A handful of Kiwi agencies have made it into the finals of the APMA Star Awards, celebrating the year’s finest promotional and experiential marketing across Australasia.
Apollo Marketing NZ, Loyalty NZ and Below the Line (the only indie Kiwi agency) are among the 31 finalists shortlisted from a pool …
Earlier this month, prime minister John Key recently came out and said he’s not against gay marriage, following on from US president Barack Obama announcing his support for it. And last week the local marriage equality movement forged ahead with a punchy new campaign, known simply as WTF?
The …
Quickflix is hoping to make some big impacts in the New Zealand market as the country’s first TV and movie streaming service and, to help it along, its just launched its Quickflix App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The App allows Quickflix WatchNow subscribers to view unlimited blockbuster movies and television shows instantly, on-demand, from their devices and also provides entertainment for non-subscribers, including access to all the latest movie trailers, as well as free Hollywood entertainment.
To celebrate the launch, Quickflix is giving you the chance to win a year’s subscription to its service (worth $203.88). To win, we want to know which TV show and movie you’d stream to your hearts content, and why. And, because everyone likes to win something, every entry receives a free month’s subscription to Quickflix.
Clemenger BBDO Wellington’s major social marketing coup, Nick Ward jumps in the pond, Clemenger BBDO’s “long search” comes to an end, design agency Insight eyes up Australian opportunity, new agency The Creative Store, Facilitate Digital takes a creative lead, and Datamine mines more talent.
In front of an almost capacity Langham conference centre young MC Oliver Driver had to shout to get attention. That’s becasue the 800-odd media and agency flunkies were riotessly celebrating their efforts last night at the CAANZ Media Awards.
And the big winner? Well it was linked to the halting of interest and inflation rates last year, it forced the electricity industry to drop its pants and it has already won a host of the country’s big awards. And DraftFCB continued its golden run by following up from the last two year’s efforts and taking the Best in Show title for its work on Electricity Authority’s What’s My Number? campaign.
The StopPress scanner is smeared with greasy fingerprints, but it’s not because we’re submitting files to Scanwiches or Cat Scans. It’s because we’re hitting go on the May round of The Glossies. But we need your vote. So get in there and choose your favourite.
Mitch Olson is founder of game design studio, Gamedojo, which, in partnership with NZ Marketing and our sister title Idealog, is hosting the Gamification Lab in Auckland next month. He is also co-founder of the hugely successful social game world SmallWorlds and knows how to go beyond buzzwords and hype to create a business case for gamification for your brand.
The {insert thing here} is dead theme is a very common one in an industry that’s enamoured with the new. Newspapers are dead, magazines are dead, TV is dead, retail is dead, radio is dead, full-service agencies are dead .. and the list goes on. Typically, these rather evangelical assertions come from those with a barrow to push, not from those who are part of the ‘establishment’. So we were surprised to read a story about Saatchi & Saatchi’s global chief executive Kevin Roberts claiming marketing is dead, strategy is dead, management is dead and big ideas are dead in a presentation he gave at The IoD’s Annual Convention.
IdeaWorks closed its New Zealand doors in 2009 and said goodbye to eight staff and all of its clients, including the big Warehouse Stationery account. But it was officially reborn in March this year with Y&R Group as the new owner. And after a solid campaign to launch the new FCO retail brand in New Zealand, it has also been appointed as creative agency for Beds R Us after a three way pitch.
For many years, Brother has focused on promoting printers, copiers, sewing machines, labellers and other products from its “home and business IT peripherals” range, usually with a host of low-budget TV ads and that well-known tune at the end, ‘Brutttthhhher’. But it’s attempting to come out of the shadows in New Zealand—and, at the same time, showcase the Japanese company’s technological prowess—by signing up as naming rights sponsor of the Brother Rally New Zealand and the Brother International Rally of Whangarei.
The MA’s Digital Day Out Event last week was an opportunity to see how advertisers and consumers are interacting via social networking sites, the internet, TV, mobile devices, tablets and instore digital signage. And what may be involved in the future if those relationships hope to be strengthened.
Many have been anxiously awaiting the announcement, and it has cometh: digital streaming service Spotify is officially available in New Zealand and Australia, opening up its catalogue of more than 16 million tracks and bringing Spotify’s availability to a grand total of 15 countries. So what’s the deal? And why are brands like Coca-Cola getting involved?
The last time Nike and Wieden + Kennedy got together for a massive advertising push was for the Football World Cup and most would agree the end result, ‘Write the Future’, was one of the best sporting commercials of all time. But it’s taken things up a notch for the launch of the 2012 European Championship with the brilliant and multi-layered My Time is Now.
Entries for the 2012 TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards officially closed on Friday. But if you still haven’t got your entry in for whatever reason (laziness, inebriation, unreliable minions etc), all is not lost. You can extend the deadline until this Friday by applying for an extension here and forking over $50.
Who’s it for: Rexona by Naked and Curious.
Why we like it: Depending on your viewpoint, the last Rexona spot that aired around the Rugby World Cup was either overwrought and overly earnest or powerful and beautifully shot. The follow up is fairly earnest as well …
As the biggest lender to the rural sector, the National Bank knows more about how our agrarian warriors tick than most. And while this ad is an oldie that was made by DraftFCB and Robber’s Dog around the same time as the National Bank ‘For the Places you’ll Go’ campaign (we obviously we don’t watch enough Country Calendar and hadn’t seen it before), we reckon it’s a goodie.
NZTA, Clemenger BBDO and The Sweet Shop’s Legend campaign became something of a pop cultural phenomenon when it was released last year, with a couple of lines quickly becoming part of the Kiwi vernacular, t-shirts bearing images of Ghost Chips being worn around the country, and hundreds of parodies, spoof ads and TradeMe auctions referencing the original. And while all those involved in its creation are still smarting a little after the most talked about ad of 2011 went home without any gold at the AXIS awards, it appears there is some justice in the world, because it quite rightly received 11 percent of the vote to win the StopPress/ThinkTV TVC of the Year.
MSN NZ announced a few big changes to its business last year, including the launch of real-time bidding (RTB) system Microsoft Advertising Exchange, something akin to a media stockmarket that allowed advertisers and publishers to buy and sell digital inventory. And the bet seems to have paid off, with MSN reporting significant local uptake of the system and a big recent increase in revenue.
One year after choosing to get rid of one of the world’s biggest brands and replace it with an “entirely Kiwi” identity, Z Energy says its commitment to the Shell-less strategy is already paying dividends and offering it a competitive advantage. And the new brand is tracking very well with New Zealanders.
North & South’s My Space hit TVNZ Heartland’s screens last month. And now ACP and TVNZ have announced another broadcast/print media hybrid with a slightly longer name: Entertaining in Style with The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Mark Richardson and Shannon Ryan get themselves on The Block, Haystac reaches double figures, ACP’s Kia Ora is voted world’s third best inflight mag, Frucor quenches its thirst with Gatorade, The Sweet Shop adds Wellingtonian animation director done good to its stable, and TVNZ teams up with Xpo for the upcoming MyBiz expo.
The Westpac rescue helicopters have saved thousands of lives in New Zealand. But saving those lives doesn’t come cheap (in fact, it costs around $4 million a year to fund a three-crew 24/7 immediate-response team). And despite the ongoing support of principal sponsor Westpac and other partners, the assistance of the public is also crucial to help keep them flying, so this year’s fundraising campaign by .99 aims to remind Kiwis that every donation is valuable regardless of its size, just like the equipment inside each helicopter.
It really is quite amazing how much technology is being packed into our pockets at the moment. And Massey University and Assignment Group’s Wellington office have shown just how far things have come—and how ‘the engine of the new New Zealand’ is changing the lives of people here and around the world—by getting the University’s vice-chancellor Steve Maharey to film its new 30-second commercial on an iPhone, something the Commercial Approvals Bureau has confirmed is a New Zealand first.
A rapidly changing media landscape means it’s not the happiest of financial times for many in the newspaper and magazine publishing sector at the moment, but those issues were briefly forgotten on Friday night as the industry gathered in Auckland to reward the best in the business at the Canon Media Awards. And it was APN, which has recently enlisted the help of Deutsche Bank to conduct an asset review, that again popped the most corks on the night and followed on from its ‘grand slam’ last year by taking out the vast majority of the big awards.
52 awards acknowledging on-air personalities, programming, news and sports reporting, promotions, creativity and production, sales and community involvement were handed out via webcast last week at the 2012 New Zealand Radio Awards, and MediaWorks Radio is claiming victory after nabbing 21 of them, with More FM taking all three station of the year accolades.
The second Engaged Web in New Zealand Report, which saw Intergen assess the five most visited New Zealand websites from ten different sectors to measure their level of customer engagement, has just been released, with the highlights being that 90 percent of websites increased their level of engagement since last year, companies are focusing less on the primary corporate websites, New Zealand’s news and media websites are the most engaging and the shopping and classifieds, and banking and finance sectors have made the biggest improvement.
According to a study commissioned by San Francisco-based advertising agency Heat, advertising and marketing types are pretty unique in their use of social media. Perhaps unsurprisingly, ad types are three times more likely to pay attention to brands on Facebook and Twitter. But—more interestingly—they’re also much more likely to do drugs (26 percent vs three percent of the general public), throw up from excessive drinking (37 percent vs nine percent) and hook up with a colleague (26 percent vs eight percent).
After launching earlier this year, Ogilvy’s shopper marketing division OgilvyAction picked up the NZ Pork account and released a campaign starring Simon Gault. And it has put another sticker on the wall after winning the Griffin’s Foods below-the-line account in a three way competitive pitch thought to have involved Energi and the incumbent Apollo.
Total online advertising spend in New Zealand for Q1 2012 totalled $79 million, up $11 million year-on year. But that figure is down almost $10 million on Q3 2011. And over on TV, total television advertising revenue for the March quarter rose four percent to $125 million, up $4 million on the first quarter of 2011.
Hell’s Pizza Roulette product innovation received a huge amount of national and international PR coverage when it was launched and led to a massive increase in sales, without discounting. And Barnes, Catmur & Friends’ ad to promote it has added to the accolades by winning the April round of Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award.