News
Internal affairs: Auckland vs. Wellington
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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.

Opinion
Who cares about Spikes Asia? You should
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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.

News
Colenso at the pointy end of Spikes Asia, DDB close behind—UPDATED
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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.

News
Suggest toppings, win book
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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.

News
Music with pictures
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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.

News
TVCs of the Week: 18 September
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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.

News
Out with the old, in with the New Zealand Direct Marketing Awards
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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.

News
OMANZ calls for creative cat captions in first instalment of Out There challenge
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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.

News
Eleven PR takes Aussie accolade, gets set to conquer other foreign lands
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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.

News
Gravity gives birth to advertising quintuplets as Coffee Run project hits screens
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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.

News
Fairfax Digital looks to harness the wisdom of the crowd—and its data—with user-generated content hub
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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.

News
TVNZ and Contagion mix it up for My Kitchen Rules campaign
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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’.

News
Fly Buys and Clemenger BBDO tap into the ‘animals in advertising’ zeitgeist with shopping-related take on the Butterfly Effect
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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”.

News
Dry your eyes mates: Lindauer and DDB fight for female freedom by showing hapless, weeping men
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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’.

Opinion
Influencing the influencers
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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?

News
Friends Electric ends on a high note, finally hits BOTAB pay dirt
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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.

News
Word up: Kiwi slebs talk dirty to draw attention to blood cancer
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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.

News
Sustainability: Ecostore
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From the start, Ecostore has had social and environmental responsibility at its core. And even though it has undergone a complete marketing transformation over the past three years, its ethical DNA remains firmly in tact.

Movings & Shakings
Movings/Shakings: 13 September
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Changes afoot for ZenithOptimedia, Vivaki takes flight, local McDonald’s man receives top burger honour, Firebrand skims The Pond, The Press announces its new editor, George Mackenzie gets an international call-up, Waitemata smells the roses, the downlowconcept gets it Phil, The Sweet Shop nabs a New Yorker, Spikes Asia entries on the upward trajectory, We Can Create announces its line-up, and the end of an era for TVNZ.

News
Experienced campaigners think local, act global with new creative consultancy
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Well-established indie players like Special Group, Barnes, Catmur & Friends, Shine, Federation, Affinity ID, justONE, Sugar and a few others have been around for a while now, but there haven’t been too many newcomers in recent years. Well, John McCabe and Mel Turkington have added their names to the list by opening the doors of Einstein’s Hairdresser, an Auckland-based “creative consultancy” with a slogan that says: “You’re the genius; we just make you look good.”

Movings & Shakings
Stone switches sides, joins Telecom’s connection crusade
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The news that Andrew Stone had departed his post at Droga5 came a few weeks back, with consultancy, fishing and family time taking precedence over his position with agency he helped set up with Mike O’Sullivan and Jose Alomajan in 2010. And his consultancy work has taken him back to a client he knows very well from his time as chief executive at Saatchi & Saatchi: Telecom.

News
Air New Zealand and Saatchi & Saatchi tell passengers to take a hike
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A few months back Air New Zealand announced its partnership with the Department of Conservation, which is in keeping with the need DoC now has to align itself with the corporate sector and fill the financial void from ongoing budget cuts, and in keeping with Air New Zealand’s continuing environmental push. And now it’s launched a new website and video to be played on selected flights that implores Kiwis to head outside and take in some of New Zealand’s Great Walks, which the airline is the sole sponsor of.

News
Information superhighway robbery: Flip and Sugar & Partners assume the juxtaposition to point out New Zealand’s pricey broadband stats
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All-you-can-eat broadband packages are common overseas, though local ISPs are slowly ratcheting up their data offerings. But Flip, which launched a few weeks back as part of the Callplus/Slingshot network, is playing down at the other end of the spectrum, targeting students and casual users with a small 5GB and home line plan for under $50 a month. And it’s ventured to Eastern Europe in an effort to show Kiwis they’re paying too much.

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