Visual communications company Getty Images has release a desktop version of its Stream app, which makes it easier for consumers to “to access, curate and share” its vast range of imagery.

Air New Zealand’s latest Hobbit-themed safety video topped YouTube’s most-watch list for the month of October. The clip, which was only posted 22 October racked up a total of 11.6 million views over the final nine days of the month.

Digital outdoor advertising again made its way into the media this week with the announcement that a gigantic billboard—the length of a football field and eight storeys tall—was about to be installed at New York City’s Times Square. The story was picked up by various mainstream publications across the world and once again served as a reminder of how hot digital screens are right now. Here in New Zealand, the adoption of digital screens has been slower, but APN Outdoor and Westpac recently added a few more glowing rectangles to Auckland.

Auckland has seen an influx of digital outdoor advertising over the course of the last year, and the nation’s brands are queuing in order to get their messaging on these glowing rectangles. And while APN Outdoor’s billboard on Queen Street certainly isn’t diminutive with a height of 3×9 metres, it is but a tinny when compared to the advertising battleship that is about to be steered into New York City’s Times Square.

The Auckland Art Gallery is well known for its focus on the aesthetic, with both its branding and its building winning a number of awards. And it’s continued that trend with a campaign via Special Group to promote its latest exhibition, Light Show.

As Whitney so rightly sang, the children are our future. And the ad children from two of the bigger schools are getting set show off the year’s work in the hope of securing gainful employment, with AUT holding a function tonight and Media Design School holding its portfolio event next Tuesday (and using the ‘reaction faces’ of local creative juggernauts to help promote it).

It has been a big year for Goodfolk, with some notable hires, new accounts and an office refit to boot.

Earlier this month, the team at Wellington Airport added a third giant, Tolkien-inspired character to its collection of statues that currently greet tourists. Joining Gollum and the Great Eagles is Smaug the Magnificent, considered to be the last of the great dragons in Middle Earth.

After two delightfully insane adverts that illustrated that retail advertising doesn’t always involve the same tropes, the New World marketing team has reeled it in bit for its Christmas campaign, which features a mild-mannered employee named Noel, who may or may not be Santa in an admittedly average disguise.

Chief executives as the front-person in ad campaigns have been a long-held staple in the advertising space, but the majority are often boring and overused, with voiceovers set to a kitschy hipster montage or “walk-n-talk’s” directly addressing the consumer (shout to to Chanui). But here are a few that over-the-top/down right dangerous stunts that don’t fall into that trap.

When marketing a wine region to prospective travellers, you could show a few shots of beautiful vines, happy couples clinking glasses and the odd landscape. Or you could just show off a bunch of dirt. Yes, dirt.

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

Lorde hasn’t had too much trouble selling records, but, given what’s been happening to the music industry in recent years, the labels could always use a bit more revenue. And Universal Music and BBDO Argentina devised a great way of drawing attention to/selling more copies of her album Pure Heroine by asking fans to imitate her unique dance style and giving them a discount based on how closely they matched.

For the first time in New Zealand, Spark and Spotify have teamed up to bring together #MyFestivalStory, which will provide those going to Rhythm & Vines or Rhythm & Alps with a personalised digital snapshot of their experience through RFID technology.

If horror films are anything to go by, then the restrooms of petrol stations aren’t necessarily the best place to visit—not so much because of the boogeymen lurking in the shadows, but more so because thought of bringing bare buttocks into contact with the toilet seat is genuinely terrifying. So, in an effort to make the pitstop experience slightly more enjoyable, independently owned fuel chain Gull has refurbished 14 of its petrol stations, giving them themes that would be more congruent with a quirky hotel than a petrol station.