities. For this reason, not-for-profit organisation Blue September has released a confronting message for its 2015 campaign that encourages men to “man up and give prostate cancer the finger”.

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The insurance answer for the tiny dancer
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For anyone who has young children, younger siblings, has some relation to a child or.. who has been a child knows that having children running around a house when there are precious things about can be a major source of anxiety and/or potentially despair. This ad for John Lewis Insurance, featuring a young girl dancing around her house will have you on the edge of your seat, expecting the worst to happen at any moment. But the anxiety is worth it.

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M2 consolidates advertising accounts, appoints Rapp
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Orcon, Slingshot and Flip will come under the creative direction of a single agency, following confirmation that Rapp will take over all three brands. This move brings an end to Orcon’s partnership with Contagion, Slingshot’s with Mr Smith, and Flip’s with Sugar & Partners, and it will also see the PR responsibilities associated with each of the ISPs also redirected to the DDB offices as Mango takes over.

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OMD’s swanky new home
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OMD Group vacated its College Hill premises, its home for over a decade, to shift into a stylish new office space in Mt Eden. Here’s the lowdown on the new space and the thinking behind it.

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Media Munchies: Matt McLean
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TVNZ’s news department has been basking in impressive ratings in recent months. And Matt McLean has been part of the reporting and presenting team for around seven years, moving between Close Up, Breakfast and One News. The 28-year-old shares his love of Buzzfeed quizzes, pop music and TJ Perenara.

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