American bank BancFirst embraced Steven Adams’ colloquialisms in an ad called ‘Speaking Kiwi with Steven Adams’. And here’s part two.

After the Blackcaps play in the Cricket World Cup final on Sunday, you can be sure there will be a host of print ads congratulating or commiserating the team the following day, as there was when the All Blacks won the Rugby World Cup in 2011. But Ford has got in early with a full-page ad featuring in today’s Herald celebrating the glorious victory over the South Africans and warning Melburnian Mrs Mavis Madrigal to cover her gnomes and azaleas to protect them from flying round objects.

For the third year running, Tourism New Zealand has reworked its ‘more magic every day’ campaign in a bid to attract Aussie skiers across the ditch for a winter holiday. The latest iteration of the ongoing campaign by Whybin\TBWA Sydney sees the Kiwi tourism body partner with Air New Zealand, Flight Centre, Instagram and the ski industry in New Zealand to drive holiday visitor numbers. And while Tourism New Zealand has previously collaborated with the other parties, this marks the first time that the organisation has partnered with Instagram to promote New Zealand through paid imagery and video content. PLUS: StopPress chats to Tourism New Zealand director of marketing Andrew Fraser about the organisation’s digital strategy.

It’s been just a few days since Air New Zealand announced its departure from Airpoints partner BNZ to team up with Westpac, but banking brands have fast taken action pushing themselves out through social media via sponsored posts (featuring an array of creative airline puns) to make sure they’re not overshadowed by the new partnership deal. Here’s what BNZ, Westpac, Kiwibank and ANZ have been up to.

Yesterday, it was widely reported that 2degrees had acquired internet service provider Snap for an amount speculated to be between $26 million and $30 million, making it possible for the telco to offer a service that had long been absent from its offering. StopPress chatted to chief marketing officer Malcolm Phillipps about what this means for the company.

The One Percent Collective, which aims to create “a seismic shift in charitable giving in Aotearoa”, has already chalked up a few celebrity endorsements, with Dai Henwood, Conrad Smith, Kimbra and many others contributing to its first magazine, The Generosity Journal. And now ‘local craplebrity’ Guy Williams is helping out by imploring punters to do something good for a change and apply for the newly created chief digital storyteller role. PLUS: six more charities set to be added to the flock.

The joy of prediction is that no-one tends to remember the incorrect guesses. But whether it’s Arthur C Clarke, Nostradamus or Minority Report, they’ll often cling to the correct guesses as proof of some remarkable soothsaying ability. And, with the help of Weta Workshop, Magic Leap, a fairly mysterious “cinematic reality” startup that received US$542 million of funding last year, posted a video of what it sees as the future of gaming a few days ago.

The rise of social media has given humans an opportunity to communicate directly with brands. That seems to have led to more gimme gimme gimme than positive endorsement, but Toyota has decided the risk is worth it and is soliciting questions from New Zealanders and attempting to answer them in an entertaining fashion as part of its Armchair Test Drive campaign.

Air New Zealand has announced it has dropped its long-time Airpoints partner BNZ to team up with Westpac, saying the partnership would result in better earn rates for customers and BNZ saying the relationship was no longer a good fit for the bank. So is the lure of ‘free’ travel enough to make customers switch?

We’ve all seen the rolling hills, smiling faces, water sports scenes, kiwi birds and rustic charm that have populated the nation’s tourism video canon over the years. And while these representations sure do help to sell the flights that drive one of New Zealand’s biggest industries, everyone that lives here knows that they aren’t 100 percent true most of the time.

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

As part of a SXSW stunt for American mobile battery case company ​Mophie, St Bernard rescue dogs have been given smartphone battery packs instead of brandy barrels, giving some of those who tweeted the company detailing their lack of juice a much-needed charge for its Stay Powerful campaign.

Originally established as a pre-press company in 1990, Image Centre Group has gradually moved into other areas like design, web development, full service printing, publishing, digital signage and advertising in an effort to bring the idea of an independent, marketing communications group to life. Now it’s added a crucial—and up until now missing—cog to that wheel: the creative heft of Mike O’Sullivan and his business The Collective.