Telco network 2degrees has again teamed up with Special Group for its latest ad campaign pushing its ‘Pay Monthly’ plans, one of the first ads that doesn’t feature quirky New Zealand comedian Rhys Darby.

If you’ve got nothing to say, sing it. But if you’ve got something to say about working conditions, rap it. Wise advice that Swedish trade union TCO has done to show how good it is to do “business like a Swede”.

Some of today’s best audio-visual content is coming from slightly surprising quarters. Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Vimeo and even brands like Chipotle are stumping up cash and proving that they can make great original shows, not just distribute them. And judging by a slightly misleading phrase on the promotional material for Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, it seems like Lightbox wants to be in that club too.

Since we’ve already done a bit of a run down on what Kiwi brands been up to this Valentine’s Day, we thought we’d better see what kind of stunts went on further afield during the romantically charged weekend.

This past weekend again marked that time when advertisers tell us we’d better remind our loved ones of just how much we love them (because we don’t do it any other time of the year) by purchasing expensive jewellery, flowers or heart-shaped chocolates. We thought we’d take a look at what a few different brands got up to, to try and grab our attention on this year’s Valentine’s Day.

Scarcity is a powerful motivator, as anyone looking for a fancy chocolate milk in the past few months could probably attest, and the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation, with the help of Previously Unavailable and DDMMYY, is trying to tap into that by selling 1000 different t-shirts that are numbered one to 1,000 and cost the dollar value of their individual numbers.

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.