While MediaWorks’ ownership and debt issues continued to bubble away this year, there were plenty of positives for those working at the coalface, including Four’s media brand of the year award and a very successful first run of The Block. Liz Fraser, who moved from MSN and chair of the IAB to take up the role of director of sales and marketing at Mediaworks TV, has her say.
With a new office in Amsterdam, a host of awards, some massive international clients, a few stroke-inducing side projects and a cause-based cat telethon to promote internet freedom, Resn has further cemented its well-earned reputation as one of the world’s best—and most experimental—digital agencies in 2012. Kris Hermansson and Steve Le Marquand log on.
Tourism New Zealand and Whybin\TBWA’s 100% Middle-earth, 100% Pure New Zealand campaign has been the subject of much discussion recently, plenty of it based around the perceived gap between the fantasy of the slogan and the reality of the country’s environmental situation. But after some negative media coverage, it’s put one in the plus column by winning the World’s Leading Destination Marketing Campaign in the World Travel Awards 2012.
New Zealanders really enjoy a catchy tune mixed with a bit of schadenfreude, a fact demonstrated by the most searched for ad on Google this year.
After saying goodbye to BNZ, ‘recalibrating’ the agency and adding a couple of ex-Ogilvy chaps to its creative arsenal, Sugar&Partners had plenty to contend with this year. But it took it in its stride and released some quality campaigns for TAB, new challenger telco Flip and, slightly controversially given its similarity to a popular cat video, Mammoth Insulation. Dave Nash and Damon O’Leary sum up their 2012.
Creative ideas increasingly need to be media ideas—and specifically social media ideas. And OMD recognised this earlier this year by hiring social strategist, self-proclaimed ‘askhole’, opinionated mofo, treasure hunt lover and enthusiastic supporter of the Herne Bay Local Anthony Gardiner. So get these opinions down ‘ya gullet.
Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and Rudolph is hungover in the corner. Mrs Claus gives a bourbon fuelled rant about how her life with Santa is no fairy tale. She stumbles off stage, but not before threatening Rudolph with a shit-stained dildo. Thus ending the opening scene of Mega Christmas, playing at the Basement Theatre in Auckland this week.
Following up from a win in August for Consumer NZ, Ogilvy Wellington duo Nigel Richardson and Steve Cooper have taken the November ORCA with their ‘Silly Season’ ad for Consumer NZ.
Once again, online advertising continued its steady rise in New Zealand in 2012, hitting its high water mark in the last quarter. And as the head of Yahoo! New Zealand (which recently launched its year-in-the-making new homepage and mobile site) and the new chair of the local Internet Advertising Bureau, Laura Maxwell-Hansen is well placed to see where it’s heading next. Here’s her take on 2012.
Dow Design is on a mission to prove the commercial value of good design. And with a win in the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards for Fonterra, a finalist in the new Best Effect Award for Hellers, a number of big redesigns for big FMCG brands, it seems to be doing a good job of it. Founder Annie Dow and business development director Jenny McMillan speak their piece.
Following on from last week’s well-received column about why social media was like talkback radio, Jennifer Duval-Smith puts forward her views on why a combination of paid tools and manual monitoring is the best option for a consistent, timely and comprehensive overview of your social media chatter.
Search giant Google has released the results of its 2012 top search trends, including the most searched for terms in New Zealand this year.
‘Twas a big year for Barnes, Catmur & Friends, with plenty of success and international attention for the sado-masochistic Pizza Roulette, a long-awaited BOTAB victory for Friends Electric, one of the country’s best hauls at the EFFIES and some consistently good low-budget work for Independent Liquor’s Boundary Road Brewery, which is now thought to have gained 20 percent of the ‘gateway craft’ market after its launch last year. Say hello to managing creative partner Paul Catmur.
Fresh from Rapp Tribal’s hiring of ex-BMF Sydney creative director Tim Wood, DDB Group NZ has made it a double, with Shane Bradnick, the current executive creative director at BMF Sydney, joining DDB in February 2013 as creative director.
With a newish chief executive, a switch to Saatchi & Saatchi without a pitch, a rejigged marketing team, record profits, a new HQ being built, a couple of awards, a few more impressive innovations like Facebook payments and a classy if comparatively subdued response to the National Bank’s departure (something big might be brewing, however), ASB had a fairly eventful year. Executive general manager marketing and online Roger Beaumont shares the love.
New Zealand-based fundraising startup Donate Your Desktop has partnered with eight new charities, with the hope that added choice will bring in new users and boost struggling advertising sales.
It’s been a watershed year for APN NZ, with the Herald’s shift to tabloid and the resulting campaign by DraftFCB, a new nzherald.co.nz, the launch of The Listener’s digital subscriptions and restructures of the IT, editorial and marketing departments. Chief operating officer Todd McLeay, the man who swapped the comparatively easy job of selling Lotto tickets for positioning a newspaper for the rather uncertain future, looks back on an eventful 2012.
Fresh from judging at Young Guns, Contagion’s Verity Dookia says TV has most certainly got some competition in the form of maverick media, digital and ‘something else’. But it’s not quite as simple as trawling the internet for the latest gadget and then sticking a brand on it.
It’s been a cracking year for the crew of Clemenger BBDO Wellington, with the agency winning four Cannes Lions, three Gold Effies, New Zealand’s only D&AD Yellow Pencil for Ghost Chips and securing more work in The Work than any other Kiwi agency. Here’s what caught the attention of the lads at the helm, Philip Andrew and Andrew Holt.
Panasonic and Trade Me have teamed up to take advantage of televisions becoming more and more computer-like, with the launch of the Trade Me app for Panasonic Smart Viera TVs.
With five golds at the Media Awards, a host of Yahoo DSA gongs, big campaigns for Vodafone, Instant Kiwi and ANZ, a re-signed agreement with Unilever and a new gamified planning system about to come onstream, Spark Group has had plenty to crow about this year. Chief executive Louise Bond takes the wheel.
When it comes to Kiwi viral sensations, we may have a new champion, because DraftFCB, Mini and the SPCA’s campaign that put homeless mutts behind the wheel of a modified Mini has been picked up by most of the world’s major media outlets, been the most shared video on BBC three days running, with 225,000 shares to Facebook and 7,900 to Twitter, and ranks as the biggest news event on Campbell Live in its seven-and-a-half year history.
Haven’t had your daily dose of The Hobbit? Then head on over to newzealand.com and take a look at New Zealand redrawn in the spirit of Tolkien thanks to WHYBIN\TBWA and Weta Workshops.
The last TVC of the Week accolade for 2012 and it’s the global phenomenon that is driving dogs, mobile innuendo and kids mixed with science that taste victory.
Fresh from winning more Caples metal than any other agency in the world over the weekend, Colenso BBDO followed that up by winning Campaign Asia Pacific’s New Zealand creative agency of the year award ahead of DDB Group and DraftFCB, with creative chairman Nick Worthington named as the Australasian region’s best creative director. DDB Group also backed up a good year on the awards front, with Rapp/Tribal winning digital agency of the year ahead of Colenso BBDO and TBWA\DAN, while Spark PHD was rewarded for an impressive year with the media agency of the year title, ahead of Naked and OMD.
If knowledge is power, Lillian Grace wants to put a sword in every New Zealander’s hand using collaborative data and infographics through Wiki New Zealand.
There was plenty of excitement when music streaming service Spotify finally launched in New Zealand in May. And it has announced its latest numbers and a few big changes to make the service more social, more personalised and hopefully more attractive to advertisers. Plus: Nielsen’s Spotify’s numbers.
A few of our esteemed contributors have placed ‘anonymous commenters’ in the villains section of our Year in Review questionnaire, as they did the year before. And it’s fair to say most would agree with those choices. But not all, it seems. We received an interesting ‘Anonymous Message’ from a generic email address with a link to a video featuring a shadowy figure in a Guy Fawkes mask outlining the surprisingly worthy, if rather threatening, intentions of anonymous commenters: to completely eliminate all bad ads from this world.
We’ve seen Facebook data used effectively to tap in the modern narcissistic streak, especially with Intel’s Museum of Me, but Clemenger BBDO and Resn have flipped that upside down—quite literally—with a brilliant anti-speeding campaign in the form on an online game for the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA).
Marcomms folk are a competitive bunch. Always fighting over clients/awards/staff. And, in many cases, that competition is often a good thing for the quality of ideas, which is why PHD and its local outpost Spark Group are set to launch a new global operating system that taps into elements of gamification and crowd-sourcing to “encourage participation and collaboration” among the 2,500 staff across the Omnicom-owned group.