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.
A slight hiccup from Fairfax Media in the twilight hours of its association with technology titles PC World, Computerworld, Reseller News and CIO Magazine.
Around two years ago, Nielsen, along with the three stakeholder groups in the Print Media Industry Research Review Group—magazines, newspapers and media agencies—were talking up the ‘Rolls Royce of measurement systems’. International guest Gary Yeo was too, saying its Consumer & Media Insights system was one of the best in the world. And now Nielsen has added a few new bells and whistles to give advertisers and media owners, as its tagline terms it, “an uncommon sense of the consumer”.
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.
It’s game over for Instant Kiwi’s table top advertising of its Space Invader scratchies. The Advertising Standards Authority’s Complaints Board has ruled it in breach of its Codes of Practice for promoting a gambling product appealing to minors.
What would happen if energy drink companies were in charge of the rule books for golf? The sport would probably look a lot like V’s latest campaign, which sees people hunting down a robotic golf hole while battling each other from inside of “virtually indestructible” golf carts.
What does it mean to be human? AMI and Colenso BBDO take a gander with latest campaign.
Rialto is a slightly under the radar New Zealand media success story. And it’s coming up 13 years old. So to celebrate its transition into the teens, it’s been given a thorough going over, with a new look and feel created by Intebrand and a new self-aware print, radio and digital campaign via DDB that aims to attract a broader demographic and position Rialto as ‘The Storyteller’.
APN Outdoor and Auckland Council are taking the first step towards transforming Auckland’s CBD into the Times Square of the South Pacific, unveiling the first of six digital billboards to be placed across the city.
Darryn Melrose heads back to school, Colenso expands its team, Sarah Putt moves from IT press to IT Professionals, Icebreaker redesigns its business, SenateSHJ gets a high five, Tourism Australia adds to its Kiwi flock, and Simon Gault gets a brand manager.
#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.
Current Idealog editor and ex-roving adland reporter Hazel Phillips has just released her new book Sell: Tall tales from the legends of New Zealand advertising. It’s a triumph, a tour de force, a gripping romp, and it tells the story of how the local ad scene came to be and the characters who helped create it (keep an eye out for an extract in the July/August edition of NZ Marketing magazine). We’ve got a couple of copies to give away, so go back into the mists of time and post your favourite Kiwi ad in the comments section. The two commentors with the best taste will get the literary spoils.
Frucor’s V brand has pushed a number of marketing envelopes in the New Zealand market and, given it’s at the head of the field in the energy segment, that seems to have paid off. Frucor also has global ambitions for the brand, and it’s looking to climb the ladder in Europe with a campaign centred around internet trolls.
Pluk is taking its wares and projecting it onto the big screen, bringing its audio-recognition promotions app platform to the cinema.
Our weekly round-up of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from the intertubes.
Powershop has managed to find a solid niche in New Zealand’s energy market as a cheeky challenger brand that gives its more than 50,000 customers additional information about their energy usage, lets them buy power online and shows them plenty of love. And now the Meridian-owned business is taking that model to Australia.
Levi Hawken had his five minutes of fame when Nek Minnit started doing the pop cultural rounds. He’s milked it a bit since then, with cameos on TV3 with the likes of Food in a Nek Minnit and New Zealand’s Top Nek Minnit, but the opportunists cashed in on the phrase as well, selling a range of t-shirts and paraphernalia. So what do you do when the flames are petering out and the zeitgeist has moved on? You do an innuendo-filled ad with local ‘glamour model’ Kelly Windsor to spruik berry-flavoured lube, of course. Feels Delicious indeed.
New Zealand is basically the Canada of the South, with a loud, obnoxious neighbour, a passion for wood chopping and a strange combination of pride and self-doubt. So PopPress is confident this passport-based experiment by Canadian beer brand Molsons will be right up Kiwis’ alleys.
The New Zealand advertising scene is always pretty proud of its per capita hauls in the world’s big creative awards. And 2013 appears to be no different, with the combined awards won between Kiwi agencies—a record haul of 32—placing us 9th on the list at the 60th Cannes Festival of Advertising.
Cannes Lions? Pffff. The TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards are the ones they’ll mention in your eulogy. And after much scratching of chins/stroking of beards among the judges, the finalists have been announced.
We love taking voyeuristic journeys into the lives of people lucky enough to be on Google’s Glass Explorer programme.
This time we see through the eyes of professional tennis player Bethanie Mattek-Sands as she prepares for Wimbledon.
Programmatic ad buying is a cornerstone of online advertising, spread by the influence of global ad networks such as Google. But MediaWorks Interactive and Ecostore have attempted to flip that model on its head—and they are shouting from the rooftops about their results.
The Online Media Standards Authority (OMSA) is open for complaints from next Monday (1 July). Says the Law Commission’s single regulatory body recommendation will take too long.
Airmail app is Sim Ahmed’s new go-to productivity tool. It’s simple and unobtrusive, just the way an email client should be.
There’s been plenty of change at TBWA\ over the past few months, with Todd McLeay and Toby Talbot coming on board to take over from David ‘I’m not fucking retiring’ Walden and Andy Blood. And now there’s some more change, with Eleven PR’s founder and managing partner Kelly Bennett leaving to set up his own corporate public relations business.
Pizza. It’s delicious, but no one has time anymore to walk down to the local pizza joint and wait for a box of carbohydrates, protein and other supposedly edible miscellany to heat up. Domino’s Pizza New Zealand is hedging on this to happen and predicts by 2016 4 out of every five of its sales dollars will be made online.
