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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

After thirteen months and 5.95 million tweets, the Chorus Gigatown campaign is now playing its closing scenes, and there can only be one winner. Next Wednesday the long-awaited Gigatown victor will be announced.