As Jetstar’s last campaign cleverly showed, ‘no-one likes delays, but everyone loves free flights’. And it’s continued down that road to celebrate five years of flying in New Zealand by creating a game of international Pass the Parcel.
There’s a fair bit of excitement over Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s What We do in the Shadows, which opens on June 19. And Wellington, a renowned film-friendly city, is getting behind it with a vampirical addition to its ‘blown away’ sign. PLUS: ‘The vampire’s guide to Vellington’.
Following on from last year’s elaborate faux real estate campaign for Agent Anna’s first season, TVNZ’s in-house agency Blacksand has again tapped into the fake reality theme for the promotion of the dramedy’s second season. Shot in an actual rental home, the stunt features Robyn Malcolm in character as klutzy Anna Kingston showing real visitors—and potential tenants—around a home, which has been set up with a variety of booby traps that result in some awkward interactions.
After a competitive pitch, Post Creative has been brought on to ‘engineer influence’ for the Green Party’s upcoming election campaign. PLUS: which agencies are working with the other major parties?
On 12 May, Radio New Zealand’s chief executive Paul Thompson delivered a speech at the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Conference held in Glasgow—and his thoughts on the industry stood in stark contrast to the optimism that has been voiced by the respective PR teams of the commercial stations. From the first line of the speech, which is currently available on the Radio New Zealand website, it’s clear that Thompson is bracing himself for a significant challenge in the role that he only stepped into nine months ago.
After around 18 years of fusing art with commerce, events and media company Madant has morphed into Uno Loco. And with clients increasingly looking to create experiences, not just ads, and with events companies increasingly dabbling in other areas, the planets appear to be in alignment for this successful yet under-the-radar business.
In an effort to encourage Kiwi men to open up, Men’s Health Week (which runs from 9 to 15 June) was launched late last night via a cheeky marketing campaign by M&C Saatchi. The ‘Speak Up’ campaign will see a series of speech bubbles being attached to existing advertisements in the Auckland CBD, Karangahape Road, Newmarket, Grey Lynn and Ponsonby—all areas that have been pinpointed as areas of concern.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Today’s consumers are fickle. It’s becoming harder to find loyal customers who won’t jump ship at the sight of a sweeter deal. They demand more for less, and are more willing than ever to shop around rather than sticking with a ‘preferred’ brand or provider. The telco industry knows this better than most. And you can find out how some of the country’s biggest players are dealing with it, differentiating themselves and inspiring customer loyalty and at the MA’s next Knowledge Bites event on Tuesday.
In the age of vines and five-second films, the 15 minutes of a YouTube-hosted documentary seems like a veritable viewing mountain. So, in an effort to keep the decreasing attention spans of its growing digital audience interested, APN’s online publishing team has penned a one-off partnership with filmmakers Loading Docs to host a series of ten three-minute documentaries on the NZ Herald website.
In a world where celebrity weddings tend to get more attention than serious environmental issues, it’s getting harder to avoid the curse of MEGO (my eyes glaze over). That means drawing attention to those issues often requires a more creative approach, which is exactly what Greenpeace has done ahead of World Oceans day through a collaboration with the creators of popular online video series Beached Az. PLUS: Sealord’s augmented reality experience pushes a very different message.
The billboard seems to be a growing darling of marketing and this year, for the first time ever, outdoor entries at the Cannes Lions overtook the number of press submissions (5660 outdoor entries vs. 5007 press entries). And while the majority are still static and passive, some of the more progressive outdoor executions aim to inspire more interactivity, both in real life and, increasingly, online. And Saatchi & Saatchi has gone down this road, setting a manuka billboard on fire to launch Sealord’s new hot-smoked salmon.
Last year, Clemenger Group headhunted ApolloNation’s Troy Fuller and invited him into Colenso’s offices on College Hill to develop the group’s shopper marketing expertise. His expertise resulted in quick momentum and now, only a year later, it has officially unveiled Clemenger Shop as the latest addition to the group.
Michael Pryor, currently general manager strategy and business performance at IAG New Zealand, has been appointed as the chief executive of the Marketing Association, replacing Sue McCarty, who announced her departure in February after six years at the helm.
A Dog’s Show lives on as a Kiwi classic, and it was recently referenced by Ford and JWT in a quirky Fieldays-related spot. And now Assignment Group and Adam Stevens of Robber’s Dog have done the same, with a 60 second ad that shows a humble house dog being inspired by his rural canine forebears and fuelled by a bellyful of Tux to achieve the seemingly impossible: herding cats.
A ball hasn’t even been kicked yet, but this year’s World Cup has already served up a fair amount of entertainment in terms of the ads that have come from major corporates. While Nike, Adidas and Puma have in the past been the trifecta of good sports advertising, other brands are also starting to intrude on this space by producing ads that are comparable if not better than those produced by the sports juggernauts.
Earlier this week StopPress published a story on the Q1 readership and circulation statistics for the nation’s newspapers. While the circulation figures sourced from ABC’s website and the majority of the readership figures were all accurate, the readership figures attributed to some of the provincial papers served up a series of anomalies that didn’t seem to correlate with statistics from previous surveys.
After choosing DDB to take over from FCB as its creative agency late last year, BMW has completed its line-up, with Rapp taking over from Twenty as its CRM agency and Dynamo, which had been working with the company on a short-term contract, being appointed as the media partner.
McDonald’s seems to have taken a leaf out of Dude Perfect’s book with their latest ad. To highlight their association with the 2014 FIFA World Cup the golden arches has made a video featuring some pretty amazing trick shots. Whether they are all real is still yet to be seen.
Sky has given its ‘come with us’ microsite a facelift by introducing an interactive browsing feature that takes the visitor on a short promotional journey through the programming currently on offer to subscribers. PLUS: The broadcaster has also announced a partnership with Boston-based, text-streaming company Spritz, which recently unveiled technology that allows viewers to read text on screens one word at a time without having to move from word to word or around the page.
Google recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Rubik’s cube with a special doodle that allowed users to a play with a digital version of the popular toy. And now, following on from the success of this initiative, the website has launched a video that uses the Rubik’s code as a premise to inspire innovation among the youth.
Is the thought of knowing who your neighbours are, sharing fruit with them, discussing neighbourhood crime and having a street barbie rather retro? Well, those golden times of safe, strong neighbourhoods could be coming back if new private website, neighbourly.co.nz, has anything to do with it.
Back in 2005, Cyber Monday kicked off the US and has become the biggest single online shopping day in the country (and possibly helped reduce the numbers of tramplings, brawls and taserings on Black Friday); in China, Singles Day is now the biggest online shopping day of the year worldwide; and a number of other countries have replicated these events. New Zealand has been a little late to this e-commerce party, but, following on from the success of its inaugural Click Madness event last year, The Warehouse Group is set to kick off another one on Friday 13 June.
Former Wall Street security analyst, venture capitalist and all-round data genius Mary Meeker recently published her 2014 internet trends presentation on the KPCB website. Comprising 164 slides of dense data, the voluminous analysis of the industry provides an interesting cross-section of the major trends taking shape this year.
Coca-Cola-owned Powerade has introduced a new app and updated its website in an effort to encourage Kiwis to lead healthier lifestyles. Rather than focusing on the Powerade product range, the new website instead provides users with a performance hub where they can set fitness goals, receive training programmes, track their performance and map runs. These digital upgrades coincide with the release of the sports drink’s ‘Performance is everything’ campaign, which was recently activated via an Ogilvy-created TVC that features All Blacks Liam Messam, Beauden Barrett and Julian Savea battling on a rugby field through a heavy downpour.
For better or for worse, the world has gone social and as the number of normal humans using social platforms increases, brands have invited themselves to their party. Social Media Club Auckland’s growth shows there’s plenty of interest in the scene from a commercial point of view and now it’s calling for nominations for the inaugural #SMCAKL Awards, with categories including Meteoric Rise on Social Media, Most Epic Tweet, Social Media Whoopsie, Best Display of Social Conscience and Best use of Social Media By a Brand or Company.
Coca-Cola has been on something of a self-flagellation mission of late in its advertising campaigns. In what can be seen as an effort to undo some of the environmental harm it has done due to the sheer number of empty plastic bottles strewn all over the world, the company has been focused on relaying a strong recycling message in many of its recent campaigns.
Kiwi companies investing in big data need to ask themselves some tough questions, says Greg Doone.
Fewer than two months after pinning rabbit skins to billboards, the sadistic team at Hell Pizza has now decided to turn its sadistic streak toward consumers by creating what it is being dubbed as the “hottest pizza in Australasia”. Topped with a generous helping of ghost peppers (which measure one million Scoville heat units), the Angry Dragon Pizza is largely a follow-on from the 2012 ‘Pizza Roulette’ campaign that had various unfortunate Kiwis reaching for the milk.
The marcomms industry continues to develop new ways of getting consumers’ attention—and, some would argue, new ways of getting awards judges’ attention. And with the current cacophony of commercial messages, it takes a lot to stand out. But Aussie agency Cummins & Partners has found a way to draw attention to the Creative Fuel conference—and poke fun at the persuasive arts in the process: combine everything the industry salivates over into one ridiculous idea.