Last night’s third episode of The Block screened for the first time this season without My Kitchen Rules NZ (MKR NZ) diverting viewers to TV One, which could have been its big chance to exclusively engage viewers after a dismal episode two. But its plans were foiled by the leaders’ debate.
If you liked the sound of wood, then you’ll probably like the sound of racquets and balls. James Murphy, he of LCD Soundsystem fame, has teamed up with IBM for the US Open to make unique songs from the data generated from tennis matches. And it’s predicting it will have almost 400 hours of ‘music’ by the end of the tournament.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Peugeot has appointed Contagion as its New Zealand communications partner after a competitive pitch, with the agency set to handle strategy, media, creative and sponsorships.
Metro’s Cheap Eats issue, which celebrates Auckland’s 100 best dinners under $20, is always a pretty good seller for Bauer. But it’s decided to take its promotions up a step and make a teaser video showing that with so much affordable food on offer, stretchy pants—and impeccable grooming—are essential.
Spark Ventures’ subscription video on demand service Lightbox launched yesterday (here’s our take on the various streaming options) and while plenty of early adopters seemed pretty excited about that, it’s launched a campaign via Consortium to get the rest of the country to pay attention.
Industry happenings at Touchcast, Healthy Life Media, BOTAB, CAANZ and Blockhead.
Kelly Addis has returned to the homeland after 14 years in Melbourne to open an Auckland branch of ad agency Zoo. And he’s confident its model—and its trans-Tasman knowledge—will make it an attractive proposition for New Zealand and Australian clients.
The theme for this year’s TVNZ NZ Marketing Awards was Make Marketing History, evoking great marketing successes of the past and inspiring today’s marketers to join the winners ranks. Last night’s awards night saw BP Oil take out the Supreme Award (and the retail category) and Geoff Ross inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame. We bring you a full list of winners.
When a bunch of high-powered Silicon Valley female leaders strip off and model underwear in their workplaces, is it demeaning or just a bit of brave fun? Lingerie brand Dear Kate’s campaign photographed senior women in the high tech industry modeling its bras and undies, touting it as ‘high performance underwear for high performing women”.
In an effort to catch the attention of the increasingly uninterested youth segment of the population, the Electoral Commission has already commissioned Lorde to appear in a pair of videos in which she encourages eligible Kiwis to use the right she still doesn’t have. Tallying a cumulative total of about 30,000 views, these videos have attracted a decent level of attention, but they haven’t been shared sufficiently to reach all the young Kiwis who are yet to enrol. So, to consolidate these online and TV efforts, the Electoral Commission has now taken its message to a channel that is particularly popular among the younger segments of the population, Pandora.
Programmatic buying is still just a sliver of the total online ad spend, here and around the world (in New Zealand, it accounted for nine percent or $3 million of the total $31.4 million spent on online display in the last quarter). But it’s getting plenty of column inches and that spend is trending upwards. Most of the big media players have invested in or have access to trading desks and demand side platforms, and many ads for local brands now feature on international sites as a result. But Acquire Online’s Anthony Ord is aiming to get those clients and agencies to support local publishers a bit more by creating a list of 156 different Kiwi sites that have offered inventory as part of a network buy.
Last night, at an event hosted at the Mental Health Foundation in Auckland, Google announced to 70 representatives from 50 Kiwi not-for-profit organisations that it will give eligible New Zealand charities and community organisations free access to advertising and technology worth $120,000 in each case per year.
TVNZ is bringing a Netflix original to Kiwi screens in the shape of Orange is the New Black, in a move that will see all the episodes of both seasons of the popular prison dramedy, which recently won three Emmy Awards, streamed via the TVNZ Ondemand service for the month of September. PLUS: we look at how Netflix decides on which shows to invest in.
Spark Ventures’ Lightbox subscription video on demand service officially launched last night, and, not surprisingly, its arrival seems to have been the catalyst for a fair bit of activity in the streaming space, with TVNZ now offering online box sets of Orange is the New Black, Freeview’s Sam Irvine talking up an integrated broadcast and broadband offering, Quickflix claiming that more competition is a good thing and Sky, which recently announced another big profit increase, getting set to launch its own streaming service for non-Sky customers. So who’s got the best offer?
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.
According to Quitline, Māori and those in high deprivation populations care less about the cost of cigarettes, or their health, compared to how much they care about their children. Māori Television’s advertising head of department, Toni Urlich developed the creative for the ‘Crayons’ campaign, which uses children, mimicking their parents’ smoking behaviour. The campaign was created inhouse at Māori Television and in a first, will also be rolled out across other channels.
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.
Last night, the launch of the third season of The Block NZ kicked off a ratings war that will see the DIY-themed show take on TVNZ’s My Kitchen Rules over the next few months. And the overnight figures seem to indicate the first battle has gone to the side of DIY porn, with The Block NZ winning the lion’s share of the audience in the key demographic categories.
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.
Jonathan Dodd believes Telecom’s rebrand to Spark was well-managed and is a good strategic decision. But he reckons the wheels have fallen off a bit when it comes to its rewards scheme, ‘Thanks’.
Holden, Toyota, Lotto NZ and Anchor bask in the warm glow of victory this week.
Changes at Chemistry Interaction, MediaWorks, Big Mobile and CallPlus.
Back in 1903, C.M. Coolidge was commissioned by cigar makers Brown & Bigelow to create 16 paintings of dogs acting like humans that it could use for advertising and giveaways. Nine of them were of dogs sitting around a table playing cards and one of them, ‘Looks Like Four of a Kind’, ended up becoming a classic that has been referenced, copied and parodied relentlessly over the years (here in New Zealand, artist Ivan Clarke and Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor were obviously inspired by the anthropomorphic, gambling canines and created The Lonely Dog series). And now Lotto NZ and DDB have joined that club for a new Keno campaign.