Last week, Chris Tremain, the minister of internal affairs, announced the launch of the cross-government Common Web Services initiative, which aims to streamline the tender processes for central and local government agencies to save time and money. And 42 providers across seven categories have made the cut.
Switching banks is such a hassle almost nobody bothers. But by triggering change to the system and then creating a category-breaking campaign to let everyone know how easy it was to do it, new customers came flooding in to Kiwibank.
A premium brand launching entry-level products is a risky strategy. But where there’s risk, there’s often reward, and that was certainly the case for Red Witch Analog Pedals and the Seven Sisters.
The fourth Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity in Singapore saw close to 5,000 pieces of work submitted from 22 countries across 16 categories. Eleven PR’s managing partner Kelly Bennett participated as a juror in the PR category and shares his thoughts on some of the work and the judging process.
Air New Zealand recently started showing a video on selected domestic flights to promote its relationship with the Department of Conservation and, specifically, the nine walking wonders of New Zealand. Saatchi & Saatchi was behind that one and it’s back again with a nice little online campaign to promote the airline’s Above & Beyond business loyalty scheme by showing what some travellers will do to get into the Koru Lounge.
A few weeks back I ventured to Turners Auctions with a friend who was on the hunt for a new steed. If a car caught our eye, we’d kick the tyres, push a few buttons inside, lift the bonnet, check the oil, and stand back and say ‘yep, she looks pretty good’. The engine could have been inserted upside down and we probably still would’ve said that, so, given this complete lack of mechanical knowledge, it was perhaps slightly ironic that a few days later I was invited to venture to Central Otago to take some beefy new BMWs for a few frosty donuts in the snow. But, as a freeloading journalist with a rich boganic Invercargill heritage, it was an offer too good to refuse.
As expected, there’s been a fair bit of discussion about Lindauer’s new campaign on StopPress, some quite enjoying the gender-based hyperbole, some feeling it’s a little too abstract and/or sexist. We couldn’t get hold of DDB’s managing director Justin Mowday last week for a chat when it launched. But we caught up with him yesterday. So what’s the deal? And what else have they got up their sleeves?
Through business, sporting franchises have learnt how to turn loyalty into revenue. Is it possible that through sport, businesses can learn how to turn customers into fans? Here are five things Oliver Haydon believes will give you a sporting chance.
When it comes to self-promotion, it’s fair to say the coolest little capital in the world has had it over the big little city for a while now. And while the lure of the exotic foreigners is hard to ignore, both cities have launched campaigns recently to attract more domestic visitors, with Auckland taking a self-deprecating approach to try and knock a few stereotypes on the head and Wellington offering up a few treats to potential guests from its biggest market.
Fairfax communications and marketing manager Nicola Igusa ventured to Singapore for the Spikes Asia Festival. And she asked James Mok, the newly minted APAC region executive creative director for DraftFCB, and Sandra King, the group sales and marketing director for Fairfax New Zealand, for their views on the festival and why they think the New Zealand industry should care about it.
The Spikes Asia winners were announced overnight, with Australia, India and Japan dominating the grand prix prizes. But Colenso gave em a taste of Kiwi and came home with 15 spikes, including five golds, nine silvers and a bronze. DDB and Rapp Tribal nabbed three golds, two silvers and three bronzes and we’ll claim a win for Air New Zealand’s grand prix in the branded content and entertainment category for Kiwi Sceptics, even though Host Sydney was behind it. And OMD pair Abi Morrish and Lauren Siemer took silver in the Young Spikes Media section.
My Kitchen Rules is currently screening on TV2 and, after some nice promotional work by TVNZ and Contagion and with the first ever Kiwi pairing featuring on the show this season, it’s drawing a fair swag of eyeballs. We’ve got three copies of judge Pete Evans’ cookbook Pizza to give away. So tell us your most interesting pizza combination (StopPress suggestion: Muttonbird and edam), come up with a name for it and the best efforts will get the booty.
Last week, the musical visionaries from Barnes, Catmur & Friends (and James ‘Black Jim’ Blackwood on drums) banished the ghosts of Battle of the Ad Bands past and took home the top prize. And for all those who weren’t there, and all those who were there but may have slightly hazy memories, here’s a few action shots taken by Dallas Pickering.
The IHC shows some every day inspiration, Gravity goes on an international adventure, Lindauer turns on the waterworks, Fly Buys ventures into the wild, Flip assumes the juxtaposition, and Kleenex dresses itself up.
He’s helped DraftFCB New Zealand go from middle of the road to top of the pops in pretty quick time. And now, after being promoted to the role of group executive creative director for Australia and New Zealand last year, James Mok has been given a chance to dabble in the Asia Pacific with a new regional role.
The RSVP & Nexus Awards have been rewarding insight-driven marketing for 26 years, but after an industry-wide review headed up by Ben Goodale, managing director of justONE and chairman of the Marketing Association’s Agencies’ Council, there have been some big changes this year, with a whole new structure and a new name: the New Zealand Direct Marketing Awards.
The ‘Cannes of the South’ kicked off over the weekend and the first blast of shortlists from Spikes Asia has been announced, with Colenso BBDO and DDB Group on top in terms of Kiwi agencies.
Some of the best ads in the world have been simple out-of-home advertising propositions, such as the 1994 ‘Hello Boys’ Wonderbra ad featuring Eva Herzigova, the Economist ‘Light Bulb’ ad which illuminated as pedestrians walked past, or perhaps even Tui’s long-serving ‘yeah right’ campaign, which has recently enlisted the services of a mobile billboard that will travel to renowned Ridge habitats in Auckland. So, in an effort to promote more of this outdoor magic and give both marketers and agency folk the opportunity to have some fun with the medium, The Outdoor Media Association of NZ is launching the Out There Challenge.
New Zealand is a nation built on exports, and historically they’ve come from the primary sector. All going to plan, the country will be exporting more of its IP in the future and that’s what Eleven PR, which was established in New Zealand, launched in Australia less than two years ago and won the PR agency of the year award at last week’s Mumbrella Awards, is planning to do.
Kirstie Stanway got the shock of her life when she turned up for her first day as an intern at More FM and ended up flying to El Salvador as part of a marketing campaign for Gravity Coffee. And now Kiwis get to see how her rather unique experience panned out in a rather unique way, with her journey being made into a series of 45 second TVCs that will play in the first ad break of 3 News each night this week.
Not surprisingly, the relaunch of the New Zealand Herald as a tabloid and the redesign of the nzherald.co.nz website have dominated most of the attention in the newspaper sphere in recent weeks. But Fairfax has a few tricks up its sleeve as well and it has announced the launch of Stuff Nation, a repository for user-generated content and a more personalised news experience that promises to “transform the landscape of New Zealand journalism”—and the way Fairfax Digital delivers media packages in New Zealand.
Following on from the first ever above-the-line Bumper Bar campaign and the granting of a rare patent for its One Square Meal product, the main Cookie Time brand has also undergone a big transformation. And for Dow Design’s creative director Donna McCort, reimagining the classic Kiwi brand was a huge responsibility.
TVNZ is currently revelling in some massive numbers for New Zealand’s Got Talent, which went from an average 5+ audience of 935,000 in its first episode to 975,000 last night. It’s got another ratings tiger by the tail with My Kitchen Rules on TV2 and, in an effort to emphasise that it is less like a simple cooking programme and more like a character-driven, drama-filled reality show, it developed a campaign in conjunction with Contagion based around the idea that ‘Some things don’t mix’.
The recent Why Telecom campaign recorded a series of curly customer questions and then, to make the whole thing slightly less boring, decided to employ the services of a range of talking animals. And the new Fly Buys campaign by Clemenger BBDO has also gone heavy on the creatures—and on Butterfly Effect references—to show that “Every time you swipe, something a little bit good happens”.
In the world of advertising, the portrayal of men often tends to be split into two major categories: the hyper-masculine, sex-fuelled, beer chugging, sport-loving creature or the hapless, helpless dunce incapable of doing even the simplest of tasks without the help of a female. Of course, there are many exceptions to that stereotypical rule, but both ends of this spectrum are often seen as being low hanging fruit. But, as part of Lindauer’s Girl’s Night Out campaign, Lion and DDB have picked that fruit, put it into a bottle and given it a good shake with a 90 second TVC by the Roadmap Institute called ‘Don’t Worry Boys’.
Observant souls—and lovers of teaser campaigns—may have noticed a few unbranded billboards around Auckland featuring phrases like ‘money is bad’ and ‘money is good’. So what gives?
We have seen marketing messages evolve from “Hey! This is what I want you to think about my product” through to the modern day nirvana of having citizen marketers doing our advertising for us. The shift has been from the brand as the story teller to having stories told about the brand. And who better to tell these stories than the fabled mass influencer?
The Share a Coke campaign in Australia was brilliantly simple. Those who had their names on the tin were happy, and those who didn’t wanted to find a way to make it happen. And now Kiwis have a chance to offer their own suggestions to add 50 more names to the original list.
The shots were downed at the door, the undies went flying onto the stage regularly and the screams were deafening last night as seven bands came together and rocked the hell out of the King’s Arms for the fifth annual Battle of the Ad Bands, a night that some jokingly—or not so jokingly—call the most important in advertising. And after being there or thereabouts in previous years, the worthy rock gods and goddess in Barnes, Catmur & Friend’s Friends Electric finally took the top prize, prying it from the cold dead hands of TBWA\, which had won it for the past two years but didn’t feature in this year’s festivities.
The Cure Kids charity song ‘Feel inside (and stuff like that) by The Flight of the Conchords and their Kiwi musical counterparts was quite possibly the best thing ever made. And to draw attention to World Lymphoma Day on Saturday, .99 and the Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand have created something pretty good too, with a two minute video fronted by TV3 newsreader Hilary Barry and comedian Jeremy Corbett that asks a range of New Zealand celebrities to name a word they hate.