Some would argue that when complainers fall into the trap of reacting to a purposefully provocative campaign (ginger lovers, wine snobs, conservative religious types etc), they only help inspire more purposefully provocative campaigns. And a similar rule could be applied to flash mobs, because the more often they’re featured, the more someone, somewhere, might think they’re a good idea. Ah well, too bad. Here’s a clip of over 500 people from the Harvey World Travel conference violating Sky City and dancing to terrible music.

MSN NZ has launched its new corporate umbrella brand Mi9, a joint venture between Microsoft and Nine Entertainment company, in New Zealand. And, at the same time, it has also officially launched the Microsoft Media Network (MMN), which general manager Liz Fraser claims is already the country’s largest advertising network offering behavioural targeting.

Tile Warehouse opened its doors in 1989 with two staff and a forklift. 23 years later the company has over 100 staff, 28 stores around the country and now a shiny new brand courtesy of Publicis Mojo to “celebrate being New Zealand’s market leader”.

If you’re anything like us, you’re wondering how Tom Selleck got involved in shot put coaching, why staying on your bike while waiting for the lights to change isn’t an Olympic sport yet, whether the Sunday Star Times cover was a casualty of coincidence or something more sinister, and what happened to Charlie Brooker to make him think the Olympics are better than they looked on the tin. You might also be wondering how an event like the Olympics develops its visual identity. Luckily, Design Boom has detailed the whole massive process to come up with a cohesive look for the games—and the pretty bloody impressive results.

Ambient Group and the Star Metro Retail Partnership have launched a new media portfolio consisting of fuel pump handles, door media at point of entry to the store, floor media in front of the payment till and fins on beverage fridges through 116 Caltex member sites covering Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and all other major centre and roads networks nationwide.

It’s tough out there in charity land at the moment. There are lots of organisations fighting for funding, consumers are still counting their pennies and in EFTPOS-loving New Zealand the cashless society is a very real thing, which means the traditional street appeal doesn’t work quite as well as it once did. So to get around this and drive donations in the lead up to Daffodil Day on 31 August, the Cancer Society and &some have called on the ubiquity of the mobile phone to help smooth the process.

September is shaping up to be a watershed month for APN NZ—and, more broadly, New Zealand’s newspaper publishing sector. The New Zealand Herald is set to reveal its new compact weekday edition on 10 September and the newly redesigned nzherald.co.nz site will go live around the same time. There’s also a new Newspaper Inserted Magazine (NIM) on Mondays about food, health and well-being and readers will also be treated to a one-off premium glossy magazine on launch day called, appropriately enough, The Magazine. But what exactly is a magazine? Why are NIMs so appealing for newspaper publishers? And why is ACP’s Paul Dykzeul so fired up?

Back in May, Mercury Energy sent its experimental ‘Good Energy Taxi’ onto the streets of Auckland. At the time, Tequila’s main brains Ross Howard said the motorised version of a karma bank was a bit of a double whammee, with the experiential element meaning a range of Kiwis came into contact with the taxi—either in person or via social media—and the footage taken from inside the cab being made into a short documentary that captured some of the Kiwi good sorts. And now you can check that documentary out.

Wildfire, a social media marketing company started by Kiwi Victoria Ransom, has been bought by Google for a reported US$250 million.