In the new Kia Sportage spot by Work Communications, New Zealand’s green landscape and pristine waters serve as a foil to office-based captivity and the screen-staring that often comes with it. And while driving to a desolate swimming beach and diving in seems like a liberating idea, it probably isn’t quite as pleasurable as what it seems. What the footage shot by TVNZ’s Blacksand fails to tell the viewer is that the spot was shot at the onset of winter and that lead talent Sophie Baragwanath had to endure frigid swims during one day of shooting.

Over the last week, Heart of the City has been promoting its ‘Where Next?’ app, which was first announced in May. Designed in collaboration between VMob and Colenso, Where Next? puts VMob’s platform to work with a free iPhone and Android app designed to personalise the information visitors get about events, attractions, retail and hospitality, venues, deals and places to find out what’s on.

Snow in May never stays. Snow in June still too soon. Snow in July, it will lie. That old adage seems to have been true this year, and the snow lovers are getting their wish this week with some big dumps around the country. So Air New Zealand, Host Sydney and content creators Diaries Downunder have decided to celebrate the welcome arrival of the white stuff with a spot of synchronised snow sliding on Isobel Glacier. Plus: Tourism New Zealand’s snow-related efforts to tempt the Aussies.

The Associated Press recently revealed that it would be automating its business reporting through a series of algorithms that compose 150- to 300-word stories in lieu of actual humans. Powered by technology developed by a company called Automated Insights, these algorithms pull data from readily available statistics and are already used by the New York Times for its wedding announcements and by Forbes for its earning reports previews. According to Mashable, the technology resulted in 300 million automated stories last year, a number that’s higher than that produced by all the major media companies combined. And in 2014, they’re setting the bar even higher by aiming to produce over a billion stories.

New Zealand marketers this is for you – the Web Rangers programme has provided you a pool of marketing talent for the years to come. The programme, backed by Google NZ, Netsafe and Y&R, enlisted 14-17 years olds from around the country to tackle the issue of cyberbullying and promote safer and smarter internet use – because who better to come up with a marketing campaign than the demographic itself?

To launch the new Mini Hatch in New Zealand, Goodbye Pork Pie got an upgrade courtesy of DDB and director Matt Murphy. And in Australia, it tried to impress the cool, creative kids by creating a unique Mini-inspired interactive dancefloor.

Like many media organisations, we get sent a range of commercial detritus to draw attention to various launches or promotions, many of which seem like they help to keep the overseas crap factories ticking over. And in the past couple of days we’ve been sent two very different animal-related products, one celebrating continued survival, the other warning of impending death.

When you come up with a good YouTube idea, it can go absolutely mad, as evidenced by the likes of Epic Rap Battles of History (which, strangely, took an ad in the recent Wired magazine), Bad Lip Reading, Will it Blend, Epic Meal Time and Honest Trailers. And there might be another one to add to the list: the very entertaining Musicless Musicvideo.

Monteith’s and Colenso BBDO showed us beer through the years in one of its recent campaigns. And Gillette is showing us hair through the years to promote its new male body razor, “our first razor built for male terrain”.

Where once social media was seen as a harbinger of doom for traditional media, the enthusiasm has been tempered somewhat in recent years as algorithms have changed and questions have been asked about the return on investment. But there are still plenty of success stories, often from a customer service point of view, and Amanda Sachtleben went along to the #NZSOMO conference to find out about a few of them from New Zealand.

July 4 is a day where Americans wave flags, set off fireworks and marvel at their immense power. Plenty of brands jump on that bandwagon and tap into this intense patriotism, but renowned cheeky bastards and advocates of ‘No Bollocks’ Newcastle Brown Ale have decided to go the other way and, with the help of Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Hurley and Zachary Quinto, show everyone how much better America would be if the Brits had won.

As a story on Sunday recently showed, there’s a big debate about the role of screens in kids’ lives and whether they’re helping or hindering development. But Apple is looking at it in a different way, with its latest ad showing how the iPhone can help parents assist with child-rearing, whether it’s keeping tabs, finding the dog, teaching them maths or controlling the lights.

Last week, shortly after the release of Telecom’s Lightbox offering, Quickflix announced an agreement with South Pacific Pictures that gave the veteran in New Zealand’s SVOD market rights to over 120 hours of local content via Go Girls and Outrageous Fortune. And given that Lightbox’s head of programming and local content Maria Mahony admitted to StopPress that she was currently in talks with local film distributors to secure a deal to screen several local shows, this announcement by Quickflix will no doubt be competitive blow to the newcomer.

What makes people do Dry July? Screaming headaches and lowered IQ, greasy breakfasts with two days’ worth of calories, smartphone picture evidence of bad nudity ….and maybe even a goat inexplicably resident in the kitchen? Or is it because they want to see what they could achieve without a hangover?
Toybox, Clemenger BBDO and many freelancers have created the mesmerizing animation for the 2014 Dry July launch video.

Kia, McDonald’s, ANZ, Sky and TV2 win the plaudits this week.