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

Vodafone may be seeking to acquire a new branch of business with Telstra Clear, but DraftFCB’s latest TVCs for the Telco revisits BestMate, an old product favourite that, although popular, hasn’t received much promotional love as of late.

It’s no secret that the traditional postal mail business model is in decline. And while New Zealand Post’s ability to adapt to change can be exemplified by its 170-year existence, the digital age is certainly proving to be the toughest nut to crack yet. But rather than fight the digital, it’s working with it to create viable business extensions and at today’s Direct Marketing event at Eden Park, a rather chuffed head of digital solutions at New Zealand Post, Simone Iles, offered the first glimpse into its new free digital service, YouPost, designed to make life that much easier to manage.

Wellington startup Showcase Software has launched its Showcase app, a business tool for marketers and sales teams that enables them to create a business app without the need for an app developer. And with Z Energy and Hyundai New Zealand already on board, the company’s eyes are now firmly set on the millions of business users of iPads and Android tablets around the world, with discussions already taking place with Nike and Apple.

Of all the sabbaticals you could embark on, flying halfway round the world to New Zealand to work on crafting a new beer range surely has to be one of the most desirable. And that’s the precise task assigned to US brewmaster Brian “Spike” Buckowski thanks to a campaign run by Barnes, Catmur & Friends for Boundary Road Brewery. Utilising brewing sites around the world, the agency put the call out for a genius brewer, with a skill set that sits somewhere between genius and God-like, to “come down and do his stuff”.

The latest issue of North & South features an in-depth cover story on the Ewen Macdonald case that was one year in the writing. And, as often happens when a big story hits the public domain, it was picked up by the major papers, which led to a bit of an online barney between ACP and editor in chief of the Herald’s products Tim Murphy.

Following on from its slick rebrand of Paper Plus last year, Hyde Group, with the help of writer Vaughn Davis and designer Graham Murray, has launched the chain’s new online office stationery offering paperplusoffice.co.nz with a series of billboards that aim to capture the attention of traffic in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

On average 115,000 Kiwis use Skype daily, and MSN New Zealand has added the site to its local advertising network, boosting MSN’s audience reach to over 2.3 million New Zealand internet users.

Babyboomers are often portrayed as greedy, BMW-driving, house-hogging, tax avoiding luddites. But they also use the internet, have Facebook pages and watch YouTube. So why should they miss out on all the viral marketing fun? As no one was really catering to them specifically in this area, Publicis Mojo Auckland, Goodman Fielder Australia’s Lawson’s bread and The Down Low Concept have tried to fill the gap with a light-hearted look at that particular life-stage, with self-help tips delivered by one of the statesmen of Australian comedy Trevor Marmalade.