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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

The interweb is chock full of creative ways people have left their jobs with fanfare. Now journalism graduate Marina Shifrin’s effort, a dance video, has scored more than a million views.

Kiwi tech companies remain strongly export-focused, but there’s room for improvement in how they sell and promote themselves, according to this year’s Market Measures Survey.