We’ve seen some pretty creative ideas used to increase pet adoptions and gather donations in New Zealand in recent years, with Colenso’s Doggelganger and Donation Glasses standing out in that regard. And now DraftFCB and Mini have joined the furry fray with a so crazy it just might work campaign for the SPCA that will see Porter, a 10 month old Beardie Cross from SPCA Auckland, attempt to drive a car live on TV.

Avanti Bikes, which celebrated its 25th birthday last year, is renowned as a design-led company, as evidenced by the gold it won at the Best Awards this year for its sexy Corsa DR. And that focus on design is helping it move into other overseas markets. Now it’s added another technology-driven advantage to its arsenal in the form of its multi-lingual, responsive website, which was built by Auckland digital agency Salt Interactive.

What some call the Original Sin of publishers giving their content away for free online has meant media companies around the world have found it difficult to change that expectation among readers and monetise the online realm. But it does appear to be changing—slowly. As The Listener’s new push for paid content goes live, we thought we’d share this interesting infographic from bestcollegesonline.org and Mashable that showed what’s happening in the world of paywalls and how it’s affecting readership.

APN’s NZ Magazines has embraced the freemium model with the launch of a new responsive design website for the New Zealand Listener that combines free and paid content and enables subscribers to read the magazine on any device.

When Claudia Batten speaks about business, it pays to listen. Her career began in corporate law with Russell McVeagh in Wellington, where she specialised in contract, IP and technology law. But as the tech boom boomed, she moved to New York and set up gaming ad network Massive, which was sold to Microsoft in 2006 for a princely sum, with some reports at the time claiming it fetched US$400 million. This year, she left her second start-up Victors & Spoils, the Boulder-based, crowdsourced creative agency she co-founded in 2009 with ex Crispin, Porter & Bogusky directors Evan Fry and Jon Windsor, after French holding company Havas bought a majority stake in the business and positioned it for international expansion. And, as is often the way with serial entrepreneurs, she’s already started work on her next, still rather mysterious project. But she took time out to have a chat with NZTE as part of its advice from entrepreneurs series.

Marmageddon has been a harrowing time for lovers of yeast-based spreads. But it’s been a boon for the media. And, remarkably, there’s still a bit more blood to be squeezed out of this particular stone, because Saatchi & Saatchi, Spark PR & Activate, Sanitarium and photographer Chris Sisarich have come up with a novel way to raise funds for The Rebuild Christchurch Foundation this Christmas by auctioning 19 photographs of empty Marmite jars donated by New Zealand celebrities including Rachel Hunter, Sir Graham Henry, Jaquie Brown and Trelise Cooper.

Huffer, which turned 15 this year, joined forces with Absolut last year to design its own bottle and now it’s putting its special touch on premium cars, because 15 unique Audi A1s—the result of a collaboration with local fashion man and Audi ambassador Steve Dunstan—will hit Kiwi shores in January.

Beginning as just a way to use up leftover apples in the 1960s, one of New Zealand’s classic juice bevvies, Fresh up, is celebrating 50 years of production this month.

A fat, shiny bull mounting a helpless cow: this is war launched billboard-style by Holy Moly ice cream, which claims dairy giant Fonterra is screwing over small businesses with what it believes is anti-competitive behaviour.