The Briscoes lady—AKA Tammy Wells—has been invading New Zealand’s living rooms and mailboxes for almost a quarter of a century and, after thousands of ads about massive savings and red hot sales, the ‘You’ll never by better’ slogan has been well and truly etched into the nation’s consciousness. And this week the Kiwi retailer marked a significant milestone as it celebrated 150 years of business. PLUS: some classic old ads.

Media start-up Snakk Media, which was launched by Kiwi entrepreneur Derek Handley and digital advertising veteran Andrew Jacobs in Australia in 2010 and offers advertisers a network of channels and technology that allows them to target and connect to consumers through smartphones and tablets, has applied to list on the New Zealand Alternative Exchange (NZAX) in the near future.

Humans can’t seem to get enough of screens these days. And they’re increasingly using their devices while watching TV. So locally developed app Pluk is working with advertisers and trying to point them in the right direction, writes Lesley Springall.

String Theory’s last brilliant viral effort for the Good Books charity, Metamorphosis, recently took gold and bronze at the London International Awards, and it could have another winner on its hands, as Havana Heat, the next innuendo-heavy, bodice-ripping Mills and Boon-themed instalment has just been released. And, coincidentally, it’s been created by The Mill of London, which won production company of the year at the same awards.

Ze Germans have created an extremely valuable country brand based around reliability, precision and quality design and engineering, which has certainly helped the likes of VW, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz conquer the world’s roads. But Sweden is trying to find its niche, and in New Zealand it’s doing it with a ballsy new campaign for the new Volvo V40 hatchback that takes aim at the established German car brands and taps into the desire to be ‘Über Different’.

MasterCard is launching a new national direct to consumer (cardholder) privileges programme in the New Zealand market, and it’s putting the call out for agencies with a bit of mana in the travel, loyalty, offer generation, experiential and POS space.

As a small airline that can’t afford to buy attention like some of its larger competitors, Air New Zealand has long advocated the benefits of content marketing through effective seeding of its unique—and often polarising—campaigns and safety videos and a world-class YouTube channel. With the help of Weta Workshop, it nailed The Hobbit inflight video. And it’s already a global hit, achieving worldwide media coverage and 6.2 million YouTube views in just four days since launching.

David MacGregor on the passing of his dear friend Linds Redding.

There were 1200 entries from 46 countries for this year’s Pentawards, which celebrate outstanding packaging design, and three projects by specialist consumer branding and packaging agency Redcactus made the final cut and were announced as winners.