If you’re going to follow Playstation’s advice, don’t tell your mum or dad. The company recently asked European fans to stick their fingers in an electrical socket to endure a sustained shock, but it was all in the name of scoring a copy of the new game InFamous: Second Son.

Yealands is on a mission to toast six Kiwis on sustainable journeys with its online campaign Raise a Glass. The campaign website, developed by Satellite Media, showcases each finalist’s story, including musician Iva Lamkum, Frank Stationery owner Jason Holdaway and Sea2Summit7 adventurer Dave Williams, who raises awareness and funds for male mental health.

NZ Tax Refunds has complemented its desktop and mobile offerings with iOS and Android apps that let users apply for a refund and get updates on the status of their cash boost. And the 60 seconds it takes via browser to find out whether a windfall is in the offing will be a similar speed on the app.

For several years now, studies have shown population growth rates in the world’s developing nations have slowed down to the extent that populations are getting older, resulting in a growing strain on healthcare systems. And while the governments of the nations affected by this trend have not yet found a viable way to coax citizens into procreation, Denmark-based travel agency Spies is offering a solution via a cheeky new campaign that encourages couples to go on holiday to heighten the levels of passion in their relationships.

Direct and digital agency Twenty already has a sizeable insurance client, and it’s added another after winning the Asteron Life account after a competitive pitch.

A couple of Auckland’s major private schools have dabbled in billboard advertising, but private Christchurch girls school Rangi Ruru has taken things up a notch with its first ever TV ad, which has been launched to promote the school and its 125th anniversary.

Around the world, media owners are making changes to their commenting policies, with Google enacting a controversial real name policy on YouTube and Popular Science removing the comments section altogether because it felt ill-informed views “can be bad for science”. StopPress has plenty of great, insightful commentors. But many of them prefer to stick the boot in and push their own pseudonymous agenda, so, in the interests of transparency, the real identities of anonymous commentors can now be revealed with the click of a button.

If you don’t mind giving your colleagues the appearance you have an awkward tic, Trade Me’s new way browse and bid by blink is just the ticket. Of course, the beta release date of 1 April could be a coincidence, we’ll let you decide about that – and what could be veteran broadcaster Geoff Robinson’s next move, internet radio morphing into the world of the fax machine, Gmail takes the wraps of shelfies and other hijinks.

Last year, after releasing a spot that featured Neal McDonough lecturing viewers on the superiority of the American way, American automotive-producer Cadillac provoked the ire of many viewers, who felt that the self-celebratory promotion typified many of the negative connotations that people often assosciate with American consumerist culture. And now, in what could be seen as an effort to assuage some of the reputation damage done by its competitor, Ford has released a new TVC that parodies Cadillac’s version and shows that not all Americans are simply preoccupied with accumulating unnecessary material items for selfish purposes.

Nosh founder Clinton Beuvink says his new venture, Sample Co Black Box, is a combination of old school in-home sampling and a real time digital relationship with consumers. The service aims to make sampling more targeted and overcome the increasing difficulty marketers have in getting their message across via traditional media.

Stock imagery is sometimes criticised for presenting little more than over-used clichés, which offer little in the way of original brand representation. So, in an effort to illustrate that this criticism doesn’t apply to its offering, Getty Images has just released a new video montage that showcases the broad range of imagery across its catalogues.

Ernst & Young, now known as EY, is one of the ‘big four’ professional services firms, which, according to Wikipedia, handle the vast majority of audits for publicly listed companies. So, given its numerical nous, we couldn’t help but notice a rather ironic multiplication error on the back cover of EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year magazine, Exceptional (which is available here and features Rod Drury on the cover).

Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.

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.