The BBC has suffered two embarrasingly public epic fails. Newsreader Simon McCoy, whose past gaffes include appearing to snooze on the job, has now presented an item while clutching a ream of photocopy paper instead of his iPad.
A great ad idea is nothing more than a cliche if it doesn’t achieve a specific outcome. And it doesn’t hurt to tap into the mood of a nation or hold a mirror up to people’s weird and wonderful behaviour if you want your ad to work. Those are some of the messages from Clemenger Sydney creative director Rebecca Carrasco, visiting for last night’s News Works Newspaper Advertising Awards.
While the judges deliberate on who will take home the other categories of this year’s Innovators Awards, it is time for you to decide who should win the People’s Choice. The finalists are in and voting starts… NOW!
Product demonstrations are a dime a dozen. Product destruction demonstrations, not so much. But that’s exactly what local footwear label Yours has done.
The 65th Primetime Emmys are coming up soon. But before they choose the best actors and TV shows, they chose the best commercial and it was Canon’s beautiful ‘Inspired’ spot by Grey and MJZ director Nicolai Fuglsig that took it out.
DDB’s campaign for the YWCA promoting equal pay for women has found plenty of favour with awards juries around the world, most recently at Spikes Asia. And it’s also got the tick of approval from the judges of the 2013 Newspaper Ad of the Year awards, winning the main prize and the award for Best Topical advertisement.
Small Auckland-based publisher and design studio Threaded Media has been showcasing New Zealand’s and the world’s best designers and creatives since 2004 via its “collaborative design publication” Threaded. And now, after a two-year investigation/evolution into expanding the digital division, it’s launched a new iPad app that brings some of its aesthetically-pleasing content to life.
Dunedin-based company Animation Research Limited is behind the amazing on-screen graphics and very popular mobile apps for the America’s Cup and while the chatter about the event is mostly positive, its chief executive Ian Taylor has penned a strongly worded missive saying that certain media commentators, politicians and, by extension, the general public are missing the point of the America’s Cup. Plus: Animation Research’s visual gift, ‘Kia Kaha San Francisco’.
Auckland production company Satellite Media and agency BelowTheLine’s new app for Fonterra Brands and Foodstuffs’ New World supermarkets brings dairy products and the Anchor cow to life. Little Fridge supports the New World Little Shop promotion with in store treasure hunts and a stand where shoppers can photobomb the Anchor cow.
Adshel has once again joined forces with its main charity Surf Life Saving New Zealand for the annual Creative Challenge, which is now in its third year. And it’s calling on agencies to put their names in the hat.
Westpac has put a few of its besuited bodies on the line and created a giant human red sock in Britomart to show their support for Emirates Team New Zealand. Who says bankers don’t have a heart? And elsewhere in America’s Cup land, a few cheeky Kiwis decided Larry Ellison’s place “needed some decoration,” so they added a few New Zealand flags.
Saatchi & Saatchi’s Purpose Built recruitment campaign for the New Zealand Army draws on the organisation’s wide range of trades to show military life is about more than combat.
The winners of the Spikes Asia Awards were announced overnight and the Kiwi agencies fared pretty well, with TBWA\ and DraftFCB winning Grand Prix awards in the Media and PR categories for Tourism New Zealand’s Middle-Earth Passport Stamp and Mini/SPCA’s Driving Dogs respectively, while DDB Group’s haul made it the third ranked agency in the region and Open (nee Naked) was the region’s top ranked media agency with its wins for Unitec.
Spark PR&Activate, Spark PHD and PHDiQ have drawn on their combined resources to create a campaign for Tiger Beer’s new rewards scheme Fortune Avenue.
Mitre 10 is toasting the success of the online initiatives that form part of its Easy As campaign, designed to make Kiwis more savvy about their DIY projects.
Apple found plenty of success when it added some colour to its iPods. And while some think Steve Jobs would be rolling in his grave over the company’s shift to cheaper handsets, that’s where the company is headed after it announced the launch of the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S. And it’s released an ad via TBWA\ to promote its colourful models.
Just when we thought we’d seen the heights of interactivity with the online video Just a Reflektor, where you can control special effects using your phone, Virgin Mobile has stepped it up another notch with Blinkwashing.
Facebook’s recently told us about changes to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Data Use Policy. We’re all familiar with websites periodically updating their terms and conditions, but what do these changes mean for the user and their intellectual property? The answer is, not much.
Flickr and Getty Images joined forces a few years back to build a platform that would enable the creation of a first class collection of royalty free and rights managed photographs. Photographers can submit their efforts to the Getty Images Call for Artists group and the Getty Images creative team then reviews photos, looking out for images they feel are marketable based on their expertise and inviting new photographers to join. There are now more than 600,000 images (and counting) from over 115 countries available to license (check out the full gallery here) and Getty has compiled the top-sellers globally.
ANZ expects a big rise in the number of its customers using mobile devices for banking, with more than a third already preferring mobile over PC-based internet banking.
In the third instalment of TVNZ’s Future Now series, digital and social media specialist Ian Howard discusses how Kiwi advertisers can use social networks to open up conversations with their customers, create a community around a brand, generate engagement and drive sales.
Online streams are driving up viewership of the America’s Cup as big numbers view the racing. On 8 September the number of streams was 13,818, but by the beginning of this week they’d exceeded 166,000.
The season debut of New Zealand’s Got Talent got a less rapturous audience reception, with the 90 minute episode getting an average audience of 611,100 for those aged five plus watching live and played back on the same day, although consolidated Nielsen data wasn’t yet available.
Mitre 10 Dream Home finished up a couple of weeks back. But Tui has created its own, male-centric dream home, with an entertaining prank that saw a number of kegs plumbed into an Auckland house so that every tap poured cold beer. Plus: Tui and BK up a tree.
iSite recently launched its new highly targeted outdoor media planning service. And in an effort to show it off to media agencies and marketing professionals, its new agency The Business took a very literal approach to the concept of shooting an ad.
Greg Shand, one of New Zealand’s most experienced communications professionals, died suddenly at his home in Piha last week.
Vodafone has had a rough time of it in Australia recently, losing 1.5 million customers since 2011, facing the threat of a class action suit by unhappy customers and reporting a massive AU$899 million loss last year. Now it’s reintroducing the brand to the nation and asking consumers to ‘Discover the New’—and it’s done it by creating a fairly strange campaign that aims to get mobile phone users to see the world like a child again.
The return of Karl Fleet, TRN’s Carolyn Luey joins the IAB board, Sky TV brings in some new blood, Sugar & Partners adds a couple of names, Born Digital gets a new general manager and Twenty stocks up on staff after a few wins.
The company credit cards are out in force this week for Spikes Asia and most of the shortlists have been announced, with, unsurprisingly, many of the campaigns that featured at Cannes also featuring in Singapore.
