Last year, New Zealand retail giant The Warehouse announced it would stop selling all R18 games and DVDs. It also announced that it would introduce a living wage for many of its staff. These moves will cost the company money in the short-term. But, as Janisa Parag writes, brands that put people and purpose first outperform those that focus on profit.
Mac’s has undergone something of facelift, which has seen the brand livery across its range of beers and ciders change. And this news has also coincided with the announcement that Mac’s drinkers will have seven new options to choose from.
The Alternative Commentary Collective has been one of the country’s recent media highlights. The witty, oft-politically incorrect or downright offensive banter, the purposeful mangling of names (RIP Mrs Mangel), the dubious factoids, the humorous nicknames and, occasionally, the cricket commentary, have attracted thousands to NZME’s iHeartRadio platform, as well as a number of commercial partners. But after the ICC got a bee in its bonnet over Leigh Hart’s appearance on Gatorade’s bottle/inflatable penis during a drinks break at McLean Park in Napier on Sunday, the team has had their accreditation revoked, leading to howls of protest from fans—and probably a bit of sucking up from NZME—to ensure the caravan of cricket can continue doing the work of God for the rest of the tournament.
Modern humans already have plenty of gadgets around them. Now they have gadgets to put on them. And Apple is the latest to enter the wearables market with the launch of the Apple Watch, which will go on sale in April 24 in nine countries and in New Zealand later in the year. And, in traditional Apple style, the product has taken centre stage in the advertising.
The way we see men and women is evolving, and many brands have started noticing and reflecting this in their advertising. To highlight some of these examples during International Women’s Day, Getty Images recently compiled short list of the international ads that are leading the charge in representing women as powerful, independent and capable. Plus: Getty looks at the growing trend of androgyny in representations of men and women.
Following a competitive pitch, Shine has won the Huawei account and will now take charge of the tech company’s creative and strategy in New Zealand.
New advances in drone technology have caused a big increase in patent applications, say AJ Park’s Anton Blijlevens and Jillian Lim.
Last year in April, Trustpower’s research team found that many Kiwis didn’t realise that the company offered services beyond energy. To counter this problem and showcase its broadband, phone and gas services to potential customers, the company launched ‘The better together’ campaign, which aimed to highlight the benefits of having a single multi-utility bill. The campaign was initially limited to Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington, but now Trustpower has launched its first nationwide campaign to share its multi-utility story with more Kiwis.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Uber has delivered kittens and ice-creams as part of its promotional activities in the past. And now, as part of a campaign via Whybin\TBWA to launch the new PlayStation 4 game The Order: 1886, it’s embraced horse-power.
Industry happenings at Clemenger, Y&R NZ, Tourism NZ, News Works, Seven Sharp, 95bFM, 8, NZRetail and eStar.
This year marks 100 years since the ANZACs got involved in Word War One. And to honour the sacrifice, an Auckland artist has embarked on the massive undertaking of creating the world’s largest poppy, which will consist of 59,000 red metal discs with contributors’ names and messages placed by him and members of the public on Auckland’s Domain in support of the RSA. PLUS: a few other ANZAC initiatives.
Huzzah! It’s reporting season. So here’s a selection of financial results from some of the country’s major media
Launched in the lead up to International Women’s Day this Sunday, a new campaign by creative agency WCRS for not-for-profit organisation Women’s Aid featuring an interactive billboard that depicts an abused woman being healed when passersby look at it. The campaign is powered by face recognition technology, and aims to encourage people not to ignore the issue of domestic violence.
NZRetail magazine is nearing its 70th year in publication, but the grandest dame in Kiwi retail news has lost none of her pizzazz. And it’s just emerged from a rebranding with a bigger format, perfect binding, a bi-monthly publishing schedule and a long-awaited online arm, The Register.
Not-for-profit organisation Bias has released a new campaign that has since 3 March bounced around the internet, collecting millions of views along the way. The short spot, which is based on the premise that we are all the same under our skins, shows several couples, who while dancing behind a giant X-ray screen are reduced to skeletal figures. When the couples step out from behind the screen, they are revealed as a diverse assortment of characters, illustrating that our biases and judgements are only skin deep.
Spark’s subscription video on-demand (SVOD) platform Lightbox has been experimenting with some marketing avenues, through the use of bloggers and social influencers in order to support its traditional media channels.
Ford has been giving Toyota a bit of grief in its advertising after sales of its Ranger topped those of the Hilux last year. And now it’s taking a swipe at a bunch of other car brands—and the ponces who drive them—with an ad for its new Territory SUV.
FCB’s current chief executive and Australia New Zealand chair Bryan Crawford took on a bunch of international responsibility with the FCB network last year. Those responsibilities continue to grow, so Brian van den Hurk, the current managing director, has been promoted to the role of chief executive.
Anchor’s latest campaign via Colenso BBDO aims to bring some of the benefits of milk to life—and, ideally, reverse declining milk consumption—by showing a selection of real stories. And, following on from the first teeth-related ad, it’s moved onto showing how it helps grow muscle with a beautifully made spot featuring a dancer called Nathan.
Since December, Vodafone and Spark have been at each others throats in an ongoing battle about which telco has New Zealand’s largest 4G network. And Vodafone’s announcement that it has referred the issue to the Commerce Commission has coincided with some fresh blows.
Innovative data-sourcing site Wiki New Zealand launched in December 2012 as something of a test model to see what users wanted from the site and how it could run more efficiently. Two years on, the site has now been redesigned and chief executive Lillian Grace says feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive”.
Active in the Kiwi market since 2011, ditial marketing software provider Kenshoo recently announced the launch of a mobile display channel service in partnership with AppNexus, a company that facilitates more than 16 billion ad buys through real-time bidding every day. And following on from this, the company has also brought together all its software under a single platform called Infinity Suite.
ASB is the latest brand to bask in the reflected glow of the All Blacks after its partnership with New Zealand Rugby was announced today. And, in celebration, the bank has rebranded for a day.
So risky is Twitter that Wendy Thompson, the founder of social media agency Socialites, advises clients not to dabble in platform. And while this might sound counter-intutive coming from someone who pays the bills thanks to social media, Thompson’s company has already generated some impressive results for major brands such as Mitre 10 and Spark, and she has just penned House of Travel into her ledger. So is this a case of digital smoke and mirrors or is a social media agency something that more businesses should think about bringing onboard?
NZME’s flagship lifestyle brand Viva comes as a separate magazine inside the Herald. And now it also comes as a separate website, viva.co.nz.
Samsung put on a big show for the launch of its new phones early this week. But just a few days before that showoffery we heard a story from the BBC about the environmental problems of a throwaway culture, the mining of rare earth minerals—and the mining of old phones—and the unwillingness of manufacturers to give plans to those who want to try and repair their broken products. So, rather than leaving a number of old phones festering in the bottom drawer, we decided to collect a few and hand them over to Starship. And this is what we found bursting out of an old Galaxy Note 2.
People who like new things were treated to the live-streamed unpacking of Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. And, instead of referencing its main competition Apple with its long-running ‘the next best thing is already here’ campaign, it’s changed its tune slightly, backed its more stylish metal and glass-laden phones and gone with the line ‘next is now’ for its early promotional clips.
Adidas has released a new global campaign about seizing the moment, which features some of the world’s top athletes, including All Blacks Richie McCaw and Sonny Bill Williams. The campaign features 30-second TVCs of top athletes from around the world who are at the top of their game in their respective sports, delivering short monologues about why they “take today”.
In an ongoing series, StopPress chats to a few cerebral types in the industry on the expanding influence of digital technology and how agency life is changing in response to this. Last week, in the first edition of ‘Rise of the Machines’, we featured the creative perspective, and we now shift attention to the media side of the industry as we ask Jane Stanley, the PHD group strategy director and managing director of PHDIQ, a few questions.