Ellen DeGeneres has removed all the cigarettes from Mad Men to draw attention to the Great American Smokeout, an annual anti-smoking campaign arranged by the American Cancer Society that encourages nicotine puffers to stop for a day on the third Thursday of November.
With sledging cricketers grabbing headlines this week, it’s timely to put the spotlight on tuning out hardcore abuse. One NBA superstar’s solution is a poker face and a set of Beats By Dr Dre headphones.
Hell Pizza has enlisted trans-Tasman digital marketers One Fat Sheep and Wellington’s Inject Design to make its pizza boxes the passage to an augmented reality world full of zombies. But it’s as much about loyalty and sales as fun and games.
New Zealand’s own version of a global online spendup has achieved strong sales and traffic numbers for the nearly 70 retailers that took part. The organisers say a proven international business model and the competitive nature of retail were big contributors to the results.
McDonald’s New Zealand has just launched the ‘Our food, Your Questions’ campaign, which allows members of the public to send in questions on any topics related to the food on the menu. The fast-food juggernaut hopes that this will help to dispel some of the myths related to way its meals are produced.
Want to pimp your office with a new mascot? How about this moa, once an exhibition prop at Auckland Museum that’s now surplus to requirements?
In today’s digital world it’s not as easy to protect your reputation. That’s why mapping out an online reputation management plan can stop trouble before it happens and keep you showing your best side, says Richard Conway.
The promotion for Anchorman 2: the Legend Continues has become a multi-faceted advertising stunt that makes it seem as though Will Ferrell has actually morphed into the gaffe-prone news anchor from the film. Now, after two trailers and cross-promotion with Dodge Durango, Ron Burgundy and his crew have decided to educate the world.
British Airways and creative partner Ogilvy UK have come up with a smart way to show off their range of destinations with billboards that communicate with its planes. It’s so simple even toddlers can #lookup.
We all know the those types who are first to get online and tell us what we need to know, what to try and what they think. They’re leaders in the frenzy to be first, and it’s a trend Webby Awards managing director Claire Graves says has risks and rewards for brands.
Google seems to be making a habit of making us get all emotional. In a recent effort in India, it told the story of how search can bring about a touching reunion, now it’s showcasing a French boffin’s labour of aircraft love.
A collaboration between product design and development company Blender Design and miniature video camera provider Teknique to create a camera in a cube has hit Kickstarter with a funding target of US$100,000.
2degrees’ entertaining duplication and BMW’s New Zealand excursion bring joy to the hearts of all this week.
There’s been a fair bit of carnage in the local business and trade press in recent years, with The Independent closing, Fairfax flicking on a few of its titles and moving Unlimited online, and Mediaweb seemingly hanging on for dear life at present. But Vincent Heeringa, publisher of Idealog and NZ Marketing, is hoping to fill what he thinks is fairly large information void with The Briefing, a membership-style media offering aimed at leaders from the C-Suite “who share the determination to transform their business in a world of radical change”.
Every year, Doritos, the tortilla chip producer owned by PepsiCo, hosts a competition that gives fans the chance to create an advert that will appear during the brand-loaded Superbowl. Previously, this competition was only open to entrants in the United States, but this year the restrictions were lifted, thereby giving a team of Kiwis the chance to enter.
Kiwis continue their obsession with classifieds in comparison with other countries, while search and directories have plenty of room for more growth, IAB’s latest quarterly interactive spend figures show.
Quarterly statistics released by the Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand indicate strong revenue growth figures for the out-of-home advertising category. And APN Outdoor will be hoping it grows further, because it has just launched a new, smaller billboard package that will enable brands to book ad space at ten prime locations for two weeks at a time.
Auckland, Wellington and Rotorua have had a bit of tourism work done recently. And Tourism Bay of Plenty is following suit with a campaign that hopes to lure visitors to the region and get them to open their wallets over the peak summer season.
As Voice Brand Agency recently learned, publishing a magazine is hard graft, even with the resources of a creative agency behind it. Creative director Jonathan Sagar explains why whacking stuff on Facebook won’t cut it anymore and why chasing perfection is futile.
Andrew Shaw, general manager of acquisitions, production and commissioning at TVNZ, was his usual ebullient (and controversial) self during his speech at the TVNZ new season launch (“Last time I looked we were in show business. We’re the show. You’re the business”). We had a chat with him before the event about the importance of quality, the so-called Golden Age of TV and taking risks.
Although the majority of Kiwis are still buying from locally-based web sellers, international merchants are outpacing their Kiwi counterparts in attracting New Zealand buyers. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fight back, the Interactive Advertising Bureau of New Zealand says.
The creative use of statistics is fairly common in this industry, from the recent misleading Dove ad claiming 90 percent of New Zealand women would recommend it, to a current spot for Head & Shoulders that claims you’ll be “up to 100 percent dandruff free forever”, whatever the hell that means, to any number of other ASA complaints. So we appreciate a bit of truthiness from time to time, and Lipton (which is owned by Unilever, a company well-versed in the art of sneaky number usage) has taken the proverbial out of tenuous marketing claims with its latest campaign for sparkling iced tea. Plus: one of our favourite campaigns of the year shows why honesty is the best policy.
Michel Gondry, the French director best known for his work on the ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, animated his conversation with Noam Chomsky for a new documentary titled ‘Is the Man who is Tall Happy?’. And the result is a colourful reimagining of information viewers would normally find boring.
A new addition all but cements the new Fairfax executive team, Facebook hunts for a head of sales in New Zealand, Network’s Dennis Lynch passes the baton, Twenty plus one, Toni Knowles heads up VeNa, Stacey Perillo takes on Facilitate Digital role, PPR lauded for innovation, Hunter names a new general manager, 18 pyars get accrediatation, TV3 inspires a new generation of reporters and Metro Recruitment aims digital.
By selling its Switch Kites brand direct to consumers online, Inverno Trading has disrupted the industry’s traditional distributor/retailer model. And it’s gained legions of fans in the process.
In a sea of sameness and functional claims, NZ Tax Refunds rose above the rabble by giving the feeling a name.
David Bell, ex-creative director at Media Design School’s creative advertising course and the recipient of the 2011 lifetime achievement award at Axis, has been on a mission to get his book The Dog Hunters in front of as many people as possible since it was published in July. Sales are building slowly as word spreads, he says, and so far he’s been spreading it via social media and at shows like Armageddon. And now he’s harnessing the power of Kickstarter to help fund an illustrated version.
Earlier this month, DraftFCB sent Dr Who fans’ voices to moon, and now, to continue the 50th birthday celebrations of the popular TV show, the agency has launched an online time machine that sends viewers spiralling through the history of the interwebs.
Last night’s last minute win over Ireland meant the All Blacks finished the season undefeated, the only team in the 18-year professional era to achieve that feat. And to celebrate, Adidas, which, as Gregor Paul wrote in a great piece about the creeping commercial influence on the game, might be trying to up its game after the arrival of fellow main sponsor AIG, created a new website (sort of).
The old creative writing adage goes “show, don’t tell,” and this is clearly an axiom that Getty Images aims to tap into with a new infographic that details why companies should use transmedia storytelling to market their offerings.