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.
New Zealand design company Hardhat has won best packaging in the non-alcoholic beverage category of the Dieline Package Design Awards 2013 for cups designed as part of its re-branding of fellow Kiwi’s Coffee Supreme. And Curious Design and Think Packaging came second in the same category for their work on Bolu Tea.
Gina’s restaurant certainly isn’t averse to a bit of saucy advertising (its radio ads are filled with innuendo and good-natured male objectification). And its latest billboard, which features a shirtless Italian stallion with his jeans unbuttoned, the line ‘mozzarella with balls’ and two extra letters that change everything, continues this trend.
.99 has continued its golden run of new business, winning the local L’Oréal business after a competitive pitch.
Internet service provider (ISP) Slingshot is pushing the boundaries and risks stirring up the wrath of the TV and movie industry with its Global Mode product, which helps users circumvent location-based restrictions placed on overseas content.
A little something for your hump day featuring some of the impressive—and ridiculous—things humans on this planet spend their time doing. If this doesn’t increase any inadequacy issues you already have and drum home the fact that your life is boring, then nothing will.
From Women Laughing Alone With Salad to Awkward Stock Photos, plenty of time can be wasted looking at ridiculous stock imagery. Getty Images has a whole host of them at its disposal as well and it’s chosen ten of the most bizarre. See the slideshow here.
The New Zealand chapter of global social media giant Facebook has doubled its revenue in 2012, although it still remains in the red on the back of increased employee benefits.
Getty Images already offers a range of grants to photographers, and it’s added another one that aims to recognise excellence in portrait photography by emerging photographers.
Retirement planning isn’t the sexiest of subjects. But AMP and Running With Scissors have added some human interest to the world of KiwiSaver schemes by conducting a psychological experiment to illustrate that a little bit of willpower now makes things all the sweeter in the future.
Who’s it for: TVNZ by in-house agency Blacksand Why we like it: It’s just a little bit odd and quirky, much like the show it’s trying…
‘Creatively-led, humanity-obsessed’ agency/production company Augusto has done some good work for Adidas in recent times, like the 60-minute documentary on the history of the All Blacks jersey and the Supersounds campaign. And for its latest trick, it’s got Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Israel Dagg to embrace their domestic sides to promote the arrival of iron-on numbers on fan jerseys.
It would be ungracious of Apple to create tablet ads mocking its competitors because it’s leading the pack in that field, however Microsoft has no such qualms when it comes to poking fun at the iPad.
There are plenty of motion-controlled games out there, from Nintendo’s Wii to Resn’s Face Arcade. Now US gum brand Stride and Wieden + Kennedy have embraced that technology for its latest campaign, “the most amazing chewing-based game we’re aware of”.
There’s been plenty of ink dedicated to Seven Sharp over the past few months—a bit too much in the opinion of TVNZ chief executive Kevin Kenrick. But far from free-falling, the more informal, magazine-style current affairs show has stabilised to an average audience of around 375,000 viewers. And, in an effort to get more New Zealanders to give the show a go, it has launched a new campaign via its inhouse agency Blacksand.
ASB Bank was the first in the country to offer social media banking through Facebook and now stands to become the first in the country (if not the world) to offer a home loan rate completely dependent on the number of Likes it receives on Facebook. Although the premise of the competition is simple, its actual mechanics are shrouded in mystery.
Y&R NZ has been appointed the creative agency for KiwiRail-owned Interislander after a competitive pitch, continuing a run of new business over the last year. The incumbent was Saatchi & Saatchi.
Twitter’s Vine app is groaning under the weight of over 13 million humans sharing absolutely everything about their lives, no matter how banal and uninteresting, via six-second snippets (Facebook is competing with the launch of video for Instagram, which launched last week). And while some creative types believe restrictions lead to better solutions, this Funny or Die clip shows the short-format approach isn’t too well-suited to making ads.
The marcomms sector is renowned more for its competitiveness than its collegiality. But it’s nice to see The Radio Network’s ZM can still appreciate MediaWorks’ George FM.
Holden’s latest TVC for the Commodore is part black tie dinner and part bogan romp – showing the new VF Commodore’s classier side, while paying homage to Holden’s bogan roots and fan base.
Video content is still something of a teacher’s pet in the world of marketing and, in an age of sharing, the best of it lives on online. So drink in the ads and brand-funded video deemed to be the world’s best: the main winners from the Film and Film Craft categories at Cannes.
The final Cannes medals were handed out over the weekend, bringing the Dumb Ways to Die-dominated show to an end. But it was slim pickings for the Kiwis, with just one bronze to DDB in the final stages.
Technology magazines Computerworld, Reseller News and PC World live to report another day, the publications’ licenses are being returned by Fairfax Media to IDG Australia next month.