Kiwibank has split up with Ogilvy in an effort to, as general manager of marketing Nicky Ashton says, stay fresh and vibrant. And to do that it’s given the business to Ogilvy’s STW stablemate Assignment Group without a pitch.
Hundreds of jobs at Telecom are being cut, as the company posts a half year profit to December 2012 of $163 million, up by around 58 percent from the previous year.
Derek Handley’s Snakk Media to list on NZAX in March, and he says more NZ tech startups should do the same
Today we launch the latest addition to the StopPress media empire: Didge. Now let us tell you about why we think the digital world is important enough for its own coveted space on StopPress.
DraftFCB is top of the dog show, with its Driving Dogs campaign for Mini and the SPCA taking home the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Online Creative Award for February.
Google’s Glass project makes us go “wow!” and “whoa!”, but could augmented reality also make us go “wtf?” in the future.
This industry isn’t renowned for its institutional memory and, when looking for candidates for the Back Then section in NZ Marketing, it’s a surprisingly common occurrence to hear back from agencies and brands who aren’t able to find any of their early advertising work. Online repositories are certainly helping to remedy that situation, and a good example of that is the nostalgia section on the new website of Wellington creative consultancy Doublefish, which is worth a gander for anyone with a passing interest in the craft of advertising—or local popular culture.
There’s been plenty of news about hacking in recent weeks, from local examples like Telecom and Yahoo’s email debacle, to the takeover of Burger King and Jeep’s Twitter accounts, to break-ins to Twitter, Apple and Facebook. It’s a fairly common occurrence these days, and while we might add in an exclamation mark instead of a 1 to our password and feel a bit more secure about our data, a fairly terrifying Wired article from late last year that looked into the world of online security shows that “no matter how complex, no matter how unique, your passwords can no longer protect you.”
Since it won the New Zealand Pork account early last year, Ogilvy has been on a mission to change outdated perceptions and “drive purchase behaviour through a journey of digital awareness, engaging in-store communications, promotions and demonstration”. It brought chef Simon Gault onboard as spokescook for the Extraordinary Kitchen campaign and focused heavily on retail. But, like its recent change of direction for Holden, it’s tried to bring a bit more emotion to the table and, as executive creative director Angus Hennah says, “tell simple human stories that make pork the hero”.
Chaz Savage left Igloo only weeks after launching the TVNZ/Sky TV joint venture. Sim Ahmed talks to him as he prepares to leave, discussing what caused the six month delay of Igloo, the future of the product, and what he will be doing in his new role heading Telstra’s T-box offerring in Australia.
Auction giant Trade Me says more than a third of its visitors use the site on a mobile device, almost double what it was this time last year.
It seems we can chalk up yet another win for .99, with the retail specialist thought to have taken the Warehouse Stationery business in a competitive pitch, beating out incumbent M&C Saatchi and rumoured contenders of Y&R and DDB.
The plug is pulled on the NZ Television Awards, but the CAANZ Media Awards and Canon Media Awards are puffing out their chests after record entries. Plus: preliminary media awards judges announced.
Lisa Carrington adds another healthy endorsement to her list, Fluxx gets it on with Get! Communications, Mark Copplestone takes the reins at the IAB’s mobile advertising council, Pead PR rearranges the troops, mediaR feels the warmth with Bradford Gold, Duncan Stuart returns to the land of indie, Media3 stays up late and Arielle Tai joins Datamine.
Sorted’s ‘Think, Shrink and Grow’ money management cycle, which was intended to up the engagement and become the financial equivalent of ‘Slip, Slop, Slap’, kicked off in March last year. And now the circle is complete, with the last phase of the campaign showing its animated spokesmouse encouraging Kiwis to ‘grow’ their money.
It hasn’t been a particularly good month for old broadcasters and, following on from the death of Sir Paul Holmes, radio stalwart Kevin Black passed away last night at the age of 69 from a suspected heart attack.
Parliament has announced today it’s introducing plain packaging requirements for cigarettes and other tobacco products, making New Zealand only the second country in the world to do so. Rachel Ramsay looks at both sides of the plain packaging argument, asking if where there is smoke , there is liars.
Cupcakes all round for ASB’s beardy new mascot and Mitre 10’s romantic instructional video.
Latest figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Insight report shows digital creatives will be having many more “client lunches” in 2013, following a bonanza year in 2012.
In an effort to create more efficiencies across departments—and, of course, reduce the $60 million spent on the purchase of advertising and media services in New Zealand in 2011—the Government has been on a mission to assemble a panel of trusted advertising soldiers to join its army. And, after a bit of a delay, it’s chosen its longlist and asked successful parties for their “best and final offer”.
Partnership between New Zealand’s two biggest telcos, and Australia’s Telstra, will added almost 300 times our current internet capacity by 2014.
The lure of toasters, knives or coffee is fairly compelling for many Kiwis, and, according to the results of an independent study commissioned by Muffin Break that investigated the habits of shoppers and their interest in frequent purchasing programmes, 42 percent of those surveyed said they would return to a store where the service had dropped if the loyalty programme on offer was good.
Ecoya came in for some unwanted attention for its very visible nudity in 2011, with its Lady Godiva-inspired billboard getting a slap from the ASA (and also getting stolen). And in the latest campaign it’s maintained the sans clothes approach, although this time it’s claiming the nudity is ‘invisible’.
Memery is a fickle mistress. One day you’re hot, one day you’re supplanted by people tipping milk over their heads for no apparent reason. And, generally speaking, you know a meme is close to death’s door when people in offices start partaking (or, in the case of flash mobs, when companies implement them as the experiential aspect of a campaign). Given there’s a website dedicated to agencies around the world that have embraced what the kids are calling the Harlem Shake, and given practically every media outlet in the world has collected some of the best efforts, it’s quite possibly in its last throes, but we couldn’t resist the pull of the thrust, so here’s our obligatory post showing local business folk indulging in weird, bacchanalian behaviour.
Colenso BBDO continues the age old tradition of microsite campaigns with its latest work for V Energy drinks, while finding time along the way to promote light robbery.
Sim Ahmed captured the goodness of Air New Zealand’s social media breakfast last week with a liveblog. But if you hate words, then you’ll be overjoyed to learn that the airline has put together a video highlights reel for aspiring social media gurus who missed out.
In 2007, almost two in five New Zealanders who planned to buy a new car in the next four years said they would ‘definitely would not consider’ any Hyundai model. But, showing how perceptions can be changed quickly with quality products and solid marketing to back them up, the latest automotive brand rejecter results from Roy Morgan Research show this proportion has now halved, and effectively increased Hyundai’s available market by 25 percent.
DDB is well-accustomed to showing off the spoils of spending through its work with NZ Lotteries. But it’s showing a different side of excessive consumption in its latest spot for Westpac.
Clearly not done with just taking our doctors, engineers, aunties and nephs, Australia is now looking to poach New Zealand’s reality TV talent for Beauty and the Geek Australia. FOUR has announced that next season of the gameshow will feature a Kiwi beauty and geek, but applicants must play into some heavy and insulting stereotypes in order to be eligible.
Towering beanstalks, enormous tomes and lie detection are the ingredients in Contagion’s new campaign for TV2, which aims to enchant viewers into picking up the remote for the new season of programmes that started this week by focusing on Once Upon a Time and Revenge.