Independence Day is a marketing free-for-all in the US. And a whole range of brands aim to tap into the patriotic fervour. But this clip, from humour collective The Kids Table, gets to the nub of the modern, foolish, hypocritical and apathetic Western human condition better than any of them with a dose of humorous ‘truthiness’. As it says, “it’s pretty hard to care about wire taps, drone strikes, and the government eroding the rights we fought for centuries ago when you’ve got an ice cold beer in your hand”.

One of the world’s great slogans—Nike’s ‘Just Do it’—recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Another similarly enduring slogan isn’t too far behind, with Dilmah’s ‘Do Try It’ coming up 20. But the catch phrase that is now used in 103 countries has a slightly surprising and little known New Zealand connection, with small Auckland agency Curtiss and Spence responsible for getting the owner of Dilmah, Merrill J Fernando​, to utter the phrase on TV all those years ago.

In one of the earlier seasons of The Simpsons, Homer discovers he has a long lost brother named Herb (voiced by Danny DeVito) – who just so happens to own a car company. Homer is invited to build the perfect car for Herb, but the design is so extravagant and unpopular it bankrupts Herb’s up to then successful company

Now a team entreating the 24 Hours of LeMons race in the US has brought Homer’s dream to life. We can’t help but imagine that this vehicle would be perfect for doing donuts in a New World carpark …. Mmmmm ….Donuts.

Staring competitions are an immensely popular spectator sport in some nations, as this factual BBC report shows. And, to illustrate the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S4 knows when you’re looking at it, it concocted a challenge to see if passersby in a train station could ignore the numerous distractions and keep their eyes on the prize.

Tourism New Zealand’s newest app aims at putting a travel guide in the pocket of every visitor to New Zealand (at least those with iPhones and iPads, for now).

Just four months since launching its first ecommerce site, Shane Bradley’s ShopHQ has sold half of the company to The Warehouse.

Winter is time for breathing steam, and in New Zealand (and particularly in Dunedin flats) it often happens inside. But as this music video for Travis by Wriggles and Robbins shows, there are some pretty cool creative possibilities when you combine projections, humans and cold weather.

From the backs of legs to the front of movies, ad creep is increasingly pervasive. And, in a stunt reminiscent of All Good Bananas’ directional messaging in Kiwi supermarkets, advertisers have found a way to beam messages directly into tired travellers’ brains through a device attached to train windows. New media innovation? Or new media violation?

V’s latest campaign is all about adding some additional excitement to a “fairly mundane” sport. But the powers that be are also trying to enhance the sport’s perception, with a clip for the European Tour showing Rory McIlroy facing against a fast-talking golfing machine—literally—called Geoff and an ad for Nike featuring Tiger Woods that seems to be saying ‘shut up, golf IS a real sport’.

UK TV industry body Thinkbox​ has an on-going research project called TV nation, which tracks people’s attitudes towards different forms of advertising. This year it paired TV Nation with Ad Nation, a survey of people working in the advertising and media industries, and compared the two groups. And the results made for interesting, if not entirely surprising, reading.

Golf made interesting with death-sport twist and psychology experiments on children.

Town branding is a difficult nut to crack, with many attempts coming off as desperate and nigh-on dishonest. But for the past few years since launching its new gothic identity via Projector Media, Dunedin has been doing a pretty good job of it. And, as part of its new push to become ‘one of the world’s great small cities’ within ten years, the next phase of its campaign consists of showcasing some of the city’s under-the-radar business success stories.

#Flashbackfriday seems to be a thing on Twitter. And a few socially-aware brands are joining in the fun so we can laugh at the past. For example, this quality Air New Zealand ad from the ’60s imploring New Zealanders to fly south and do the twist on a mountain-top, or ANZ’s classy, fashion-forward print ad.

We speak to Premier League Pass co-founder Tim Martin about the business of sports in New Zealand and the technology behind the new sports broadcasting platform competing with Sky TV’s virtual monopoly.