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.
The collection of screeds of data offers seemingly limitless possibilities, from lights that flash when your favourite teams scores to fridges that can order more milk to services that can tell us where a free park is. And many companies are trying to show what can be done with it all (GE’s Datalandia was one of our favourites). Sid Lee Paris has joined that club and, in conjunction with Arduino, set up 17 sensors that show exactly what goes on in its office.
Yesterday, Tinder launched its new paid version of the app, called Tinder Plus, which includes new features. But it isn’t showing the love to ‘older’ users, charging over-30s more to use the app.
Peruse enough mainstream news sites and you’re likely to eventually see the Getty Images label tagged to the photography featuring on some of the stories. This is because the company today serves as an image provider for many publications throughout the world. Due to this affiliation with news, it’s important for Getty to provide imagery that accompanies current affairs suitably.
This week, a stoic nod of approval in the general direction of Bauer Media, Meridian and Speight’s.
Rather than developing capabilities from the ground up, acquisitions provide an effective means by which companies can incorporate new skills into their offerings. This has been seen internationally in purchases by the likes of Google and Facebook. But this trend is by no means exclusive to the residents of Silicon Valley. On this side of the world, Bauer Media, Designworks and Accenture have all recently acquired businesses to consolidate their offerings.
With cricket excitement reaching an all-time high in New Zealand, plenty of commercial parasites are trying to make hay while the sun shines (top prize goes to Calendar Girls for its classic plane-based ambush advertising at Eden Park). Even golf is getting in on the act, with Lydia Ko and Israel Dagg reuniting to drum up interest in the sport—and support for the Black Caps.
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.