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.

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.

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.”

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.

Genesis Energy has put out an RFP for advertising and media buying services and, given Nielsen AIS figures show it’s the biggest spender in the electricity sector, with ratecard spend of $4.4 million in the past 12 months, there will presumably be plenty of interest from the major players.

Jack Daniel’s recently launched its new Tennessee Honey variety and gave bar-goers the opportunity to stick their hand in a ‘hive’ to celebrate (and it was also recently applauded for sending a more human cease and desist letter). We’ve got a couple of bottles of the new elixir to give away, so tell us a moderately entertaining story involving bees and you might get the goods.

When Special Group took the Gravity Coffee business off Shine last year, the first problem it set out to solve was the packaging. And with that taken care of, as well as a new website courtesy of Fracture, it’s ramped things up a bit with an ambitious intern ambush.

We’ve already written a fair bit about the strangely unusual approach of DraftFCB, that rare breed of advertising agency that actually advertises. And the agency behind APN’s campaign to launch the new compact Herald took an opportunity to put itself out there once again with another good full-page print ad in the ‘collector’s edition’ yesterday. And, not one to miss an opportunity for a few laffs, Pak’n’Save’s spokestick Stickman also got involved with the relaunch and featured in three contextual ads, which were also created by DraftFCB.