As we wrote last week, DDB is on the hunt for a tinge of ginge to spruik Speight’s new alcoholic ginger beer. An excited and then dejected Karl Burnett featured in the first spot and now, in what could be seen as the exact opposite of Sky’s Casting Tapes campaign, it’s released a second clip showing off the auditions.
A new B2B app allows businesses to sports-pick outside the immediate workplace, with a view to “cut through the clutter” and inspire commitment from customers who are inundated with deals.
Following on from the recent launch of ShopViva, NZME is continuing down the online retail path by announcing the 2015 launch of ShopGreen, an online shopping hub for ethical products.
Twitter is an amazingly fluid and responsive medium for brands. But understanding when it’s appropriate to join the conversation is the difference between a good brand and a great one, says Katie Byrne.
Airbnb has made some quality ads in its time, with everything from the charming and inventive crowd-sourced film Hollywood & Vines to the rather enticing spot for its recent—and slightly controversial—rebrand. And now it’s made another stunner with the help of Kiwi animation house Cirkus.
According to research conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry in London, one spoonful of ice cream could stimulate an immediate and positive effect on the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex. What this means is that ice cream makes eaters feel better and this is reflected in how they treat others and how productive they are. Ever the skeptics, Tip Top’s creative agency Colenso BBDO decided to put this theory to the test by conducting some uncontrolled and scientifically questionable experiments on unsuspecting Kiwis.
One of the major struggles for news publishers is that the rise in online audiences and revenue has struggled to make up for the loss of print advertising and subscription revenue. And a new feature on the Herald seems to give readers another reason not to pay for paper.
In what has become an annual tradition, the students at Media Design School have developed a quirky campaign to encourage the nation’s ad folk to attend their end-of-year show. In the latest iteration, a series of cut-out headshots of the nation’s admen are accompanied with some humorous sound effects.
What’s in your fridge at the moment? According to Smirnoff’s new campaign, ‘Pure Potential’, it can see the potential in any ingredient to make a great drink.
The last few TVCs from DirecTV has introduced to some remarkably creepy variations of Rob Lowe. And adding to this catalogue of weirdness is a new character called Scrawny Arms Rob Lowe, whose sofa scene might be the creepiest of the series thus far.
Stuff.co.nz has launched a new web series on its site, after running a campaign to source real content for the show from its readers.
Disappearing cars, perfect mascots, not-so scientific research and dad dancing entertain in this week’s edition.
Industry happenings at Fairfax, PHD, TVNZ, Vevo and Exponential Interactive.
DDB and Dynamo were recently appointed as the lead agencies for Beaurepaires after a pitch, relieving Clemenger BBDO of its duties. The company’s new owners, Beau Ideal, promised the brand would move in a different creative direction, meaning the long-serving Vince Martin would be put out to pasture. And that’s exactly what it’s done, with a canine mascot talking up—literally—its offer and categorising different types of New Zealanders based on their vehicle choices.
Powershop Australia has been forced to pull a billboard campaign, featuring a power socket as Darth Vader, due to a complaint from LucasFilm. This is the second time Powershop has used the Dark Lord’s image in vain – in 2011 they also pulled an ad referencing Darth Vader after copyright scares.
On 25 November 1989, only 25 years ago, TV3 had no viewers. The station was only set to launch the next day following a four-year period of legal wrangling to get government approval to introduce a commercial television station. Now, as the channel celebrates its quarter century, its parent company MediaWorks has a reach of 3,759,247 and has established itself as a respected competitor against the state-owned broadcasting stalwart TVNZ. And to coincide with the celebrations, MediaWorks is already looking to the future with the launch of a new brand expression called ‘For me it’s 3’ that places empahsis on the modern trend of social viewing.
Back when TV3 turned 20, Sarah Lang wrote a great piece in the Herald about the trials, tribulations and successes of the channel. Or, as the first paragraph says, how it grew “from an insecure infant into an assured adult”. The intervening five years have seen plenty more action at MediaWorks, which went through its second receivership, brought popular shows like The Block NZ, X Factor NZ, 7 Days and Jono & Ben at 10 to New Zealand screens and continued to focus on the reach its varied suite of media assets can offer advertisers (occasionally through the medium of music). But everyone knows the best thing about media anniversaries are the blooper reels. So here are some gems from the evening and morning news shows.
0-100 is a much-used metric to show how powerful a car is. But Holden and Ogilvy & Mather NZ have flipped that on its head to promote the limited edition Commodore GTR, of which only 100 have been made for the New Zealand market.
Kiwi Steve Ayson won plenty of awards for his role directing Old Spice’s completely mad Momsong ad, including gold at Cannes and Clio and, most recently, TV commercial of the year at Shots. Now another Kiwi, Bret McKenzie, has got involved in the follow-up by writing the music for Dad Song.
TV3 celebrated its 25th birthday a little bit early last Friday night with a one hour special from the Jono and Ben at 10 (or, in this special case Jono and Ben at 7.30) crew. And, as per usual, there were a few gems in there, with its throwback to 1989-style media, pies in faces and entertaining questions for some of the channel’s media personalities from Guy Williams.
One of the key themes at last week’s Ad:Tech conference was that mobile is the new digital and New Zealand is behind the rest of the world in following consumers there. And Pandora’s Melanie Reece says it’s time marketers closed the gap.
Sam Finnigan, a polite accountant hailing from Kohimarama, has won back at least some of the nation’s pride by defeating super villain and defending America’s Cup winner Jimmy Spithill in a Samsung smartphone-controlled sailing race.
Hell’s pizza-and-fireworks campaign has proved to be sales dynamite, with the company recording its busiest week ever over Halloween and Guy Fawkes.
Tom Eslinger, Saatchi & Saatchi’s global head of digital and social returned to the New Zealand stage last week (albeit virtually) at Ad:Tech’s inaugural Auckland conference. And, beaming in over Skype from his hotel room in Singapore, he shared a concentrated dose of the secrets to mobile marketing contained in his book Mobile Magic, which was released earlier this year.
After worming its way into the pockets of well over one million New Zealanders, 2degrees has been focusing on adding the more lucrative business and post-pay customers to its ledger in recent months, with its latest campaign featuring endorsements from Geoff Ross, Dion Nash, Al Brown and Kate Sylvester. But in keeping with the other major telcos and their various marketing partnerships, 2degrees has struck up a deal with Google Play and its long-serving mascot Rhys Darby is promoting it through the wonder of dad dancing.
Earlier this year, Bruce ‘Pic’ Picot’s one-millionth jar of peanut butter came off the production line in Nelson, serving as statistical proof of the love the Kiwis have for his product. And since good news travels, it comes as little surprise that the Aussie supermarkets have signed a deal with Picot to stock his product on their shelves. We chat to the purveyor of nutty goodness about expanding his empire, combining poems with peanut butter and being a Kiwi success story.
Google’s Chrome experiments are generally cause for nerdish celebration as they push the browser to strange and creative places. And now, as The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies gets sets for launch, it’s updated the interactive map of Middle-Earth it launched around one year ago with a host of new tricks.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Sinead Boucher, the group executive editor of Fairfax, has confirmed that the last digital edition of Unlimited magazine will be released in December this year.
On 15 October, The High Court at Auckland placed The Magazine Marketing Company (TMMC), which was founded in 2008 by Stuart Shepherd, into liquidation for failing to meet payment obligations, which included overdue GST, PAYE, KiwiSaver employee deductions, KiwiSaver employer contributions, student loan employee deductions and income tax. KPMG, which was appointed as the company’s liquidator, released its first report on 19 November, revealing additional details about the process thus far.