With the proliferation of subscription video on demand services, some have started to suggest that the traditional paid-for TV model will come crashing down. However, in its interim report for the first half of 2015, Sky included an interesting graph that illustrates why the service might stick around for quite some time.
Whether they’re fast-walkers or slow-walkers (Simon Pegg’s preferred option), zombies will stop at nothing to get at braaaaiiiinnnnnnsssss. And, in this German Audi ad promoting its reliable—and reliably expensive—servicing options, dodgy mechanics will stop at nothing to get your business.
Author, creative and eccentric innovator Jimi Hunt founded depression charity Live More Awesome to try to give other sufferers of depression the help he didn’t feel he had received. And while he says it has been hard to find large brands willing to be linked to the charity, that’s starting to change, with Spark Foundation and the ZM radio network recently coming on board as sponsors and Samsung releasing a clip via Augusto showing Hunt putting its Galaxy Note 4 to good use. PLUS: get your tickets to the next edition of the World’s Biggest Waterslide.
In the lead up to the release of Netflix on 24 March, Vodafone has become the exclusive communications launch partner for the company in New Zealand and is trumpeting the arrival via a promotion that will give Vodafone subscribers on one of the available 24-month Red+ mobile plans six months’ access to the subscription video on-demand (SVOD) platform.
Late last year, Meridian shifted its advertising account to Barnes Catmur after a four-ish year relationship with Assignment. And the new couple have released their first ad to promote its moving house offer—with Jeremy Wells reprising his role as the entertaining spokeshuman and becoming a very literal embodiment of the brand.
Auckland Museum has launched a weekly Twitter game to engage its followers and educate people about its collections, and Te Papa, Waikato Museum and The Nelson Provincial Museum are getting involved too.
Tourism New Zealand has 100% Pure. Wellington has its Absolutely Positively. What’s Auckland’s story? ATEED’s Vivien Bridgwater is tasked with opening the book.
As the t-shirt says, Jono and Ben at Ten is like Hamish and Andy for people who hate Australians. Now the band of merry pranksters has been moved up the Friday night batting order from a half-hour slot at 10pm to an hour slot at 7.30pm. And they’ve celebrated the promotion with a clip showing some of the Facebook feedback that decision has generated.
Technology was meant to make life so much easier. Paperless offices. Cheap communication tools. And, of course, robot vacuum cleaners. But instead we’re lonelier, more stressed and getting our hair eaten by our electronic assistants. Woman’s Day has noticed this shift as well, so, as part of a big—and quite rare—$1.5 million campaign via FCB, it’s foisted a Zsa-Zsa Gabor-esque character upon the nation in an effort to give its readers permission to take a break without feeling guilty about it.
As a quintessential challenger brand, independent, family owned oil company Gull has tried a few things to get noticed, from themed toilets, to aggressive pricing (and criticism of the pricing structure of its national competition), to road rage reduction tools to docking wages of staff for customer theft. And, in an effort to draw attention to its biofuel, Gull Force 10, it worked with Contagion to create an edible billboard as part of its sponsorship of the Splore music festival.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
You don’t have to look far to find a joke about Justin Bieber. Just about everyone has dropped a line about the tantrum-prone singer. And given the enjoyment people derive from laughing at the expense of the baby-faced one, Comedy Central has organised an official roast of the Biebs.
Last week’s report on magazine readership and circulation figures once again reiterated that print is undergoing a period of transition as audiences shift their media consumption online. And looking at Nielsen’s readership and ABC’s circulation results, it’s more of the same. However, there was some good news for the rural and community publications.
Since launching its ‘Do your thing better’ brand a few years back, Vodafone has generally looked for laughs rather than warm fuzzies (although it managed to tug a few heartstrings with its Warriors stunt on mother’s day). But it decided to focus on the emotional power of connection for its Christmas push and it’s taken Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award for its efforts.
The radio industry isn’t alone in this bid to provide more accurate information to clients. Recently, the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) announced the launch of a new Nielsen-provided methodology that quantifies the total audience potential (TAP) of a magazine by incorporating pick-ups into magazine reach and frequency schedules.
Last night, the New Zealand Direct Marketing Awards again celebrated the best examples of direct marketing in the industry. And it proved quite a fruitful night for the Clemenger Group as JustOne/.99 and Colenso BBDO/Proximity walked away with impressive hauls. PLUS: JustOne/.99 managing partner Amy Watson breaks her toe during over-zealous celebration.
Typically, agency folk harness their creativity to help clients’ businesses. But occasionally that creativity is put towards their own projects. And that’s exactly what globally recognised young creative and burrito aficionado Ben Polkinghorne has done with the Bangerrito, a burrito-flavoured sausage that’s made its way onto a few high end supermarket shelves and, all going to plan, might soon be seen in other markets.
In an age of media plenty, traditional business news outlets have never had so much competition. Being deemed essential is a good plan to counter that. And the Wall St Journal is backing itself. So it’s got a few big, successful names—producer/entrepreneur will.i.am, SAP chief executive Bill McDermott and fashion designer Tory Burch—to show that no matter how busy they are, they make time to read it.
ASB and Saatchi & Saatchi NZ have previously shown their prowess for Facebook campaigns through the hugely successful ‘Like Loan’ iniative, and the pair have now returned to the platform. But rather than focusing on home loans, the latest campaign aims to convince Kiwis to take up life insurance. The new campaign takes the form of a survey in a series of questions that aim to determine if you’re replaceable.
For the first time since public relations company Edelman first ran its trust barometer survey, which gauges the levels of trust societies have in various organisations, search engines have overtaken traditional media as the most-trusted source for attaining general news and information.
Have you ever just loved a piece of technology so much that you want to eat it? Probably not, but now you have the option, because Dole Japan has created an edible, wearable, smart banana. Yes, you heard correctly.
Samsung has released an app called ‘Look At Me’ which aims to help children with autism maintain better eye contact with their parents and peers.
With innovations in digital payment methodologies, our society is becoming increasingly cashless. And, according to a new Mastercard survey, Kiwis are slowly becoming okay with that, with many starting to warm up to the idea of digital wallets. The survey of shopping habits showed 75 percent of New Zealanders regularly shop online and two thirds are open to the idea of using a digital wallet.
Digital is no longer the siloed side project that’s only tapped into if there’s enough budget left over. It’s now an integral part of the comms strategy of most major brands, and its prominence is only becoming stronger as the online audience grows. To investigate the changing face of digital, StopPress has launched ‘Rise of the machines’, a new series in which we chat to few brains in the industry about how the channel is evolving. First up is DDB’s digital creative director Haydn Kerr.
For those of you who have longed to put yourselves in the shoes of a criminal defence lawyer, now you can, in the digital world at least. TV2 has launched a new campaign in the form of an online game to promote its show How to Get Away with Murder, through the release of a murder mystery game that casts the player as part of a criminal defence team fighting to clear a client’s name.
As revealed by the recent stats released by TubeMogul, programmatic ad-buying is growing very quickly. But, as with anything new, the willingness of advertisers to adopt this approach has been slower than it could’ve been due to the fact that it seems quite complicated. So, in an effort to demystify programmatic ad buying and thereby encourage more media agencies and marketers to adopt it, Chango has released a series of videos that address some of the questions that have been raised by those in the industry.
According to Spark Home, Mobile and Business chief executive Chris Quin, fewer than 40 percent of small businesses have a website. And of those that do, only a quarter have a website that’s mobile responsive. So, in an effort to remedy this problem, Spark has released new promotion that offers business customers 24 months’ access to a Putti mobile-responsive website.
Despite approaching his 80th birthday, contemporary pop artist Billy Apple (something of a human brand) hasn’t lost the desire to create. And now, in collaboration with Saatchi’s design director Derek Lockwood, he has released a Billy Apple-branded cider.
Sometimes unfortunate or unforseen circumstances arise, which means that brands, for better or for worse, need to change their names. We thought we’d look at a few examples closer to home and further afield.
The travel industry has been one of the sectors most affected by the rise of e-commerce, with customers increasingly doing their booking of flights, hotels, trips, rental cars and transfers online. Expedia, the world’s largest online travel site in terms of booking volumes, is at the forefront of that shift and, as part of its ‘Out There Starts Here’ campaign, it’s created a number of great ads for the New Zealand and Australian market. Now it’s launched another one that sees the travel dreams of several characters become a reality.