Auckland-based brand and communications agency Goodfolk today announced the addition of Mark Easterbrook to the newly created role of executive creative director. This move comes shortly after the agency recently made two other senior staff appointments.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Sky’s fairly firm grip on sports broadcasting in New Zealand is one of the major reasons for its continuing success. And a new initiative called Sky Next is aiming to give some of that success back to help 18 of the country’s emerging athletes get to the top. Plus: DDB and The Sweet Shop offer a glimpse at the life of an athlete.
In an effort to lure New Zealand’s loyal fast food aficionados away from beef-based options on its menu, Burger King has just launched a cheeky campaign via Colenso BBDO that encourages Kiwis to cheat on beef by sampling something from its new range of chicken-based options. And to ensure that the cheating happens in private, the fast food chain has converted a motel into an extension of its brand.
Outdoor media owners often claim that one of the main strengths of their medium is that ads are not sandwiched between content and can’t easily be ignored. That’s undoubtedly a positive thing if it’s a good ad, but what if they’re not?
TUANZ CEO Paul Brislen will step down in June after more than three years in the role to join former Porter Novelli execs Jane Sweeney and Carolyn Kerr at their yet-to-be named agency. Brislen’s focus will be on much broader subject matter than the technology sector he’s worked in since the 1990s.
Kiwi players are trying different models to grab on demand eyeballs as the use of the platforms grows exponentially. TVNZ expects shows offered ‘first and fast’ will come to join its top on demand content, Sky
has its eye on more live streamed channels and MediaWorks is gaining traction with 3Now.
Republik and Flux Animation have gone pro-bono to produce a 30-second TVC promoting the inaugural Whittaker’s ‘Big Egg Hunt’ campaign for Starship Children’s Hospital.
Fairfax says its partnership with the team behind an app that brings together grass roots sports fans, clubs, live streams and content could be the first of other opportunities that tap into crowdsourcing in different verticals. The marketing and advertising partnership is with Waterboy, dreamed up by former All Black Kees Meuws.
Online is not ‘media’ anymore, says Jenene Crossan. It is about recommendations, connections and closing the gap between the consumer and commercial markets. So it’s time publishers evolved and adapted to this new reality.
At last year’s Moas, the motion picture Shopping picked up seven awards, making it the biggest winner of the night. And now, to promote the television premiere of the film on Sky’s Rialto channel, DDB launched an auction-based campaign with a humanitarian twist.
Derek Handley, co-founder of the Hyperfactory, Snakk Media chair, Sky board member, executive professor at AUT and author of Heart to Start, made the decision to dedicate one year of his life to working alongisde Richard Branson on The B Team, a global leadership force that’s on a mission to catalyse better ways of doing business for the wellbeing of people and our planet. Two years later, here’s what he’s learned.
We’ve seen Betty White, Paul Henry, Alf Stewart and even Godzilla featuring in Snickers’ ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ campaign. And now, in one of the best recent efforts by Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, we’ve got some rather progressive builders shouting out empowering statements to women.
What started as “drunken idea” between Kristian Barnes, Jason Williams and Michael Kean this year celebrated its 12th year, as the YoungGun Awards were again distributed to advertising’s most promising minds under the age of 30.
MEA Mobile has rounded out the platform suite for its iSupr8 app, which lets uers add vintage-style filters to video in a range of resolutions. It hopes to rival the likes of Vine and Instagram by catering to pro photographers as well as consumers.
Parodying corporate marketing cliches and generic stock footage is basically a modern day sport (and advertising knobbery regularly comes in for a skewering too). Now stock footage provider Dissolve has combined these two elements into one by adding some of its clips to the words of Kendra Eash and creating the world’s most generic brand video.
Heyday has given Z Energy’s Token Hunt game a spruce up this year, expanding it to six challenges and including a strong focus on Google Maps integration. And it’s made smart use of data to keep participants involved.
Johnson and Johnson in the middle East have a new campaign that taps into grandparents’ need to constantly see pictures of their grandchildren. The company is offering a frame and an app that lets parents send such images to grandparents daily, feeding seniors’ cute baby addiction.
HTC has thrown out the tech product ad rulebook, telling potential buyers to point their queries the internet’s way. It’s far from a lazy strategy and the silence as they wait for you to do your research is strangely compelling.
Plenty of car brands have ambassadors. But Audi has taken that a step further—and added in a Queen track—for its ‘Stay Uncompromised’ campaign, which features Ricky Gervais in the lead.
Facebook remains our dominant social network when it comes to user numbers and engagement, but it’s betting its future on an increasing array of options for users from what it’s brought into the stable and in-house development of standalone apps with mobile at their heart. And it touts itself as the logical partner as data-centric decisions become more central to personalised marketing off the desktop.
Samsung’s latest TVC for the Galaxy Pro tablet range has no qualms making digs at the opposition’s expense. The Microsoft Surface and Kindle aren’t spared and neither is the iPad, which apparently doesn’t cut it in terms of features despite its “retina thingy”.
BeIN Sports has a dream offering for football fans and men everywhere: a vuvuzela that with one blast changes the your cable TV channel to the big game. It’s not just the stuff of adland fantasty, it’s a real product fans can get line for.
The Press Council is weighing different fee levels for bloggers and digital media organisations starting in the hundreds of dollars for non-commercial organisations. Bloggers could also be considered as representative members if they become significant funders, the council’s executive committee chair says.
Industry shuffles at Cadbury, Saatchi & Saatchi NZ, the All Blacks, BrandWorld, Clemenger, RAPP and Word of Mouth.
Steve Kane, currently creative director at Whybin\TBWA, will take a seat in the managing director’s chair at Y&R NZ, replacing the outgoing James Hurman.
Charity auctions, health programmes and beer-funded documentaries get a 21 gun salute this week.
Touchcast says digital installations like the one it sourced and ran for Telecom’s Cut & Paste design contest recently are a growing part of its business. That’s because audiences get deeply engaged, says managing director Andrewy Hawley.
In January, Vodafone announced that it was reviewing its global media account, which has been held by Omnicom’s OMD for half a decade. And this process could have repercussions for local account holders.
AJ Park patent specialists Anton Blijlevens and Jillian Lim touch on some of the interesting patents that might soon be on the shelves.