&some is charting new territory for Wendy’s in New Zealand with a digital only campaign, Wendy’s Mates Rates. It’s designed to be a fresh offering for a younger crowd and lets diners order by hand gesture (rest assured they’re all polite).

Air New Zealand has officially unveiled its latest in-flight safety video, which was filmed by Josh Frizzel from 8com and features five models from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit franchise. And the initial outrage that coincided with release of the behind-the-scenes clip now seems to have diminished substantially.

Destination Rotorua Marketing has released a new web-based video series showcasing the region’s hidden tourism gems. The six part series builds on last year’s Famously Rotorua TVC fronted by schoolgirl Te Rina West.

If your Facebook feed has been cluttered with those look back movies, you might like a few that take the mickey out of the social network’s idea that celebrated its tenth birthday.

It seems a mother’s work can actually be done, at least in the imagination of a young daughter. This is no ordinary work, because it’s that of global giant General Electric, in a vast range of fields.

Honda has unleashed the beast in a visual effects spectactular that turns its brand into a dark horse. Underneath the technical wizardry it’s a race between robots, real horses and cars.

Those Nordic countries are all the rage at the moment, what with their food, furniture, literature, social policies, architecture, vehicles (or, more particularly, ads for vehicles), expensive stereos and diversified economies. And New Zealand business folk will be able to get a taste of the region’s rich design pedigree with Norse Code, a full day event similar in format to the Better by Design summit that features five of the biggest names in Scandinavian design. Plus: win a ticket worth $195.

Newspapers may be struggling to deal with a few fairly serious business model issues at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped The Guardian from creating some great ads to promote it wares. And The Sunday Times has followed suit, with its single-shot, two-actor Icons spot promoting its refreshed coverage of art, music, film and TV and its month-long culture series.

Amidst the photos of dodgy hotels, news of security threats and occasional sporting events at the Sochi Winter Olympics (why the amazing ski ballet was canned, we’ll never know), there are the ads riding on those coattails. So here’s a collection of the best.

As the Agency Wank Tumblr shows, agencies trying to elucidate their point of difference can easily veer into cringeworthy business cliches and terrible jargon (Canadian agency John St, on the other hand, has consistently nailed it with brilliant films that mock current advertising trends). But direct and digital specialist Twenty, which has added a number of new clients and a host of new staff in the past few years, has avoided that self-promotional fate with an animated trip back in time to explain the power of the 80/20 rule to the world of business.

In this series, we talk to Kiwi keyboard tappers that have managed to shift from the personal realm of blogging to create online media brands that are widely read (and in some cases profitable). In the fourth segment, we chat to Megan Singleton about her online journey with Blogger at Large.

Air New Zealand is reconsidering its approach to an initiative seeking volunteers to write for The Flying Social Network after a Twitter backlash, and is considering compensation it could offer to those who make contributions.

Waitangi Day is often mired in acrimony and argy bargy, partially because that’s what the media tends to focus on. So, in a heady combination of self-promotion and national pride, Wellington creatives Think Suite and Unlimited Ltd—with the help of some well-respected historians—aimed to create a new kind of conversation about the Treaty with its “Kiwi ‘Trojan Horse”, The Sweety of Waitangi.

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

Last week, APN NZ announced the arrival of the Herald Advertising Challenge, an initiative designed to showcase the opportunities for large scale, integrated campaigns across Herald media channels and get agencies thinking about the possibilities. And, along with the previously announced prize pool, which includes $250,000 of agency rate card media to bring the winning campaign to life and a trip for two members of the team to attend the Festival of Media Global 2014 in Rome, it has announced that teams will also be playing for the Andrew McNally Cup.

Given that Delta, Virgin and other airlines have started emulating Air New Zealand’s novel approach to safety videos, the original innovators have decided to take things to the next level by inviting the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models onto their planes. Update: Air New Zealand arranged the sponsorship and True developed the creative for the project.

With the proliferation of smartphones, the meaning of the word mobile has shifted from its humble origins as a means by which movement is made possible to something that implies wireless interconnectivity. But this summer, several brands have decided to wind back the clock and give the phrase ‘brand mobility’ a retro twist.