Skewering the earnestness and, at times, outright ridiculousness, of the fashion industry is fairly common. But it’s less common coming from the naming rights sponsor of a major fashion event. And that’s what Mercedes Benz has done with its entertaining, cliche-slapping film Fistful of Wolves.
To say 2014 was an unfortunate year for Malaysia Airlines would be a massive understatement. Like a twisted game of snakes and ladders, the airline made steps to recover from the loss of 239 passengers on flight MH370, only to be knocked by a second tragedy in July in the Ukraine, resulting in a further loss of 298 passengers. And, after a misguided bucket list campaign last year, it’s employed the services of Malaysian-born, Australian-raised Poh Ling Yeow to take viewers on a video tour of Kuala Lumpur.
Aussie e-commerce site ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, as the name implies, started offering glitter bombs as a service to those hoping to annoy the hell out of people they hate. It’s trolling in the real world. And it’s been too popular for its own good.
Changes at NZME, Bauer, TVNZ, Omnicom Media Group, bFM and The Breeze.
In an era where the online realm has allowed marketers and media owners to measure, track and chart everything in real-time, it seems slightly anachronistic to record radio listenership by getting people to fill in a paper diary. And the radio industry seems to agree, because it’s currently reviewing its research methodology and, as a result, it won’t be conducting its regular T1 survey.
In the 1900s, a 41,000m2 airport located in the Bluff Creek, Los Angeles, housed some of the aircraft fleet of business tycoon, aviator and compulsive hand-washer…
In an increasingly digital, ephemeral world, tangibility still has power. And MEA Mobile’s photo printing app Printicular is profiting from that. PLUS: Other companies bringing online and offline closer together.
You can do some amazing things with light these days, with the likes of Philips’ Hue and GE’s Link giving humans the ability to control their lights via apps, create a disco in their living room or respond to other data (like calendars, or through ‘if this then that’). And Infiniti Middle East and TBWA/RAAD in Dubai has also done something pretty cool with lights for its Inspired Light project.
From sophisticated computers and apps in our pockets or purses to beautiful display canvasses in the street, shopping malls, airports, universities and even convenience stores and bus stops, all connected via the cloud, Aerva’s Sanjay Manandhar says the digital planets are set to align this year.
Where do creative types find their inspiration? New research by Adobe shows it’s increasingly in the online realm. PLUS: the creative skills deemed to be most in-demand in 2015.
Every year around this time, banks attempt to grease up the young’uns heading off to expand/erode their minds at University. But banks are rarely at the top of the priorities list at this stage of life and erecting a makeshift tent and handing out branded pens at a festival or over Orientation Week just doesn’t cut it anymore. So ASB is running a Snapchat campaign called Snap Scholarships—replete with the obligatory prizes—to try and lure them in.
The potential for digital sensors and big data to make our cities easier to navigate and more efficient, whether it’s for parking, lighting or, in the case of Sensing City, pretty much the whole of Christchurch, is immense. Cisco has been banging on about the possibilities of the internet of things for a few years now, and, as its latest campaign, Building Tomorrow Today, shows, it thinks technology will soon render traffic jams extinct.
3-D printing, wearable tech and robots doing cool things are just some of the more endearing developments that have come to life in 2014. And there are many others. Here’s our top ten tech trends.
Because we all know the best way to lose weight starts with a hearty dose of self loathing.
To succeed in the digital world, you need to focus on what the audience wants as well as what your business needs. And editors straddle that line well, says Mark Glenn.
Smirnoff’s #PurePotential campaign via Special Group was pretty slick, with some good lookin’ billboards and a clever Instagram Bar that saw ‘mixologist’ Dickie Cullimore creating bespoke beverages based on pictures of punters’ fridges. The Lion-distributed vodka brand claims to see the potential in everything around us, “from sidewalks as dance floors, paint cans as drum kits and now a concrete truck as a drinks mixer”, which it wheeled out to a few festivals over summer.
Newcastle Brown Ale has long been know for taking the mickey with their advertising. So much so that it has become a central part of their brand identity. Now they are taking another stab at their favourite target, Super Bowl ads, with possibly their weirdest idea yet.
After more than a decade as managing director at SC Johnson, three years in the same role at Lion Breweries, then nearly 20 years as the boss of Fonterra Brands, there’s not much Peter McClure doesn’t know about how to launch a product. As he steps down from the role he tells Amanda Sachtleben about grabbing shoppers’ eyeballs in eight seconds, why that lightproof milk bottle wasn’t actually a flop and the reason entrepreneurs have a marketing jump on the corporates.
Back in 2009, ACP, now Bauer, took the opportunity to rub Fairfax’s nose in the sand when NZ Life & Leisure featured an image on its cover that Kia Ora had used on one of its earlier editions. And late last year, Woman’s Day and New Idea both featured the same image of Pippa Middleton (although very different words were used alongside). And Mindfood has pointed out that Next magazine can add its name to that list after it used a cover image of Angelina Jolie for a recent issue that had been used back in 2011.
McDonald’s, fresh from launching a new brand that ups the love and aims to halt sliding sales, launched a new ad during the Golden Globes that showed how the signs outside its restaurants in the US “have been used to spread messages of love, hope and respect”. Of course, whenever there is a sign, there will be those who manipulate them for comedic effect. And College Humour has put together a different, more puerile version.
New season ranges at Fairfax, Nielsen, Bayleys, NZME and CAANZ.
The average speed of Kiwi drivers has come down considerably over the years. But NZTA and Clemenger BBDO released a new campaign early this year in an effort to drop those numbers even further.
The internet loves animals. According to CBS, a remarkable, nigh-on unbelievable, 15 percent of internet traffic is cat-related. And dogs probably aren’t far behind. Chuck in a celebrity or two and a well-made video and you’ve got all the ingredients required for modern-day marketing gold, as ASB can now attest after its promotional stunt for the ASB Classic tennis tournament received plenty of love.
If you believe the doomsayers, print is dead. But for UK-based company Novalia, which has just helped DJ Q-Bert release what it’s calling the world’s first interactive DJ decks on an album cover, its technology is bringing it back to life.
2014 was a good one for the New Zealand automotive industry, with Motor Industry Association figures showing over 126,000 new vehicles registered. This beat the 30-year record of 123,247 units sold in 1984 and it was ahead of the 113,294 sold in 2013. And it was a particularly good year for Ford, which took New Zealand’s top selling ute title off the Toyota Hilux after a 32 year run.
Whether it’s a BMW skidding on an aircraft carrier, Volvo’s Live Test series, Hyundai’s empty car convoy or, closer to home, Holden’s Heartracing or Mini’s Driving Dogs, there’s no doubt automotive brands love a good stunt. And you can add Ford to that list after it launched a two minute clip featuring a host of Falcon fanatics who were recruited to line up along a custom-made racetrack in fetching blue overalls as Mark Winterbottom tried his best to avoid them.
Getty Images’ annual top searches reflect a mix of the year’s events, news, sports, popular celebrities and other major stories and trending ideas. Here’s what 2014 looked like.
Back in 2013, ANZ’s summer cricket spot was about as naff as you could get, with a few of the bank’s sporting ambassadors watching Eric Murray get a tennis ball beamer from Shane Bond. This year it’s taken a more serious approach for its naming rights sponsorship of the Sri Lankan series and its sponsorship of the upcoming Cricket World Cup by launching a campaign called Dream Big.
As scores of dejected New Zealand humans shuffle back into their workplaces after their unbridled leisure, it’s important to have a regular fill of pointless but moderately entertaining content to fill in your day while brain functionality slowly returns to normal. And here’s a quality example of that: 1650 mousetraps and 1840 ping-pong balls creating a non-explosive chain reaction to ring in the new year for Pepsi Max.
