Everyone loves critiquing a logo, which means that releasing a new one is a fairly nerve-racking experience for any business. But Yahoo! has taken a different, slightly more democratic approach to the unveiling of its new logo, offering up 29 different variations over the past month and asking for feedback. Which one would you choose?
Tech entrepreneur Rowan Simpson has launched a directory of Kiwi companies including desktop and mobile software firms, SaaS companies and ecommerce players.
EzyFlix.tv is joining rival Quickflix by launching in New Zealand. The Access Digital Entertainment service, which recently launched across the Tasman, lets users pay to view content on demand, or download it to own.
A fictional blogger who dons unusually large hands is the key figure in Saatchi & Saatchi’s campaign that gives prepaid users a whack around the ears from Telecom.
PPR has brought a new meaning to the phrase content is king by hiring ex-Fairfax marketing and communications manager Sandra King as principal consultant, strategy, in an effort to help solve the major content marketing and management challenge faced by New Zealand companies.
A couple of senior departures from DDB, an addition at DraftFCB, Julie Elstone joins Waitemata Films, Charles Miller takes the reins at Mailshop, Belowtheline shows its stripes at APPA and announces new clients, Siobhan Keogh joins Datacom, Voice Brand Agency opens up in Oz, InMobi announces a new Australia/New Zealand leader and Ecoya chooses a new PR agency.
The news that Volkswagen was reviewing its relationship with DDB was a surprise to many given the brand’s performance in recent years, and BMW, which managed to reclaim the top spot in the premium stakes from Audi with DraftFCB in the passenger seat, is following suit.
It’s the time of year when you get to have a say in who should take home an award at the NZ Innovators Awards. Before we announce the finalists in the different categories, we are opening up nominations for the People’s Choice Award, the award that is all about who you – the people! – think should be recognised.
Tony Abbott’s been in the news for a string of gaffes, now his rivals are imagining tweets that would make him really unpopular. Nothing’s new in the murky world of political campaigning, except perhaps catchy music.
Google was up to K for the latest version of its Android OS, 4.4 – this time generic sweet treats have taken a back seat to some Kitkat campaign deliciousness. These chocolate bars are the perfect second screen companion, compatible with all liquid accessories.
The Labour Party is taking to Scoop’s website for ‘virtual hustings’ meetings, alongside the 12 roadshow events its potential new leaders are holding nationally this week. A blog by the party says the online initiative is a bid to get more member participation.
Telecom has given Fashion Week a digital edge with a new mobile site called Sheek. The HTML site offers a quiz challenge with a chance to win a $5000 wardrobe with choices from Kiwi designers Hailwood, Andrea Moore, Zambesi, Annah Stretton, Huffer, Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester, Cybele and Twentyseven Names.
The mobile apps that virtually put you aboard America’s Cup boats hint at the immersive experience sports events could become, says Ian Taylor, head of Animation Research, which collaborated to make them.
BNZ, New World, Telecom and Peugeot get a ticker tape parade this week.
Cure Kids’ Red Nose Day fundraising effort culminated in the 3.5 hour televised event Comedy for Cure Kids on TV3 on 23 August, which raised $1.4 million for child health research in New Zealand. And Film Construction played a big role, filming eight short, cardboard-heavy films for the broadcast.
The Warehouse Group, which includes Noel Leeming, Torpedo 7, pet.co.nz, Warehouse Stationery and the iconic Red Sheds, has announced the launch of a new online shopping site for Kiwis looking for health and beauty products – www.ilovebeauty.co.nz.
Spanning over six generations and almost twice as many brewers, the Duncan family have been brewing Founders in Nelson for almost 160 years. But the company is thinking a bit bigger than boutique and its newly refreshed range of craft beers are now available around the nation.
Kiwi marketers can tap into new revenue streams in the world of social sports gaming, played out at events and internet cafes and watched via online TV, a Wellington researcher says. Victoria University’s Dr Yuri Seo says the eSports world is a far as you can get from hibernating at home playing games. And it means new ways for brands to reach consumers through games.
Never one to let its terms of use grow stale, Facebook has recently amended its Pages Terms, including the guidelines covering the running of promotions, contests and sweepstakes on the platform. This time though, the changes should be welcomed by advertisers and brand-owners, says Allan Yeoman.
Red Bull has launched its shiny new poster boy for the Peugeot 208 GTI, Jaden Leeming, in a new web and TVC campaign made in house. The 90 second version was made for its web channels while 15 and 30 second cuts will soon hit TV screens.
There were plenty of Kiwi companies who were celebrated for their stellar efforts at the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards last week (you can check all the winners out here and read the in-depth stories of how they did it in the latest edition of NZ Marketing). And while we know everyone in this industry gets excited about a good dose of cross-organisational stakeholder management, you’re also quite fond of spending hours of work time looking at glamour shots from events. So fill your boots.
It certainly hasn’t been the best of times for Fonterra over the past few weeks, but it can put a small tick in the plus column after the ad to promote its Milk for Schools programme was named the winner of the June round of Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award.
For the past three months, Heineken has been plucking real men out of their daily lives, dropping them into the great unknown and making them do ridiculous things as part of its Dropped campaign. And the fifth and final episode, which features two chaps on a desert island in the Philippines who are handcuffed to each other and have only one survival kit between them, has just been launched.
Ever wanted a product to come to your country so badly you just had to have a whinge to the maker? These Canadian fans really wished they hadn’t when Taco Bell went a bit loco and made them literally eat their words.
Marketers are in a unique position to help engrain design principles in New Zealand business, writes Melissa Jenner.
There’s nothing better than a graph that shows complex information simply, except perhaps for a montage that shows the passage of time quickly. And, like Forrest Gump, Team America, Rocky IV and many other movies before it, Kellogg’s and JWT have embraced that classic filmic technique with a spot that aims encourage people to take the All-Bran 7 Day Challenge.
The Herald on Sunday is one of the few papers in this country to have charted increases in circulation and readership over the past few rather difficult years. And that performance has been recognised after it beat out newspapers from across Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia and the South Pacific to win the best Sunday newspaper at the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association (Panpa) Awards.
Kiwi viewers can now tune in to the Al Jazeera English news channel on Sky and will be able to see it on Freeview from 1 November. According to a recent statement, the channel will reach around two million New Zealanders on Sky channel 90 and Freeview channel 16, broadcasting live and free to air.
The blind and visually impaired have long suffered what has been dubbed a “book famine”. But changes to copyright law have finally provided relief, say Anton Blijlevens and Jillian Lim.
