In an effort to attach Corona to a laid-back lifestyle, the team at MC Creative in Australia has created a content room on the Australian and Kiwi homepages of Corona Extra that features blog posts and videos of surfers, skaters, musicians and artists visiting idyllic stretches of the world.
Last month, when Vodafone launched its Gold Rush campaign for the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5, StopPress commented on how fortunate James Rolleston was to not have been given the same sadistic treatment as that thrown at Guy Williams for Telecom’s promotion of the snazzy phone. However, this observation may have been slightly pre-emptive because Vodafone’s latest spot, which although not resorting to physical abuse, will likely cause the actor a lingering sense of shame that can only come with seeing oneself—at primetime every night—with a bowl cut.
Interislander has been having a pretty rough time of it recently, with the Awatere losing a propeller in the Cook Strait, its replacement the Stena Alegra battling with a few issues of its own and Winston Peters making accusations about KiwiRail’s top brass covering up serious incidents. And it’s also struggling with its advertising.
The 2014 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards have shifted into the next gear of preparation with the announcement of the panel of judges who have been confirmed for this year’s event, which will be hosted at the Langham on 28 August.
When the University of Auckland’s account came up for review last year, the general sentiment was that it was likely to stay with long-time agency partner King St. But, slightly surprisingly, it pulled out of the pitch and shacked up with the University of Waikato and JWT has picked up the slack.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Last Friday night, a good chunk of the nation’s newspaper and magazine community gathered at the Pullman to celebrate the best writers, photographers, cartoonists, publishers and—be still our beating heart—marketers and bloggers. And while the commercial seas have been relatively choppy in this industry of late, the Canon Media Awards are always a good reminder of the important role journalism plays in telling a nation’s stories. And the event’s opening video, which was put together by OnDigital, shows just how broad that remit has been over the past year.
The 18th Annual Webby Awards is kicking off on May 20 and what better way is there to celebrate all things Internet than awarding a “Meme Of The Year”?
In contrast to the major advertising awards shows that are typified by large round tables, three-course meals and formal attire, the ORCA Awards, held last night at the Nathan Club in Auckland, was a stripped down affair that took a tongue-in-cheek look at the ads created by the six finalists. Over the course of the event, the organisers released a series of videos of radio personalities Bryce Casey, Guy Williams and Dave Fane sharing their often hilarious thoughts on the shortlisted ads.
While editorial and sales have long been uneasy bedfellows in the world of newspapers, they’ve been forced to get a bit cosier in recent years. That’s exactly what APN and Tourism Australia did for the ‘Explore Your Australian Passions’ campaign and the content-led initiative caught the eye of the judges at the International News Media Association Awards (INMA), winning first place in the ‘Best Marketing Solution for an Advertising Client’ category.
Mercury Energy is believed to have kicked off a pitch process for its below-the-line business, with a rumoured list of contenders thought to include FCB, DDB-owned RAPP and the incumbent Chemistry Interaction.
As Jeff Bezos says in his book The Everything Store, there are two types of companies: those that exist to raise prices and those to exist to try and lower them. Amazon is in the latter category, of course, whereas most media companies would be in the former. But Q3 has proven to be something of an anomaly, because TVNZ has decreased its ratecard prices while MediaWorks has increased them. So what’s the rationale behind those decisions?
There are a whole heap of great marketing success stories in this country. But you’ve got to be in to win. And you’ve also got to craft a quality entry if you hope to stand out from the pack and win a TVNZ-NZ Marketing Award. So if you want to improve your chances, check out these six pieces of advice from past winners and 2014 judges Wendy Rayner, Ant Rainger, Jacqui Bridges, Michael Pryor and Bryan Crawford.
With increasing numbers of eyes turning from televisions to consume content on mobile devices, advertisers are having to adapt and find new ways to promote their clients’ products or services. So, in an effort to take its content to those migrating eyes, the promotional team behind Tranformers: Age of Extinction has created a new app that features interviews, trailers and other teasers.
Every time it seems as though all the app voids in the world have already been filled, someone finds some unchartered territory in the app landscape. This trend has now continued with the emergence of the North Korea Travel app, which makes it easier for people to visit the “hermit kingdom”.
The internet is awash with creative ‘for sale’ ads, but Swedish art director Christoffer Castor is being held up as a master of the art after releasing a ridiculous—and ridiculously entertaining—video for his bright orange 1993 Volvo 245GL, which, potential buyers will be impressed to know, is equipped with both an inside and an outside.
For the 55th year, the BNZ Literary Awards will celebrate the work of both aspiring and established writers in New Zealand. As was the case last year, BNZ is once again accepting entries through Facebook, via a specially designed app dedicated to the short story competition.
By 2020 the number of things connected to the internet is expected to be around 40 billion and less than 20 percent of those will be smartphones, tablets or PCs. The data those things gather aims to make our lives easier or, in the case of a company like Nest, more efficient. And Cisco has shown that the internet of things can also be applied to outdoor advertising.
Movie and TV streaming service Quickflix has announced the launch of a pay-as-you-go service, which it is offering to non-subscribers.
StopPress understands that .99 has won the FIFA U20 World Cup account after a competitive pitch that involved what is thought to have been four agencies. But it isn’t all good news at the agency at the moment. It has also been confirmed that .99, like its fellow Clemenger-owned agency Colenso BBDO, is currently in the process of letting some staff members go. PLUS: TVNZ wins rights to broadcast 22 games during for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Last year, in a star-studded clip for code.org, rapper and singer Will.i.am declared coders the new rock stars. But a small percentage of Kiwi developers are female and the dropout rates for females studying computer science are much higher than for males. Powershop’s Kelly Cheeseman thinks that needs to change.
The first rule of speech club is to insert an inspirational quote at the start. The second rule of speech club is to show a whole lot of case study videos. Giles Tuck, head of Google’s inhouse agency The Zoo-APAC, failed on the former in his presentation about social creativity—the first Champion Speakers event for the recently rejigged CAANZ PR, Experiential and Social Media Committee (PREScom)—but he embraced the second. And the main outtake for the 150-strong crowd of gathered marcomms folk was that you can’t just do social, you’ve got to be social.
New Zealand Post and its in-house subsidiary Kiwibank have announced plans to bring their media accounts together, and several agencies are currently involved in a pitch for the new combined account.
In an effort to remove the hack of going to the gym from consumers’ daily schedules, US-based startup Peloton developed an exercise bike that comes with a specially designed tablet, which connects users to professional spin classes. Through this system, bike owners can access pre-recorded sessions with a range of different trainers—thereby making it possible to enjoy the benefits of a spin class without having to leave the house.
Creative talent placement agency The Pond recently redesigned its website to make it fully compatible and responsive on iPads and iPhones—meaning that iOS users can now access their accounts on the go. The new website, which was designed by Wellington-based digital agency Heyday and serves largely as a creative matchmaking service, enables company owners to browse through the profiles of creatives to find someone suitable for a certain job.
With last week’s announcement that Jane Hastings would take on the newly created chief executive role, APN centralised control of its offering across its publishing, radio and digital properties. And now, in continuing this trend of cross-channel collaboration, APN has launched an initiative called Collaborative Media Solutions (CMS), which will provide media agnostic advertising services to clients across the available platforms.
Humans can’t seem to resist pushing buttons. And Beck’s and Shine’s Playable Posters, created as part of the brand’s sponsorship of NZ Music Month, tapped into that with a great example of old and new coming together to create some interactivity in the real world. And it’s just released a clip showing some of the reactions and remixes.
Heineken has been trying to inspire men to explore the world through its Legends series, which has resulted in some brilliant ads and increased sales around the world. But it’s gone down the domestic road in its latest spot and is tapping into the power of FOMO by showing them what they could be missing out on in their own cities.
Soulwax has just released the final edition to their set of 24 hour long mixes, with 60 minutes of awe-inspiring audiovisual goodness from their 2002 mashup classic As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt 2, which was released under their alias, 2ManyDJs.
