Fewer than two years after getting a toe in Coca-Cola’s door by winning the Lift Plus and Mother accounts, DDB has now lost both energy drinks to Ogilvy. Updated with comments from Ogilvy executive director Paul Manning.
Over the past few years, Heineken and Wieden + Kennedy’s Legends brand platform has resulted in some brilliant ads and increased sales around the world. For its latest trick, it’s managed to convince more than 40 legends from the world of sport, art and entertainment to create a unique poster that will be auctioned off to support Reporters Without Borders, a global non-profit organisation that protects journalists and ensures freedom of information worldwide. And there’s a Kiwi connection to this one, with ex-All Black Brad Thorn and double world record holding freediver William Trubridge enlisted for the campaign.
McDonald’s brand Georgie Pie has tracked up to more than 25,000 fans in a bit over a month since agency Fuse launched the Facebook page. The 25-44 year old demographic who ate all the pies back in the day are a key target, but pie newbies are also on Fuse’s radar.
Trade Me-owned site Holiday Houses is moving with the shift to mobile, getting a new version that caters for changing traffic trends. Visits to the site from tablets have jumped 75 percent since this time last year while smartphone visits have more than doubled in that time.
If your company is investing heavily in digital but it’s not paying off, your CEO, head of marketing or IT boss could be the problem. Top performing companies are those whose chief executive sets and follows a digital strategy and those who can identify a strong relationship between marketers and those who spend technology dollars.
In its first piece of work for World Vision since winning the not-for-profit’s account at the end of last year, Sugar & Partners has released a new campaign that enables Kiwis to contribute capital to the entrepreneurial endeavours of people living in disadvantaged circumstances throughout the world. Launched via a series of billboards that pose the question ‘What if the next Richard Branson, [Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison or Trelise Cooper] couldn’t afford to start up his [or her] business?’, the campaign serves to remind viewers that even the most successful people needed that initial investment to get their ideas off the ground.
Not many ads tend to completely steer away from showing off their product when making a 60 second TVC, but that is exactly what Leo Burnett and Canon Australia have done in the latest ad. “No One Sees It Like You…#whatdoyousee?” is the newest addition to the ‘No One Sees It Like You’ campaign.
For many years, Vero has taken a bovine-heavy approach to its advertising. And while Sensation, the company’s 1200kg Black Angus bull mascot who burst onto the scene in 2003 when Big launched the brand in New Zealand, features at the end of its new 60 second spot, the company has taken a different, more serious tack in an effort to show that insurance ‘is not about things going wrong, it’s about an insurer putting them right’.
As digital technology advances, the lines between reality and virtual reality become increasingly obscured. And while this trend has spawned some disturbing results, the team at Auckland-based production company Mr Señor has twisted it into something creative by developing an entire music video using footage from Grand Theft Auto V.
Lurpak has a rich heritage when it comes to creating quality food porn. And now, to launch its new Cooks Range, Wieden + Kennedy has created another stunner, with the adventure-themed spot imploring home cooks to ’embrace the unknown in wide-eyed wonder’.
Online retail sales were down this February compared to last, with a three percent drop making a marked constrast to last February’s five percent gain. And Kiwi buying from offshore website merchants continues to have the jump on domestic players, according to BNZ’s latest monthly stats.
Rather than following Clemenger’s lead by taking the gently, gently approach, The Tombras Group has instead created an ad for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the States that wouldn’t be out of place in the 72nd sequel of the Final Destination franchise.
As part of the prize for winning The Herald Advertising Challenge, a couple of FCBers got a trip to Rome to attend the Festival of Media Global. Here’s Kevin Walker’s take on the first day.
In an effort to overcome the colour discrimination that causes consumers to opt for black, white or grey apparel instead of experimenting with alternative options in the palette, AS Colour has launched an experiential campaign via FCB that encourages shoppers to diversify their wardrobes.
Last week, the Labour Party said the $15 million campaign that aimed to prompt consumers to check out different electricity suppliers and decrease their bills was a failure after a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment report found it had not led to lower retail prices overall and didn’t increase competition. The Electricity Authority’s agency FCB won plenty of awards for the campaign, with 350,000 people visiting the sites and 70,000 people saving $16 million as a result of switching. But that relationship is now over, with Y&R thought to have won the business after FCB declined to pitch.
Moves and shakes at Porter Novelli, Anthem, Colenso BBDO, the Rock, Lego, and Beat Communications.
The Dominion Post and NZ Herald will contest this year’s Canon Media Award for Best Newspaper with circulation over 30,000, while Good, Home and The Listener are the finalists for Best Newsstand Magazine. In the new Best Blog category it’s Toby Manhire, Cameron Slater and Giovanni Tiso, with Best Website finalist placings handed to 3News, The Wireless and Yahoo NZ.
An email leaked to StopPress late Friday afternoon revealed that McDonald Vague, the receivers assigned to Mediaweb last month, found several anomalies when analysing the financial records of the struggling company. The message, written by McDonald Vague director Jared Booth, was initially intended only to be read by those involved in the tender process, and comes shortly after Mediaweb went into liquidation on 21 March.
Season four of Game of Thrones screens in the US today and on SoHo in New Zealand tonight. Sky and DDB have ensured Kiwis know about that with its very well-received, social-media fuelled campaign to bring down a statue of the much-despised King Joffrey. But HRV is also getting in on the act with a tactical spot called ‘Winter is Coming’ that’s set to run in the slot just before the premiere. Plus: Hell Pizza supports the bad guy and other entertaining parodies of the show.
Football fever (and football-related advertising fever) is ramping up as Brazil gets ready to host the World Cup in June. And there was a bit of fancy footwork in New Zealand last week when a selection of Auckland agencies put down their iPhones and laced up for the inaugural CAANZ soccer tournament. Plus: agencies also skive off to play basketball for TRN’s 3 on 3.
After establishing the New Zealand arm of Whybin\TBWA around 15 years ago, David Walden resigned from his post last year and made way for Todd McLeay. And now he has officially announced his first new role: chairman of The Family, the agency set up by ex-Ikon leaders Tom Davidson and Lee Parkinson.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
ZM, part of The Radio Network (TRN), has teamed up with ice cream franchise Pride & Joy to give a $30,000 franchise opportunity to a lucky New Zealander, who shows the drive and determination necessary to run a successful business. Pride and Joy co-founders James Coddington and Tony Balfour say that they are focused on providing opportunities for remarkable people among today’s unemployed and underemployed.
Mistubishi has just launched New Zealand’s first plug-in hybrid SUV. But, rather than trying to explain the complex technology in the new Outlander, Clemenger BBDO and Curious have kept it simple. Plus: lots more brmm-brmms and a new automotive sponsorship.
There’s no doubt that the Americans secretly feel relieved that their neighbours to the north also have an embarrassing politician, but the Canadians are aiming to wipe out the Rob Ford-shaped smudge on their otherwise respectable political track record. A new faux mayoral campaign, which has been launched by an online organisation dubbed No Ford Nation, presents a series of dishevelled men as viable alternatives to the current Toronto mayor.
To promote the release of Nymphomaniac, Lars von Trier’s two-part, four-hour journey into the psychology of sex, Flicks.co.nz has launched a campaign via Trigger Marketing that stays true to the film’s provocative, and sometimes humorous, narrative. Given that the promotional art for the film portrays the stars seemingly posing in moments of climactic ecstasy, Flicks.co.nz is now inviting its readers to send in snapshots of their own O-faces.
Just a few weeks after being named agency of the year at Axis, Colenso BBDO has picked up another agency of the year accolade, this time at the inaugural Asia Pacific Effie Awards.
APN is extending its network of digital billboards with four new sites around inner city Auckland to launch in August. It’s also got big plans for new options at Auckland International Airport when it takes over those sites in November.
Fairfax, like many ‘traditional’ news businesses around the world, has had a fairly rough time of it lately, with declining circulation and ad revenue, ongoing cost cutting and the ensuing job losses. But a new management team is in place in the New Zealand market, there appears to be a bit of renewed optimism in the media (check out Pew Research Centre’s State of the Media 2014 for a great rundown of what’s happening), its digital numbers are strong and some believe the negative sentiment towards print is overcooked, in Australia at least. Despite the issues of recent years, Fairfax is still a big business and a big employer in this country, and it’s looking for a few new recruits, so its inhouse team has created a self-promotional video (how good is that voice?) aimed at selling those in the UK on the New Zealand lifestyle and the chance to work in the “innovative, integrated multi-media business”.
