Buying of ad inventory has traditionally been an esoteric art typified by Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and a continuous stream of back and forth communications. This approach created various touch points that collectively sapped the resources of media companies and slowed down the entire process. However, the emergence of programmatic buying has over the last few years expedited the process by centralising communications through innovative software solutions. One of the companies that has successfully provided such services across the Australasian market over the last few years is Adslot, but the company’s business director Stacey Perillo believes that programmatic buying in the digital space has not been quite as effective as it could’ve been. So, in an effort to streamline the process, the company has made some key changes to its offering.

Plenty of people with kids—and many without—greatly enjoyed the brutal honesty of Adam Mansbach’s best-selling children’s book Go The Fuck to Sleep (and Samuel L Jackson’s audio book rendition). Now he’s written a follow up based another major parental frustration called You have to Fucking Eat.

Back in 1994, a “punk zine” called Vice was launched in Montreal. 20 years later it has offices in over 30 countries and it has expanded into a global youth-focused media company that runs a range of magazines and websites, a music label, a film-making arm, a TV show, a news outfit and an ad agency. And, because it has been able to attract the tough to reach millennial market, brands are increasingly looking for some of its magic dust. We chat with Melbourne-based director Myki Slonim about Vice Media’s strategy, how brands can get past young people’s sophisticated bullshit detectors and how the company is faring in this part of the world.

Over the last couple of days, some dedicated Apple fans have discovered a little-known feature of the new iPhone 6 Plus and they are not too happy about it.

In a new TVC, which appears to borrow from the long run scene in Forest Gump, a dishevelled and impressively bearded James Rolleston is depicted walking with a smartphone in hand while watching online video clips, before an on-screen notification informs him that he has reached the end of the internet. As with several of Vodafone’s recent campaigns, this ad again draws attention to the fact that Vodafone’s major point of difference lies in the extent and reach of its 4G network. But how much longer will Vodafone be able to rely on 4G as a point of difference?

The tendency of diners to take snapshots of their meals has become almost ritualistic in its frequency. It has become the pre-meal prayer of the digital age, an unwritten rule that no food will be touched until the formality of prerequisite photography has been completed. And although this does little more than annoy those who go to restaurants for food rather than photo shoots, one Auckland restaurant is experimenting with the concept in an effort to drive online engagement. As part of its birthday celebration, Miss Clawdy is offering (ends after Sep 28), every diner a free cupcake when they show proof of an Instagram post of its birthday cupcake (check out our other Miss Clawdy article).

“The average human goes from 0 to 60 in less than two billion seconds,” says the narrator in the new BMW spot via Ogilvy’s Gurgaon branch in India. And during the 44 seconds of the ad, this premise is visually represented through a series of photographs and short video clips showing the progression of a person moving from youth to old age in only a few seconds, and tying in perfectly to the ‘Don’t postpone joy’ positioning of the new campaign.

Ever felt the urge to go for a casual skydive, snowboard, mountain bike, bungee and jet boat ride all in under an hour? Did you know that this was even possible? Well, a new video from Tourism New Zealand confirms it most definitely is.

Following on from ANZ’s move into publishing with BlueNotes, BNZ, RaboDirect and Westpac have now made their own forays into the content marketing landscape. But the approach that each bank has taken differs not only in terms of the content being covered but also in terms of who produces the material for publishing. We take a look at what each bank is doing in this space.

News is increasingly heading online, but paper still has its place and, increasingly, that place is the weekend. And The Guardian and Observer have released a great new ad via BBH that sums up what the weekend is all about—and the paper’s role in it.

Lady Gaga may not have performed in Rangiora (yet). But she is using some visual marketing software from a company that’s based there. PLUS: how the company is expanding into the US market.

Almost 5,000 New Zealanders have taken to the polls and their votes have declared Mallowpuffs Original the nation’s favourite biscuit as part of Griffin’s ‘Bikkielections’ campaign. This result marks the first time in the poll’s four-year history that Mallowpuffs has featured as one of the nation’s top three biscuits, let alone won the entire event. But is an elaborate election-themed campaign around election time even legal?

John Oliver has torn strips off everything from native advertising to Tony Abbott in his HBO show Last Week Tonight, and he’s been getting plenty of online love as a result of his entertaining opinions. And now New Zealand has come under his microscope, with a clip discussing the National Party’s run-in with Eminem over the track it used in its election ads and Steven Joyce’s description of its use as “pretty legal”.

Back when newspapers (and, to a lesser degree, magazines) were happily floating down their rivers of gold, the church and state of editorial and sales were kept very separate. But desperate times call for what some may see as desperate measures and as publishers search for new revenue streams, many of them are increasingly offering their skills to help tell the stories of businesses. Now APN has joined that club with the launch of Brand Insight.

Although no Kiwi agencies picked up a Grand Clio at the 55th edition of the prestigious American Awards show, the list of nine winners in the various categories provide a concise summary of another fantastic year of creativity from across the world. Of all the agencies to pick up one of the big gongs, only Harvey Nichols’ ‘Sorry I Spent’ and British Airways’ ‘The Magic of Flying’ won across more than one category. And There were also several winners that carried their Cannes success across the Atlantic, with Chipotle’s ‘The Scarecrow’ and Volvo’s ‘Live Test Series’ collecting the major gong at the Clios.

Interbrand was riding high after its work for the New Zealand AIDS foundation won a TVNZ-NZ Marketing Award in the not-for-profit category and a global Interbrand Best Work Award for verbal identity. But that was fairly shortlived because and it has lost the Love Your Condom (LYC) brand, a government-funded prevention campaign encouraging condom use among all gay and bisexual men, the most at risk demographic for contracting HIV, to bcg2.

MediaWorks’ channel Four is continuing along the same lines as its The Home of Not Rugby during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, with the current campaign with Special Group of ‘The Home of Not Election’. It has been promising an “entertaining escape from the political coverage dominating other media to Election Day and beyond: an invitation to take a break from the Judith Collins saga, and enjoy the brand new season of America’s Next Top Model; to get excited about upcoming new fast tracked episodes of [various shows].”

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

The final lead up to the national election gives the citizens of the country the unique pleasure of being able to see politicians dressed in formal attire standing in the rain, feigning smiles and waving at all the cars driving by. It’s unclear whether such seemingly desperate measures have any sway over the location of the ticks on election day, but they are entertaining nonetheless. Traditionally, these last-ditch efforts by political parties have been limited to doing impersonations of brand mascots on street corners, but in a digitised world they are becoming more sophisticated. These days, politicians recognise that political messages have the capacity to reach a wider audience if they are delivered online. And for this reason many the nation’s parties have taken to the internet to consolidate their street-based efforts.