In the lead up to this year’s edition of McHappy Day—the signature fundraising event for the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC)—McDonald’s has launched a YouTube video that draws attention to the charitable work the organisation does to assist families who have children suffering from illnesses. The video features compilation of clips heart-wrenching clips of families living in on the Kiwi-based Ronald McDonald Houses.

Remember when Cadbury sneakily added palm-oil to its chocolate and decreased the size of its packs? The company got an absolute slamming and its trust levels went through the floor. So it was interesting to see the exact opposite of that response when Whittaker’s put a post on Facebook saying that it would soon have to raise its prices.

At a launch event held last night at Auckland’s Snapdragon Bar, TSM NZ chief executive Rob Ellis unveiled a new mobile wallet brand, bringing fruition to a plan that was first announced over a year ago. As part of the launch, Ellis also said that the collaboration between the shareholders 2degrees, Spark, Vodafone, Paymark and banking partners ASB and BNZ would no longer be known as the TSM but rather as Semble. The main principle underpinning the Semble system is that it aims to remove the need for cards by facilitating a contactless payment system through the user’s mobile phone.

The founder of Ello started up the ad-free social network because he felt like the internet had turned into a giant billboard. There are ways to get around that, of course, and the rise of adblocking software is one of the most popular (nearly five percent of all internet users now use such software, up 69 percent on last year, and 18-29 year olds in the US clocked in at 41 percent). Converse is a brand aimed at the younger end of the market, so, in keeping with the trend towards utility in advertising, it created its own solution to annoying banner ads: a downloadable browser extension called The Ticket.

In an effort to encourage Holden fans to engage with its 60th anniversary microsite and share their stories, Holden has created an online competition that gives entrants a chance to win a restored 1969 Monaro. But rather than simply give away the car, Holden has used it as a content opportunity by documenting the restoration process through a video series fronted by Greg Murphy. When StopPress first covered this story, Holden had only uploaded the first video in the series, but since then an additional five have been uploaded (the most recent of which was published on 2 October).

News from the sponsorship desk, as Sonny Bill Williams dons the denim for Just Jeans, The Warriors re-sign with Canterbury and X Factor NZ announces its commercial partners, minus a couple from last time.

In 1995, Holden released a bizarre commercial that features a young child playing with light representative of the cosmos while the hypnotic voice of an omniscient narrator elaborates on the safety features of the Commodore Acclaim. By the end of this 30-second trippy journey, viewers are left with the uneasy feeling that their minds may have been incepted by some form of subliminal advertising. And while the car company didn’t further the campaign with any follow-on iterations, this unconventional creative approach seems to live on in the modern advertising efforts of the Church of Scientology, which for last year’s Super Bowl released a spot that also rates quite high on the bat defecation scale.

Lewis Road Creamery, which was founded by Assignment Group’s Peter Cullinane, kicked off with a range of premium and ‘mass premium’ butters before launching its milk range. Both have found plenty of success, with the brand now stocked in a number of Countdown and New World stores around the country. Its ambition is to continue down the dairy aisle, and as part of that process, it’s hooked up with Whittaker’s to launch “New Zealand’s only chocolate milk made with real milk chocolate”. And it seems to have sent New Zealanders into a dairy-related frenzy.

Fonterra has taken a page out of the mainstream retailer’s playbook by establishing a rewards initiative that gives its members access to a range of perks to those in the co-operative. The introduction of the loyalty programme is part of a series of changes, which also includes plans to rebrand all 67 of Fonterra’s RD1 stores to NZ Farm Source hubs (there are also plans to introduce four new stores), launch new digital technology, introduce on-site support and initiate a range of financial options exclusive to members.

The more things change, the more telcos will be talking about their role in the future. The recently rebranded Spark has been trying to convince Kiwis to never stop starting. But back in 1991, a quintessentially post-modern poster series by Mark Adams for Telecom was all about how fax machines and cell phones helped keep people in touch, ‘from yesterday until tomorrow’.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust is on a mission to bring an end to permanent name suppression for prominent perpetrators unless the complainant or victim requests and/or agrees to it. And that fight spilled over into the ad world recently after a High Court decision to grant a 42-year-old Auckland advertising executive and father of two who was convicted and sentenced for possessing and exporting child rape imagery in June this year permanent name suppression. So should his name be released so that potential clients know? And what would that mean for the agency that employed him?

Increasingly, big businesses need to start acting like start-ups, writes Simon Wedde. And that means being brutally honest about how customers experience your products or services—and then improving it.

The New Zealand Breast Cancer foundation has launched a new campaign via Colenso BBDO that features actress Geraldine Brophy displaying pictures of a series of women’s breasts to illustrate what changes are likely to take place in the event of breast cancer. The ad, which is based on a successful Scottish campaign featuring Elaine C Smith, was initially meant to run last year, but the Commercial Approvals Bureau blocked this move on account of the rule that female nipples are not allowed in television advertising. However, the Bureau has now backtracked on this decision.

World vegetarian week kicked off last week and ends tomorrow. And while many meat-dodgers are seen as peaceful types who don’t eat creatures because of concerns around animal cruelty, Hell has twisted that stereotype to promote its vege pizza deal.

In a recent segment, John Oliver aimed his verbal barbs at corporations who attach their commercial Tweets to serious issues. He leads the discussion by referring to US-based DiGiorno Pizza, which used the #WhyIStayed (created to raise awareness of domestic violence) without reading what it was about. The consequential ‘#WhyIStayed You had pizza’ Tweet was met with instant outrage from the online community, and resulted in various reports on mainstream media. But Oliver doesn’t restrict his criticism to corporations that make online faux pas. He also condemns those that make seemingly innocuous and thoughtful Tweets, such as those published on the 13th anniversary of the 11 September attacks. In his typically scathing style, Oliver makes the point that corporations should really just “remain respectfully silent”.

Our weekly collection of good things, funny things, weird things and other things from inside the intertubes.

Typically, Toyota focuses on the toughness of its Hilux ute, something clearly demonstrated by Top Gear’s unsuccessful attempt to kill one. Australia has also embraced that strategy with its Unbreakable positioning, but now it’s decided to focus on the toughness of the men who choose to drive one. PLUS: Toyota’s tie-up with Modern Family.

As mentioned in recent stories about Special Group’s collaboration with Anna Funder for Papsaley, Microsoft’s work with BMD and Icebreaker’s Simon Beck Collection, art and commerce are regularly intertwined in the world of marketing. Creative agency Fly has a long history of doing just that and creating objects that “act as a trojan horse for the delivery of meaning and emotional connection”. And recently it collaborated with artists to help launch Spark’s subscription video on-demand service Lightbox and a new range of charitable drinks for Phoenix.