In the digital world, there are many who talk a good game or have a different digital world-view, says Andrew Hawley. And it’s not until they’re under extreme pressure that you discover the true extent of their capabilities, or lack thereof.
Continue Reading Sports fans nationwide have reason to cheer the latest additions to the Herald as it continues towards becoming the premiere Kiwi destination for rugby…
It’s the 1960s. Four-year-old Craig is sitting alone in a small room staring at a marshmallow. The woman who placed it there has promised she’ll be…
Recently, the One Weather sponsorship served as a pre-roll battleground for major car brands, as Ford touted the superiority of the Ranger over the Hilux through a faux weather reporter moulded on the lovable pie-eater from Toyota’s advertising. The car brands have since put away their monobrows, and Vodafone has now stepped into the One Weather slot—and the telco is also hoping to give its sponsorship a distinctly Kiwi feel (hopefully, without the monobrows).
A rather lonely-seeming chap picks up a wee pup to be his ultimate companion in this Purina Puppy Chow ad created with BuzzFeed which has already had millions of views after being released less than a week ago.
After one accelerator programme, a spell in a start-up incubator and a tonne of two minute noodles, digital venture Mish Guru, which has developed software designed to help businesses get bang for their marketing buck on Snapchat, has a springboard of nearly half a million dollars to break into the US market.
If two recent additions to the Kiwi advertising canon are anything to go by, then it would appear that New Zealanders have difficulty keeping track of the whereabouts of their four-legged co-habitants. Following on from Vodafone’s recent spot chronicling the struggles of a courier driver trying to locate the owner of a piglet named Piggy-Sue, BP is now also pulling at the heartstrings with a 90-second spot (by Ogilvy and Waitemata Films) that shows a motorcyclist going to extreme measures to reunite a bunny with its owner.
While the oldies have plenty of money, many marketers are guilty of pandering to the young. But as life expectancy—and quality of life—rises, Grainne Moss, country manager for Bupa, says marketers are missing a golden opportunity to engage the older demographic, rather than turning a blind eye to the dear old things.
In May, Pedigree launched its new global positioning, ‘Feed the good’, in Brazil and Australia via a pair of ads premised on the idea that dogs help humans be the best versions of themselves. And now, following on from this, the dog food company has launched a US spot, which was developed by Colenso BBDO in collaboration with BBDO New York. And While the gritty imagery in the Australian spot was bold as far as advertising for pet sustenance goes, the US spot is by far the most contentious in its portrayal of the tension that pervades race relations in the United States.
NZ Post has had a rough ride over the past few years as its main revenue source—mail—continued to have its lunch cut by digital communication. That’s resulted in a series of restructures, asset sales and cost-cutting exercises, but necessity is the mother of invention, so those difficulties have also forced it to evolve its business and come up with some new ideas like YouShop and YouPost. The rise of e-commerce is also working in its favour, and it’s the role NZ Post can play as a supplier to business that it’s focusing on for its new brand campaign, You Can.
The New Zealand Book Council has released an ad via Colenso BBDO which shows just how much classic novels can shape the world and inspire those who read them in the lead up to the release of its monthly podcast called Talking Books.
We already know you just can’t beat the Mad Butcher’s meat. Now he’s teamed up with Dick Smith to show you just can’t beat their “mad” consumer electronics deals.
Some estimates suggest that as much as 43 percent of all jobs currently existing will be automated by 2033, leading to millions of people in the workforce having to find new jobs. This obviously puts many of us in an awkward position in that our responsibilities might one day decline into polishing the robot that can do our job much faster and more accurately than what we ever could. So to give workers an indication of how much risk automation poses to them, the National Public Radio (NPR) website has released an interactive web tool that gives visitors an indication of how likely it is that a robot will one day do their jobs.
An ode to John’s last tango. *Camera turn*.
Much like our taste in shoes, haircuts and dairy lollies, our understanding of constitutes the ideal home is very much a matter of personal preference. And although rising house prices has made it quite difficult for homebuyers to afford that perfect abode, Trade Me Property has over the last ten years connected various Kiwis with their dream homes—and, as it turns out, Kiwi tastes can at times be weird and wonderful. So, in celebration of its tenth anniversary, Trade Me Property has launched a digital campaign that showcases six of the most memorable houses that have been sold via site over the last decade.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
John Campbell is leaving the building after tonight’s show. And MediaWorks will be doubling up on farewell sausage rolls because it’s also the last day for head of marketing and publicity Amanda Wilson, who has been with the company for 12 years.
Fairfax yesterday announced that it would be restructuring its business to align it more closely with a “modern newsroom,” which is digital-centric and focused on audiences and content rather than traditional mastheads. This immediately led to interest from all major media outlets and speculation as to how many job cuts the changes could result in.
Following on from the report of two departures at DDB earlier this week—and what DDB says was the unrelated resignation of Chris Riley—we followed up on comments suggesting there were more departures than DDB chief executive Justin Mowday was letting on. He referred us to Rapp managing director Robert Limb, who confirmed the staff count on the third floor of the building would also be going down. PLUS: what changes to the Spark roster might mean for Dynamo.
During the New Zealand Radio Awards, hosts Andrew Mulligan and Bryce Casey shared a series of faux Tweets supposedly posted by a series of celebrities during the event. Prime minister John Key, X Factor NZ host Dominic Bowden and even Queen Elizabeth (or Lizzie as she refers to herself) were victims of Photoshopped Tweets on the night.
The 2015 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards are ready to be collected. So if you feel you’ve performed heroic feats of marketing over the past year, take a leaf out of Vaughan Schwass’ book, submit an entry before the deadline of 5pm today and you could also be Mighty Marketing material. NOTE: Last day for entries.
According to Mary Meeker’s latest report, online attention minutes continue to grow in the US (with mobile now accounting for over half the time spent online). And the gap between attention and ad spend is also starting to close. That trend is evident here too, and the latest IAB/PwC Online Advertising Report showed that the sector generated $180 million in the first quarter of 2015, a 53 percent increase year on year.
In an effort to show drivers that they have an alternative to breathing in exhaust fumes for hours a day, Vespa has released a clever campaign via Y&R Ecuador that feeds an ad onto the Waze navigation app, telling drivers how much faster they would reach their destination if they were on two wheels. While the campaign certainly does make the point that it might be time for drivers to invest in an alternative mode of transport, it will probably also contribute to road rage levels—because let’s face it, there’s nothing quite as annoying as watching motorcyclists effortlessly weave their way through traffic. And knowing that they are reaching their destinations about three days before you do makes it all so much worse.
Content marketing and its dodgy cousin native advertising are big areas of focus for brands and media owners at present. And they’re also big areas of confusion, with no set rules on disclosure and very little data for this market. The IAB NZ’s Standards & Guidelines Council is aiming to change that and has set out on a mission to gauge the level of activity, build a resource on the topic and help educate and showcase what is currently being offered in New Zealand.
To simplify the process of scouring through apps to find the best ones, Spark Digital has introduced a new offering called Spark Digital Apps that gives small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access to the core digital tools they need to run their businesses. StopPress chatted to the recently appointed Spark Digital marketing manager Mark Redgrave about the thinking behind this move.
We live in visual times. We also live in an age of showoffery, where the experiences we now seem to crave over material goods are enhanced through sharing (and social validation). Brands and agencies have figured out a few clever ways of getting in on the rise of user-generated content, whether it’s Instagram printers at events or social media-enabled photobooths, but Hamilton-based app developer Kapja has launched a new app called Biz Brand Cam, which it says is the first fully customisable app of its type available to download directly from the Apple App Store.
Ad avoidance software provider Adblock Plus recently announced that it would be extending its service to mobile devices, leading Sarah Kavanagh, the acting chair of the IAB NZ Mobile Council, to raise a series of concerns about the increasing use of tools designed to dodge ads in the online space. And the extent of the issue on a local level has now been revealed, with Ben Williams, the spokesperson of Eyeo (parent company of Adblock Plus), saying that the company already has 200,000 active users in New Zealand. And, if international trends are anything to go by, then this is only set to increase over the next few years.
The vast majority of ads are an annoyance, and that seems particularly true of the largely ad-funded online realm. How else do you explain the fact that several hundred million people use ad blocking software? But D&AD and BETC Paris have tried to prove that people don’t hate advertising, they just hate bad advertising, with a web browser extension called the Ad Filter.
