News
Metro pulls up a chair at the mobile feast
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Metro claims to be “the most trusted guide to eating in Auckland”. And the title is playing to its strengths and moving to where its audience is increasingly looking with the launch of Metro Eats, a new mobile app that was developed by Satellite Media and combines content from the magazine’s Top 50 Restaurants, Top 100 Cheap Eats and Top 50 Bars.

News
It’s Sweden vs. Germany as Volvo plays up its novelty value
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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’.

News
MediaWorks cleared for 2013 launch
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What do you get when you cross glitter canons, cheerleaders showing their bums, overly dramatic sound tracks, media types eating all the nibbles and Paul Henry? A new season TV launch, of course. And first cab off the rank for 2013 was MediaWorks, which announced some of the goodies it will be showing on TV3 and Four at Sky City, interviewed some of 2012’s stars on the couch and introduced the first X Factor NZ judge, Stan Walker.

Awards
AUT offers up some sacrificial lambs to adland’s high priests
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It’s that time of year again, when fresh faced young’uns with dreams of creative greatness prostrate themselves in front of adland’s judgemental powerbrokers and show off the year’s handiwork. So get thee to the end of year show for the AUT Ad Creativity course on Friday 9 November at the Film Construction building in Minnie St if you want to see it.

News
Honours shared in two horse TV race, as TV3 takes news and TVNZ takes drama
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The TV industry, here and around the world, is currently dealing with some major challenges, but all that serious business was mostly forgotten on Saturday night as the stars—from in front of and from behind the camera—of the local industry turned up to accentuate the positive at the 2012 New Zealand Television Awards. And in the annual (mostly) two horse race, it was MediaWorks that wrested the big news prizes off TVNZ, and TVNZ that took home most of the prizes in the drama and reality sections.

News
An unexpected briefing, an expected hit
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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.

News
Redcactus grabs a triple at Pentawards
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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.

News
New York? Pffff. Speight’s introduces the modern Southern Man
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The Southern Man has been a feature of Speight’s advertising—and a prominent feature of Kiwi pop culture—for many years, so any major change to the much-loved advertising figure is obviously fraught with danger. But times have changed. And, while New Zealand might not have too many skyscrapers, the new Speight’s campaign aims to show that we’ve got our priorities right.

News
Desperately seeking cutters and thrusters
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Mother always said not to dwell on the past. But what would she know? She doesn’t even have an iPad. So, once again, we will soon be flying back through the mists of time for our ever-popular Year in Review series on StopPress. We’ll be lining up some of the industry’s most vigorous cutters and dastardly thrusters and asking them a few questions about the goods, bads and uglies of 2012. But we thought we’d ask our dear readers who they wanted to hear from most. So add your suggestions in the comments section and we’ll see what we can do.

News
Agencies urged to grow for a cause
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Two days in to November and the lip hair of males around the country is already sprouting. The Movember industry challenge also kicked off yesterday, and while there are a few publishers stepping up to the mark, it could do with a few more contenders from agency land. But there’s still time. And all those who enter will be up for some tasty beverages, with Mo of the Week sponsored by TVNZ, which is putting four $150 bar tabs up for grabs, and Most valuable Mo sponsored by iSite, which is putting up a $300 Libertine voucher. Robert Dunne, the Movember country manager, will be picking the winners. So if you’re up to the task, register now, join your agency team and the Movember agency challenge (or become a team captain for your business) and show the industry just what kind of incremental growth you can deliver.

News
Traveller, your journey starts beneath a pimped out newzealand.com website
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Tourism New Zealand’s marketing strategy is all about convincing ‘active considerers’ to give New Zealand a go. And almost all of its budget is now spent on digital marketing to communicate directly with consumers, with the award-winning newzealand.com website acting as the central hub to convert them to travel. And, with the help of TBWA\’s Digital Arts Network (DAN), the latest iteration of the site has been launched.

News
Jesus wept
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Whatever St Matthew in the City can do, Chapel Bar can do better. To celebrate seven years of Almighty Nights at the Ponsonby Road institution, it enlisted the sacrilegious services of Ogilvy, which created a great (unless you’re a devout Christian) ad that’s bound to appeal to the secular customer base.

News
Localist ditches print, hitches wagon to mobile recommendation engine
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When Localist launched as an Auckland-only print directory, plenty of questions were raised about the rationale behind the creation of a new product that went head to head with a dominant player in what many saw as a dying industry. 18 months on and it’s still here and, confounding the sceptics, it’s still growing. But as of next week Localist will be very different and 100 percent digital.

News
Contact Energy tries its luck elsewhere—UPDATED
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As Genesis, the country’s biggest spending energy company, gets set to announce the results of its recent pitch, Contact, the country’s second biggest spending energy company, is also searching for some new agency partners, although, judging by the number of go-to industry gossips who didn’t know about it, it seems to have been a slightly more exclusive affair.

News
Middle-earth in mid-air
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Air New Zealand became the official airline of Middle-earth a few months ago as part of a marketing deal struck up between Tourism New Zealand, New Line, MGM and Warner Bros. And, after plenty of teasing, including a countdown clock on its Flying Social Network site, it’s released a classy new Hobbit-themed safety video.

News
Mission accomplished as Saatchi & Saatchi’s war games take IAB award
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Last year’s impressive Step Up campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi for the RNZAF offered users the chance to experience four live simulated challenges that tested their skills against some of the everyday situations they’d encounter if they took up a career in the Air Force. This year’s version, ‘Virtual Missions’, follows a similar path and it’s been deemed good enough to win the IABNZ Online Creative Award for November 2012.

News
Esquires refuels with Y&R
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Esquires Coffee Houses is moving on to its third different agency in as many years, with Y&R picking up the business following a review of several local creative agencies. Media buying will be retained by Mediacom.

News
Kiwibank greases up to local SMEs with some useful largesse
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There were plenty of naysayers when Kiwibank was launched, but, after ten years, few would argue it has done a stellar job of facing up the big Australian-owned banks on the personal banking front (it announced a tripling of profits recently and now has around ten percent of the retail market). But now it’s aiming to bump up its business banking credentials with a campaign by Ogilvy and Ikon that aims to demonstrate how the bank can save SMEs time and money and let them get on with running their businesses.

News
As VodaClear gets the go ahead, Telecom takes its opportunity
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We’ve seen the banks gunning for new customers after a big merger. Now, after Vodafone’s $840 million takeover of TelstraClear was cleared by the Commerce Commission yesterday, it’s time for the telcos to have some fun, with Telecom running a full-page print ad today riffing on TelstraClear’s slogan.

News
AA Insurance fixes up, looks sharp
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Insurance is usually a very low involvement category; a grudge purchase if ever there was one (although it’s become a very high-involvement category for some in Christchurch, and not in a good way). As a result, the service it offers is often taken for granted until it’s needed. So, perhaps rather bravely given the current feelings towards the industry, AA Insurance has decided it’s time to promote the positives of its business with a big multi-media campaign by its new agency Special Group that spans TV, digital, DR, outdoor and radio.

News
Resene masters the art of test pottery
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Andy Warhol’s iconic image of Marilyn Monroe, one of the most influential pieces of modern art ever, can now be seen at Queen Elizabeth II Square in downtown Auckland. As part of Art Week, 3,944 Resene test pots in four specially chosen colours – Princess, Smitten, Shooting Star and All Black (actual Resene paint names)—were commandeered to create a 4x4m mosaic.

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