Unilever’s Old Spice has been ratcheting up the new product development recently, with new scents, sprays, soaps, shaving gel and hair products, all of them launched in typically absurd and generally very entertaining fashion by Wieden + Kennedy. Now Terry Crews, the long-time sinewy, shouty ambassador, is back to launch a new range of electric razors.
While conspiracy theorists might infer that St Patrick’s Day has some deeper meaning or historically significant origins, we all know that the day is actually just a great excuse to wear green hat, sip on a dark brew and hop around like a leprechaun for a whole day. And given that it has become such a jubilant day of unrestrained revelry, businesses, brands and politicians all take it as an opportunity to get some additional exposure. Here’s a breakdown of some of the interesting St Patrick’s Day-themed efforts that emerged this year.
Quite often, when companies operate across both the Australian and New Zealand markets, advertisers create generic marketing messages that are applicable across the board. But rather than adopting this cost-saving approach for its latest OPSM spot, the creative team from Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney took a flight across the ditch to produce content that was aimed specifically at the Kiwi market.
Like previous years, TVNZ shows made up the vast majority of the top 20 most-watched programmes list for last year, with a magician, a talent show and two current affairs offerings luring the most eyeballs in 2013.
Cavan Huang, an associate creative director at Interbrand in New York, recently published an article on the Getty Images website on the effectiveness of point-of-view videos and how they can be used to tell brand stories.
When clients shack up with a new agency there’s a tendency to torch the previous work and start afresh. 2degrees and its new partner Special Group certainly took a different approach with their recent business push, but it’s kept Rhys Darby on as the frontman and maintained the quirky, colloquial and self-reflexive style of the previous work for the pair’s first big brand ad.
Those working in the persuasive arts often get a rough time from ‘normal people’, who are quick to trivialise the work of this industry and regularly call into question its ethics. But, as this glorious piece from McSweeneys entitled ‘I should get the first lifeboat because I’m in advertising’ points out, it’s time those tireless creative souls were acknowledged for their massive contribution to society.
Moves and shakes at the Retailers Association, Facebook NZ, George FM, Porter Novelli and STW.
Vodafone has renewed its naming rights sponsorship deal with the Vodafone Warriors until 2018, taking the partnership, which started in 1999, to 20 years and making it the longest of its kind in New Zealand. And the Herald has also followed suit by renewing its deal with the team until 2016.
A couple of years ago, New Zealand men’s fashion brand Working Style launched a DIY print campaign that focused on New Zealand men who were making their mark overseas. Now it’s gone the other way, enlisting one of the world’s best male models, Aiden Shaw, to star in its latest campaign.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Mark Carter, the photographer behind Colenso’s Mountain Dew ad, recently got in touch with StopPress and gave us a behind-the-lens look at how his image was brought to bone-crushing life.
Technically, sex and alcohol aren’t meant to mix when it comes to advertising alcohol. That hasn’t stopped it from happening quite regularly over the years, with the Tui girls and an erection pun from Independent Liquor’s Woodstock brand treading a fine line. But Barnes, Catmur & Friends has continued the ‘Crack a Woody’ joke with a big new campaign featuring former Baywatch star and PETA crusader Pamela Anderson.
For the past week, Contagion’s Tom Bates has been hangin’ with the geeks and soaking up the knowledge at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. And while he was there he caught up with a few expat Kiwis doing big things. First up, Sarah Robb O’Hagan.
In the middle of the polar vortex that held North America in its icy grip last winter, Toronto-based Cossette gave Canadians a Duracell-powered incentive to remove their hands from their pockets.
Only a week after leaving the Axis Awards with the Production Company of the Year gong for the third year in a row, The Sweet Shop has now been announced as the most-awarded production company in the Asia Pacific region in the 2013 edition of the Gunn Report.
In an effort to consolidate its agency partners—and in a show of support for Kiwi-owned businesses—New Zealand Trade & Enterprise has appointed Special Group as its lead design and communications agency following a competitive pitch late last year.
Gladeye carried out the full range of digital services in creating a site that showcased Air New Zealand’s support of scientific research in Antarctica. The website made full use of imagery and video supplied by National Geographic. Plus: Gladeye gets international recognition for its own site.
DDB NZ’s digital creative director Haydn Kerr shares five more digital nuggets from his last day at SXSW Interactive.
BNZ recently released its Online Retail Sales Index, which showed that online retailing grew at three times the rate of traditional bricks and mortar last quarter. And that’s both frightening and exciting, depending on which side of the fence you sit on, says Jenene Crossan.
Freeview is set to launch Worldnet TV, the niche Asian-focused channel, free to viewers using home broadband. Freeview says the channel is technically ready to go, with launch timing to be determined by WorldNet.
The One Percent Collective is on a mission to inspire more generosity and convince Kiwis to give away a small chunk of their total income. And to raise awareness of its mission, it’s called on the generosity of many others to create an ad that co-founder Pat Shepherd believes is “a bit different to your average charity campaign”.
Some of the best examples of content marketing tend to sneak up on readers/viewers/participants, many of whom don’t know it’s an ad and don’t seem to care either. That’s certainly the case with First Kiss, a clip for clothes brand Wren that shows 20 ‘strangers’ in a room locking lips and captures the initial awkwardness and eventual passion. Plus: parodies galore.
Ever since the first Terminator film was released, the question of mankind’s ability to survive against a robotic rebellion has been mooted in popular culture. And now, using this concern as the premise for its new ad, Munich-based Sassenbach Advertising has pitted a Kuka robot arm against German table tennis legend Timo Boll.
Funny or Die’s latest Between Two Ferns clip featuring Barack Obama dominated the internet when it was released yesterday, and was the top driver of traffic to HealthCare.gov and led to a 40 percent increase in visits. It’s also had a host of other big hits. So Saatchi & Saatchi’s digital strategist Ian Hulme found out how they make it happen.
Lawyers have the reputation of being officious scumbags that are interested in little beyond overcharging clients. So, in an effort to show solidarity with the average person on the streets, criminal defence lawyer Daniel Muessig has created a bizarre promotional video that features a series of actors engaged in a variety of crimes.
Facebook is dominating Kiwi social media use, not just in the number of New Zealanders using the network, but also in the amount of time spent dwelling on the activity. The social network’s local dwell time far outpaces the next best performing channel here, Reddit.
Having already established a strong foothold in the personal consumer market, 2degrees has now set its sights on business clients with an online and outdoor campaign via new account holders Special Group. In addition to featuring the faces of several prominent business owners on billboards, the campaign has also resulted in several updates to the mobile service provider’s website. PLUS: find out why 2degrees is so keen to tap into the business market.
TVNZ Blacksand’s microsite for the Step Dave show could be the forerunner to further efforts to complement on-screen viewing. The site has character information, video, extra scenes and a virtual version of the fridge that features on the show.
The trailer for the soon to be released EA game Titanfall is a jaunty little number about two men and their titans. Just when it seems there’s no problem the titan can’t fix, a chaotic battle erupts between the two robots.