Comedian and actor Ricky Gervais, who currently stars in Netflix original Derek, has branched out and stepped into the lead roles of several of Netflix’s shows for a new campaign that aims to promote some hit programming available through the online streaming service. The 60-second spot sees the rotund actor stepping into House of Cards, Lilyhammer and Orange is the New Black as he becomes part of the storylines that he has followed on Netflix.

It’s no secret that football has become a massive business enterprise, which relies on the appeal of handsomely paid sports stars to drive revenue. And while Cristano Ronaldo’s abs and Neymar’s consistently changing hairdos are successful at attracting interest from fans, Italian playmaker Andrea Pirlo has something that no other player has: a sullen face that seems incapable of being pleased. And in a move that shows it’s possible to even capitalise on things conventionally considered undesirable, Pirlo’s Turin-based club Juventus has now launched a campaign that encourages viewers to send in videos that might be able to impress the player.

Barnes, Catmur & Friends has taken some time off torturing pizza eaters and giving RTD drinkers “Woodies” to ask Kiwis some important questions. In a new print and online-based campaign for its client Boundary Road Brewery, the agency has compiled a series of questions for an initiative called ‘ The Unauthorised Beer Census New Zealand 2014’ in an effort to find out more about the nation’s beer drinkers.

Marty Neumeier, best-selling author, designer and renowned business adviser, is on a mission to “revolutionise the way business does business in the 21st century”. And you can find out how he plans on doing that at an event on Friday 29 August where he will share his insights on modern brands and the importance of being credible in an age of transparency.

Some brands might find it morally wrong to piggy back on a charity campaign but this doesn’t seem to have been an issue for Samsung in the UK.

There are so many ways to pay these days, and MYOB is aiming to draw attention to its new mobile card reader in a fairly unexpected way: by showing how it would benefit sex workers. But there’s a bit of a twist.

This month the New Zealand Transport Authority turned to the social media channel, Snapchat, to warn drug drivers of the effect that Marijuana use has on their driving.

Hallenstein Brothers has managed to add a bit of cool factor to its brand in recent years, with some raunchy ads, some trippy ads and some cheeky stunts. Now, on the anniversary of Burt Munro’s land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, it’s released an extreme ad that has called on Crusty Demons legend Carey Hart and his crew to put its new high performance suits through their paces.

The store wars still rage. While New World comes back for round two of Little Shop, Countdown’s tactic is not to fight like-with-like (there’s no round two yet of Dreamworks Heroes 3D collectable cards), but instead offer something tried and true: tableware.

A harvester that converts vibrations from city traffic into electricity, handles that turn sticks into sophisticated tramping poles and a 3D printed anchor to affix prosthetic noses to have been named as the three finalists in the New Zealand leg of the annual James Dyson Award global product design innovation contest.

Slingshot has shaken a few trees in recent months with its legally dubious Global Mode, which makes use of a workaround and lets Kiwi viewers access sites like Netflix and Hulu, and it’s fully embraced the Streisand Effect to get some more attention after a few major broadcasters decided not to show the ad. Now it’s continuing on that quest in a slightly different way by backing a new website called frontup.co.nz that shows how much Kiwis pay for goods and services in comparison to other markets.

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

There’s nothing better than a good venn diagram. Nothing. But it’s fair to assume the designer who made this ad for Thomson Reuters probably wasn’t going for it to be perceived that way.

Around the world, advertisers are trying to involve their audiences in the marketing, whether it’s Wendy’s love songs, Airbnb’s Hollywood & Vines, Newcastle’s crappy crowdsourcing or, locally, Give it a V and Feel Tip Top. TV shows have long talked about doing the same, and many of them have taken fandom into the realm of social media. But increasingly it seems broadcasters are not content with audiences passively absorbing content and are trying to convince them to get involved. So how’s that working out for them?

A Facebook page that popped up on June 24 aims to expalin New Zealand politics with the wise words of Mr Kanye West.