60 creatives turned up at Generator in Britomart last week to eat, drink, be merry and spend one hour devising an outdoor campaign for Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) as part of the Adshel Creative Challenge. And it was the team from DraftFCB—Kevin Walker, Ant Bell and Adam Taylor, AKA team ‘Analy Tigers’—that took the win.
Chapel Bar and Bistro is risking more religious ire with two new executions in its Seven Years of Almighty Nights campaign. The series kicked off last year to celebrate the bar’s seventh birthday and showed Jesus and Mary in compromising poses after a hard night.
How do you give a show that’s been running for 25 seasons some extra life? You get a director like Guillermo del Toro on board and set him loose on the couch gag. Plus: some other guest-directed couch gags.
Celebrity news anchor Ron Burgundy, aka actor Will Ferrell, has made his screen comeback in a new series of spots for the Dodge Durango. It’s classic Burgundy as the vehicles features are explained – it comfortably fits two turkey sandwiches, or 70 packs of gum and a glovebox that “goes on for inches”.
Vice has gained a reputation as an arbiter of cool, with its gonzo reporting, its humorous and fiercely sarcastic opinion pieces and its focus on bacchanalian excess. Plenty of brands looking to ride on these youthful, alternative coat-tails are employing their services through native advertising and branded content. And its stories have also inspired a brilliant fake Twitter account @Vice_Is_Hip.
Trade Me kicked off back in 1999 when Sam Morgan saw an unmet need for an online marketplace selling used goods. That’s largely still how consumers see it. But around 40 percent of its listings are new goods, so it is aiming to draw attention to that aspect of its business in the lead up to Christmas with a campaign via Whybin\TBWA featuring naked fat men, well-coiffed dogs and apparent rectal probes.
The DB Export family has benefitted from a bit of extra attention in recent years. First, the story of Morton Coutts was used to establish the ‘let nothing come between a man and a great beer’ brand platform. Then DB Export Dry used wine to sell beer in one of the best campaigns of 2012. DB Export 33 was up next and showed the kind of sacrifice men drinking the low-carb version were making for their better halves. And now DB Export Gold is being given its time in the sun, with another entertaining ad featuring a heroic man and his trusty dog.
The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints over a Dove Hair care ad which said 90 percent of Kiwi women recommended Dove Hair Care; and another about a Radio Hauraki billboard that showed drive show host Matt Heath giving passers by the big finger.
It appears no cats were harmed in the making of Vodafone and DraftFCB’s new TVC celebrating the launch of the telco’s new TV service Red Home, pitched as a reason for Kiwis to switch to fibre.
Telecom will launch its 4G network in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on 12 November for prepaid and plan customers. The telco is offering free 4G SIMs until the end of January next year and asking customers to visit its website to pre-register for the upgrade and check whether their phone is compatible.
The relationship between media agencies and media owners is not as strong as it should be and needs to improve, says John Dee.
The latest radio survey results have just been released, so we’ve decided to republish an edited version of Lynda Brendish’s story on New Zealand’s radio scene that originally featured in the July/August edition of NZ Marketing.
The T2 radio survey results are out. And they present a mostly positive picture for radio year-on-year.
DB’s new marketing director, changes at Lion, DraftFCB recognised as one of the country’s best workplaces, Cooney heads for Swaytech, Media Design School grads go fulltime at Sugar & Partners, Marc Ellis swaps More for less and Auckland Airport brings a digital boffin into the fold.
Jane Sweeney plans a combination of board seats and executive positions having closed the door on her nine year career at the top of PR firm Porter Novelli. Offshore stints could also be on the cards, but she wants to stay based in New Zealand.
The judges for News Works’ Newspaper Ad of the Month competition didn’t deem any entries worthy of winning in either August or September, but three ads—DDB’s Reflect, Ogilvy & Mather’s Auckland Council Elections, and bcg2’s Ezetrol—were given special mentions in September, earning them one point each on the Agency League table.
Whybin\TBWA’s ‘Results Don’t Lie’ campaign for the 2013 New Zealand Effie Awards put a few creative big-wigs from New Zealand’s advertising industry in a dark room, gave them lie detector tests and asked them about the legitimacy of their most awarded campaigns. The results have been comical and controversial in equal measure and, with awards night looming, the agency has stepped it up a notch, announcing that one of its own—chief creative officer Toby Talbot—will take to the stage for a live polygraph test as part of the evening’s proceedings.
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
The NZRU has made no secret of the fact it wants to get more sponsorship dollars. And certain All Blacks are already making their own endorsement hay while the sun shines. Sadly, big locks Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock aren’t on that list, but, as this clip shows, the cocktail-loving hard men are well and truly up for it.
Not long after one German car company chose its favoured agency, another German car company is following suit, with DDB, Special Group and DraftFCB getting set to duke it out for the BMW and Mini business.
US department store giant JC Penney either wants to laugh at the expense of customers who say the word hashtag in public, or has failed to heed the warning sent by Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake in their skit on the Late Night show about how silly social conversations would sound in real life.
Sometimes companies make outrageous claims in the name of marketing themselves – like saying they can create a webpage in mid air in seven minutes. But Kiwi startup Designbymobile put their money where they mouth is and did just that – and got some quick publicity in the process.
A new Orcon campaign with Contagion gives the ISP a chance to get new customers and frontman Kim Dotcom a chance to push his political barrow. Orcon is using what it calls a “fun, cheeky” video featuring Dotcom, and social media activity, to push its $99 uncapped internet plan on fibre or ADSL.
The floor of the car is a place where various horrors tend to lie undiscovered until the annual clean. Honda has tried to remedy this in its new people mover with an in-car vacuum cleaner. And, along with a series of ads featuring the voices of Rainn Wilson and Neil Patrick Harris, it has also taken to Twitter to let various snack and toy brands know that they don’t stand a chance against its powerful suction.
Looking at viewable impressions is a nice thought. But it’s bloody tough to implement and it’s unlikely to make a difference, says Dan Robertson.
NZ Girl wants to be the change it wants to see in the industry, says Jenene Crossan and it’s putting its money where its mouth is by changing its commercial proposition and giving away display advertising for free.
The dirty secret of gamification – which chairperson of our Game Developers Association Stephen Knightly defines as using game thinking and mechanics to engage customers and users – is that the psychology is nothing new. The good news is it still works.
ASB has built a new app for businesses, seeing as much demand for convenient mobile commerce among businesses as among consumers.
A couple of months back, Heineken challenged unsuspecting travellers at New York’s John F Kennedy Airport to ditch their travel plans for a destination of the roulette board’s choosing. Now the stunt’s had a cleverly crafted sequel by the brand’s agency Wieden and Kennedy. Heineken tracked down people who tweeted saying they’d drop everything for a spontaneous trip and rolled in the roulette board to test their mettle.
Over the past few years, Sky has favoured the humorous approach in its ‘My Happy Place’ advertising. Its new ‘Come with us’ brand was rolled out around the start of August and, while a series of relevant movie quotes dotted around HQ certainly gave the brand a sense of whimsy, its big, cinematic and poetic TVC by DDB and Ruskin is a much more serious, intriguing and emotive affair that’s designed to showcase the range of quality content subscribers can access.