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

Cricket mania, or, at least, slightly increased cricket enthusiasm, has hit New Zealand once again in the form of the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, which kicks off tomorrow when the Blackcaps play Sri Lanka. And, like many large sporting events, plenty of big big brands are hoping to profit from all the attention. Here’s what KFC, Matua, Hyundai, the MPI and others are up to.

Some believe the Blackcaps are in the best form ever and have the best chance of winning the World Cup. And, given it’s taking place here, there are no shortage of supporters. Even the the World Wrestling Federation, which, as some have pointed out, are renowned match fixers, is backing us.

The Super Rugby season is about to start. And we all know what that means: ads directed at farmers. So, to show the toughness of Seed Force perennials, Tracta enlisted the services of renowned hard man Buck Shelford and got him to tell the now-famous and eye-wateringly painful tale of a dangling bollock.

The earnestness, thousand yard stares and various cliches seen in fashion ads are a fairly easy target, as seen in anything from Zoolander to Mercedes-Benz’ tongue in cheek Fistful of Wolves. But, given the importance placed on aesthetics in this industry, they generally look good and that’s certainly the case with a film shot by Vince McMillan, a director’s assistant at Exit Films, for AUT University’s fashion department.

Over the last few years, Getty Images has been tracking the type of imagery that companies prefer to use when it comes to representing their brands. And what the company has found, is that brands are shifting from the stereotypical stock types and opting for more varied and diverse alternatives. And these trends are also being reflected in terms of the imagery that brands are using to depict love in 2015. Rebecca Swift, the director of creative planning at iStock, shares her views on how Kiwi and Aussie representations of love are shifting.

It seems like almost everything is becoming ‘smart’ these days, or is at least in someway linked to the digital realm: smart phones, smart televisions, smart coffee machines, Google Glass, the Microsoft HoloLens, we could go on. And now Luna has found a way to bring the digital into the bedroom, with a prototype of the world’s very first smart bed.

With much of the world turning to digital media, book makers generally aren’t in a position to turn down potential readers. But a prototype cover for the Art Director’s Club annual in the Netherlands does just that by scanning the face in front of it and, like some kind of literary chasity belt, only opening if it deems the reader to be in a non-judgemental state of mind.

In a world where teenagers and adults alike seem to be checking their mobile devices every few minutes (or seconds), ignoring your compelling conversation to scroll aimlessly down their Facebook newsfeeds, uploading selfies to Instagram or sending the odd Tweet, it comes as no surprise that social media sites are an excellent platform for advertising. And a few big brands in New Zealand have now started using image and video-sharing mobile app Snapchat as a marketing tool. Here’s what Spark, Vodafone, ASB, Skinny Mobile and a few others have been up to.

Series three of House of Cards is set to go live at the end of February, and, given the response to the first two seasons of the show, there’s plenty of excitement about it. So there was plenty of surprise when ten episodes of the new season went up online early today. Some wondered whether this was a marketing ploy and if Netflix has ‘pulled a Beyonce’. But Netflix says it was a technical error. Judging by the House of Cards Twitter handle, however, maybe it wasn’t quite so accidental.

Last year, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) exhibited its interest in digital technology with the production of the Force Fit app, which provided a very modern solution to the growing problem of unfitness among young people. But the NZDF doesn’t only dabble in digital technology for the purposes of marketing. The military organisation also sees it as integral to the sovereignty and safety of New Zealand. So, given the changing landscape, StopPress recently chatted to a spokesperson at the National Cyber Policy Office about the government’s approach to digital security.

Apparently, data is the new oil. But, just like oil, data needs to be refined to be useful. And Dot, a ten-strong Wellington company that mixes analytics with storytelling is doing just that in an effort to find influencers, reduce churn and even beat the bookies.

Kiwis are now choosing to pay to stream TV and videos instead of turning to BitTorent for pirated content and online shoppers are looking to China for their precious goods, according to recent data-gathering by Slingshot.

These days I find it near impossible to think of heat pumps without thinking of Stephen Fleming, and that’s not about to change as Fleming stars alongside fellow former cricket giant Nathan Astle in Fujitsu’s latest advertising campaign.

Apparently, idle hands are the devil’s plaything. So, with mobile phones ensuring there are very few idle hands these days, you might think that’s a good thing. But what does that devotion to the screen mean for creativity? And should we be switching off and looking around rather than down? A project by WYNC podcast New Tech City thinks so and it’s aiming to get people to appreciate the joy of spacing out with Bored and Brilliant.

A paranoid man, indepen-dancers, a personified disease and Aesopian characters star for Westpac, Kiwibank, the New Zealand Heart Foundation and Air New Zealand this week.

Dating app Tinder and hair removal brand Gillette have teamed up on a campaign, which might cause us to see a few more clean-shaven faces around.