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.

Toyota has teamed up with Marc Ellis’s small creative agency Media Blanco to launch an online showcase of the musical talent of buskers worldwide via a campaign called ‘Feeling the Street’. Hosted on a specially dedicated website, the campaign asks visitors to vote for their favourite buskers, with the overall winners becoming part of super group that will perform in New Zealand later this year.

Virtual reality is something Facebook bet big on with its acquisition of Oculus Rift for $2 billion. Google has also entered the fray with its very clever, low-cost solution Cardboard. And Samsung is also onboard with its Gear VR, which it’s showing off with a clip showing a dad experiencing the birth of his third child from afar and a bunch of Aussies diving with sharks in an unexpected location.

Subscription video on-demand is often compared to linear television as a superior alternative that gives users the freedom to watch what they want when they want to, without the annoyance of advertising. Yet, despite these advantages, Kiwi SVOD provider Lightbox still sees value in using the reach of traditional television to spread the news about its offering and has just released a new, somewhat crazy, campaign for Vikings.

Buzzfeed got a group of people together and made a video of them sampling chocolate from five different countries. The aim was that the participants had to guess the chocolate’s origin according to the taste. And yes, you’d be pleased to know, Pineapple Lumps got a well-deserved mention.

Bruce Murray, the executive digital producer at Y&R in Auckland, questions whether it’s the right time for agencies to start looking into how virtual reality could be integrated into their comms strategies.

Everyone becomes a little bit Irish on St Patrick’s Day. And plenty of brands do too. Here’s a rundown of some of the best efforts from here and around the world.

Netflix, which is soon to launch in New Zealand, has been leading the way when it comes to native ad content, with some classy, expensive and bespoke executions. And its latest effort via The Atlantic aims to promote the third season of its original series House of Cards by focusing on the real partnerships and power dynamics between US presidents and their spouses.