Car salesmen get a pretty bad rap. All shiny shoes, sparkling teeth and snake oil. And Rav4 owners aren’t typically regarded as being too outrageous. But they’ve been painted in a new light in the new Toyota campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi and Thick as Thieves that aims to celebrate the inherently adventurous spirit in all Kiwis with a good, old-fashioned Goodbye Pork Pie-style road trip.
Igloo may take up to six years to break even, says TVNZ. The state broadcaster revealed this information in a written statement to the Commerce Committee, where it says “There is no specific target for sales in the first 12 months as we recognise it could anywhere between 4 – 6 years for the business to reach break-even.”
Despite the prevalence of high-tech devices, slot-car sets still retain their almost retro allure and TBWA\ and Match Photography took seven hours to construct a rather large track in a living room for ANZ’s latest print ad, as this behind-the-scenes clip shows.
Fairfax Media restructure sees Fairfax New Zealand chief executive Allen Williams heading to Australia to become managing director of the newly formed Australian Publishing Media division. But aside from a change at the top, the changes won’t be affecting the New Zealand business.
Social Media Club Auckland kicked off its first event of the year last week, discussing the use of social media for PR. Following hot on the tracks of the My Food Bag ad vs #ad hubbub, panelists Hazel Phillips (editor at Idealog), Deborah Pead of Pead PR, and David Fisher from the New Zealand Herald deftly argued the merits of using media (particularly journalists) to promote products on Twitter.
The trouble with DRMLast week we saw a vulnerability in TV3’s On Demand service exposed, forcing the broadcaster to shut down its video streaming service for…
DraftFCB and Mini are on a bit of a roll at the moment, with SPCA’s Driving Dogs winning pretty much everything in sight (it has been shortlisted four times at the prestigious Festival of Media, second only behind ASOS’ best night ever with five). And the pair are victorious once more, with the ‘Ducks’ ad taking out News Works’ newspaper ad of the month for March and the Mini newspaper NIM campaign getting a special mention.
Social media isn’t about awareness any more. It’s about driving connections and sharing interests with consumers.
Bethells Beach and Maori warriors star in Samsung’s latest global TVC campaign.
I gave up on full frame cameras not longer after I got into photography. I have the back of a 60-year-old and the budget of a 20-year-old, neither situation lending itself to owning heavy and expensive kit. Using the Canon EOS 6D this last week makes me reconsider the perks of a nice big 35mm sensors.
The digital realm offers a boatload of exciting opportunities for marketers and advertisers. But don’t forget your old shipmates.
St Matthew in the City is a church renowned for its controversial advertising and none have been as notorious as its gay Jesus billboard put up for Christmas last year. Now you too can own this piece of gay rights memorabilia / affront to religion (depending on your position, of course).
As the recovery mission for the submerged plane thought to be holding the bodies of Eric and Kathy Hertz kicks into gear, tributes are flowing for the 2degrees chief executive—and plans have been put in place by the company to continue his mobile mission.
The MA announces its board members, Andrew Reinholds gets the Cannes call-up, Hauraki adds a couple of comedians, Impact PR shacks up with House of Travel, Kiwi expat Tom Markham heads to New York, and Prodigy signs Samuel Bennetts.
Despite the huge amount of customer data energy companies have at their disposal, not many of them have used that data well to create useful tools for customers to manage their power consumption. Some might say that’s because it’s in the interests of energy companies for their customers to use more energy, even though it might not be in the best interests of society as a whole. But following in the footsteps of Powershop’s useful online usage meters and hints on how to reduce consumption, Mercury Energy has also come to the utility party with a new product called the Good Energy Monitor, or GEM.
Hello there Toyota’s vehicular version of The Hangover, Mercury Energy’s new toy and GE Money’s one-word campaign.
GE Capital, the mothership for brands such as GE Money, Gem Visa, Custom Fleet, Equipment Finance, Pacific Premium Funding and Distribution Finance, reportedly had a changing of the marketing guard late last year and, after a brief dalliance with Y&R, moved in permanently with Shine. And the pair have launched the first major piece of work after that relationship was cemented in the form of a campaign for GE Money’s personal loans that focuses on one word: really.
Partridge Jewellers knows all about the power of magazines and, as a premium brand, it’s a medium that suits it perfectly. In recent years, the print work by Assignment Group has added some glamour by featuring a range of local starlets, including Antonia Prebble, Ruby Higgins and, most recently Gin Wigmore. And, after the success of Wigmore’s first slightly surprising appearance as the face of its new Halo Collection, the tattooed songstress is back for more.
‘Nephs’ and ‘aunties’ rejoice as Crown entity Te Mangai Paho (TMP) funds a second season of TV3’s The GC, forking over more than $419,000 towards the production of eight 30-minute episodes.
From data marketing to numerical storytelling, the legal considerations related to ‘cloud’ data, semantic search technologies and population dynamics, the various permutations of data are changing the digital game. Dennis Kibirev digests the MA’s Smarter Data event.
Some might argue there’s a degree of trickery every day of the year in the world of marketing and media. But it’s taken to much more preposterous levels—and is almost actively encouraged—on April Fool’s Day. So here’s a collection of the best pranks, fakes and subterfuges from New Zealand and around the world.
TV3’s On Demand video service for mobile has been suspended while the broadcaster investigates a breach which allowed an undisclosed number of users to download content to their mobile devices.
2Degrees says chief exec Eric Hertz and his wife on board crashed plane near Kawhia, “unlikely to have survived”.
The print industry has had its fair share of grim news recently, with Geon Group going into receivership and Blue Star’s horror accounts. But Image Centre Group has some good news to share after it acquired creative services business DPod, making it New Zealand’s biggest digital printer.
OK Go – possibly the world’s most creative band – is offering filmmakers free access to its brand new track I’m Not Through from its upcoming fourth album. Why? Well, as part of the OK Go Saatchi & Saatchi Music Video Challenge 2013 in partnership with global creative platform Talenthouse and music video curators BUG, the band is inviting creatives to make a video for the song, with the chance to go to Cannes Lions and more.
In six weeks Tourism Radio’s apps for campervan operators like Maui, Britz and Motorhome Republic have been downloaded 4500 times. It’s a modest starting point, but the company has high hopes for taking a slice out of New Zealand’s $15 billion tourism economy using smartphones.
Between 930 and 1230 jobs will be cut at Telecom in a round of cost cutting measures, the company has announced to the New Zealand Stock Exchange. This may be a “necessary evil” for a top heavy company with more than 2870 staff earning six-figure salaries.
After coming close in a few big pitches recently, Y&R had cause for celebration when it was named as Westfield’s new partner last week. And it’s backed that up with another win: The Co-operative Bank.
Windows 8 tablets are still finding their footing in the pantheon of consumer devices, with various form factors and device-types being tested along the way. The Acer Iconia W510 tablet-laptop hybrid is a throwback to the days of the netbook in both design and purpose.
Full service digital agency Federation Media has rebranded as Union, a change that “reflects the company’s focus on the strategy, delivery and analysis of insight-led digital campaigns” and also aims to remove a bit of confusion in the market about its offering.