McDonald’s has been fighting back against some of the more pervasive myths and legends about its business in recent years. One of the first things the Canadians explained as part of the first Our Food, Your Questions campaign is why the food never looks as good in real life as it does in the ads—and they did a good job of it. But the local outfit appears to be favouring the advertising vérité approach, because some of the pics it’s been posting recently on its Facebook page are much closer to the real thing than they are to over-stylised glamour shots.

According to data released by Recorded Music NZ, Kiwi musicians made more money from digital album sales than physical records for the first time in 2013, and, if numbers are anything to go by, this trend is set to continue over the next few years.

There have been a number of recent campaigns that employ digital tools to get the audience to do something, from ASB’s Like Loan to Sky’s ‘Bring down the King’ to Vodafone’s sailing game to Bonus Bonds’ longerconga.co.nz. Now Emirates is joining in the fun and asking Kiwis to use social media to propel three charities to Australia. PLUS: Potentia asks charities to submit films for the chance to get $10,000.

In an effort to ensure that the next generation doesn’t add to melanoma statistics, Kiwi entrepreneurs Daniel Xu and Ming Cheuk, founders of innovation company Spark64, have developed the UVLens, a sensor that detects the UV risk in the atmosphere and then communicates this to a tablet. And the pair have now teamed up with Banana Boat to put the technology in 100 childcare centres around the nation.

Fiji Airways picks three deserving competition winners and gives them a holiday to remember in this new, people-centric brand campaign.

There are plenty of rules around booze advertising, and one of them is that they aren’t allowed to show their products increasing the chances of sexual success. But that certainly wasn’t always the case, as this old Steinlager ad shows.

Following in the footsteps of Dove and Always, iNature Skincare has released a new video that makes a profound statement about beauty by asking a group of ordinary people a simple question. To produce the four-minute clip, which has already gone viral, iNature collaborated with the Jubilee Project and asked a series of 50 people across the age spectrum what the one thing is that they would change about their bodies. And although the clip navigates well-worn territory, it’s worth watching just to see the creative responses the kids come up with.

Attitude Pictures has been telling the stories of New Zealanders living with disabilities, recovering from injuries and dealing with health problems since 1992 and broadcasting on TVNZ since 2005. It brought those stories into the real world in 2008 with the creation of the Attitude Awards and, around one year ago, it moved online and into the world of live streaming when it launched its website Attitude Live. Producer Dan Buckingham and managing director Denis Harvey share their thoughts on running a successful niche media group, how it intends to make a profit and why corporates should get involved.

Given that it relies on bored workers to shop during the workday, hotel-booking website Last Minute has incorporated a defense mechanism into its homepage to ensure that workers are always only a single click away from the safety of a spreadsheet. A small link titled ‘the boss is coming – look busy’ navigates users away from the pink glow of the website to the safety of a jargon-filled spreadsheet.

On Friday, Twitter announced the Kiwi launch of Twitter Ads, a self-serve ad platform that aims to provide advertising options for small and medium-sized businesses. Twitter Ads has already been launched in 21 international markets, and it will almost certainly come as a welcome marketing tool to smaller businesses that have thus far been precluded from using Twitter’s advertising services due to the minimum spend threshold that the company previously set for its advertising services. We chat to Nick Bowditch, Twitter Australia’s small business evangelist, to find out what this means for the Kiwi market.

Punk-zine turned media-empire Vice re-launched its website this week with the promise of an “explosion of new content,” and New Zealand is not being left out of the blast. Vice head of communications for Australia and New Zealand Josh Gardiner says Kiwis can look forward to more local stories, including a New Zealand documentary.

To some, the term corporate social responsibility is an oxymoron; more keeping up appearances than a legitimate attempt to make the world a better place. Nigel Latta looked into what the booze companies are doing in terms of promoting their products and, to a lesser degree, responsible drinking, in his recent series. And South Park has shown the paradox of the alcohol-funded ‘drink responsibly’ message perfectly (NSFW)

Over the last decade the digital age has swept over the cornerstones of newspaper publishing and eroded them with unforgiving consistency. Now, each time the Nielsen’s print readership and the ABC’s circulation results are released, what remains of the major publications look a little smaller than what they were the quarter or year before.

The numbers using public transport in Auckland are increasing, but it’s still something of a running joke and the much-trumpeted rail link is facing problems as the bureaucrats question the costs. Auckland Transport and Work Communications have been trying to convince more people to take the bus, train or boat and they won a TVNZ-NZ Marketing Award for their trouble. They’ve also got Jerome Kaino onboard to help spread the message and, at the smaller, more Colin Craig-ish end of the mascot spectrum, comedian and Radio Hauraki DJ Tim Batt has gone on a crusade to get people’s views on what the new transport network for West Auckland should look like.

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim aren’t big fans of bad marketing and advertising. But that hasn’t stopped them making heaps of good ads, with its recent spot with Jeff Goldblum for, of all companies, GE, their Old Spice ads with Terry Crews and some utter madness for Absolut with Zach Galafianakis all hitting the spot. And now they’ve cranked up the crazy for Totino’s Pizza Rolls.

The Better Drinks Company has just released its first batch of Charlie’s Straight Up Cola, and it was produced and canned in only 10 weeks. And while this might be impressive, the speed of the product development isn’t even the most interesting part of the project. As part of the launch, Charlie’s is asking customers to take to social media and say exactly how they feel about the new product. The company is giving Kiwis the chance to share their opinions, and only if the feedback is positive, will another batch be produced.

More than 80 percent of a worldwide research panel (including over 3,000 advertisers, marketers, service providers and technology developers across 17 countries, including New Zealand) said that data plays an important role in supporting their respective efforts. And 92 percent said they expect data to contribute even more substantially to their advertising and marketing efforts over the coming years.

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

Charlie’s has just launched its new straight up cola, which has “honest stuff like actual kola nuts, real malt, natural cane sugar and a cheeky squeeze of lemon”. But, in a nice touch, it’s also decided to tell drinkers what isn’t in the can just to see if they’re still paying attention.

Since the beginning of the week, Men’s Health has been causing people across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to do some serious double takes, thanks to a controversial set of posters that are designed to encourage men to talk about their health issues. But Men’s Health isn’t the only organisation making Kiwis gawk. Love Your Condom has continued its risque approach to raising awareness about condom usage among the nation’s gay men with a new campaign that features the chiseled body of poster boy James Luck.

As Santa is to kids, so is the John Lewis Christmas ad to the creative community. And once again it has slid down the collective chimney and landed with an emotional, animal-related thud.