Music is a powerful force in advertising. Jingles are thought to be the leading cause of ‘song rash’ among New Zealanders, choosing the right backing track can sometimes mean the difference between ‘meh’ and magnificent , and, due to the creative proclivities of those working in this industry, many of those who inhabit it are annoyingly talented musicians. And the advertising event that many jokingly (or, in some cases, not-so-jokingly) refer to as the year’s most important is back for 2012. So let the inter-agency banter for the Battle of the Ad Bands commence.

Porirua chocolate maker Whittaker’s has been voted New Zealand’s most trusted brand in the annual Reader’s Digest Most Trusted Survey, moving up three places to top the 2012 list, knocking last year’s number one St John’s from its perch down to number two.

Once the face of a campaign to attract visitors to Australia, Aussie Lara ‘where the bloody hell are you’ Bingle is the latest celebrity to join Air New Zealand’s promotional ranks, staring in the latest installment of its Kiwi Sceptic campaign, where she describes New Zealand as “that thing down there”.

The way traditional telcos work, you’d imagine a mobile phone network with tens of thousands of customers would have a call centre to service the inevitable service issues and enquiries. Not Giffgaff, the UK-based mobile virtual network operator that broke the traditional Telco mould by creating an entirely online service that puts much of the power into the hands of its customers. And fronting the member experience arm of the company is Kiwi lass Claire Kavanagh, who was in town last week for the Marketing Association’s Direct Marketing event. We managed to steal a moment of her time between speakers to have a chat about the unique Giffgaff model and ask whether it could be done in New Zealand.

Logos are a wonderful thing. Executed correctly, they can become an instantly recognisable representation of your brand. But for some brands, the need to evolve the logo is irresistible and, if you look at some of these before and after logos posted by Stock Logos, highly necessary.

Come this Friday, over 8000 athletes from around the world will be seeking medal glory, but they’re not the only ones in the running for top-placed rankings. The Olympic Games, of course, seems to be as much about athletic prowess as it is about getting brand messages across to the masses of captive viewers. And MediaCom Sport, together with Brandwatch, have created a nifty interactive data visualisation tool and Twitter tracker to keep track of how well the 25 Olympic sponsors are faring.

It ain’t easy being a magazine in the digital age. Being a food magazine in what has become a very crowded market in New Zealand is even tougher. ACP’s Taste magazine didn’t fare too well in the most recent circulation and readership results and in a bid to position itself in a unique space against the competition, it has been at the centre of an editorial and design overhaul. The relaunched issue went out to the masses this month but is still very much a work in progress.

Putting a corporate design pitch out the public is nothing new. Toyota’s current logo was the result of a worldwide design competition in 1936, the result of which garnered an impressive 27,000 entries. While it may not be on the hunt for a new logo, Subway New Zealand is putting a call out to the public to design its gift cards with its ‘our cards, your canvas’ competition.

Social media has forever changed the way we connect with each other and while some detractors are averse to sharing snapshots of their lives with the online community, LG and its advertising agency Y&R, are hedging their bets that members of the public will be keen to have their Facebook posts not only publicised, but brought to life by a team of performers and artist Otis Frizzell thanks to a gigantic 26-foot high bricks-and-mortar Facebook wall built in Auckland’s Aotea Square