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).

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.

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.

Accountability is often seen as an achilles heels of the out-of-home industry, and with no measurement system like Australia’s MOVE, it seems to be becoming an increasingly thorny issue in New Zealand. But Taxi Impact is trying to improve the situation through the use of GPS technology.

Naked Communications New Zealand is closing its Auckland offices, a move it says is necessary to better service its business in Sydney and Melbourne. And after four years at the helm, managing partner Matt O’Sullivan is creating a new agency.

New Zealand-based mobile advertising company Snakk Media has more than doubled its unaudited revenue for the October to December quarter from $686,000 in 2011 to $1.439 in 2012, according to an announcement made on the stock exchange.

There’s gold in them thar hills and the rural sector is still the undoubted engine of the New Zealand economy, but agricultural clients aren’t generally regarded as being particularly creatively rewarding for the shiny arsed agency folk and the vast majority of campaigns for rural products tend to stick to a tried, true and fairly bland formula. So Special Group has tried to add some humour to the mix with its ‘Prevention is better than cure’ campaign for Zoetis’ Teat Seal that shows what farmers could be doing instead of dealing to mastitis.