To raise awareness of Good Books’ benevolent raison d’être, which is purely to raise money for Oxfam, String Theory teamed up with Buck to create the first of three videos in a digital campaign called Good Books Great Writers. It’s a stunning homage to the High Priest of Gonzo – Hunter S. Thompson, and deserves plaudits for its incredible script and spectacular imagery.
As Tequila\’s creative director Ross Howard wrote in a past issue of NZ Marketing, there’s a fine line between creative theft and creative inspiration. And a recent release from Kimberley-Clark’s Huggies brand about a campaign offering new parents personalised OHBaby! magazines got us wondering about the rather thorny issue of creative IP.
One of the perennial bug-bears of the marketing industry is the fact that it’s often seen by the bean counters as a cost to be cut in times of economic hardship, rather than an investment that will pay off when things pick up. And, according to the research of a top marketing professor who’ll be speaking in Hamilton on Friday March 30 as part of the Excellence in Practice seminar series offered by Corporate and Executive Education at Waikato Management School, billions of dollars of shareholder value are destroyed each year by companies that tie their marketing budgets to the business cycle.
In November Saatchi & Saatchi, the Breast Cancer Research Trust (BCRT) and Prodigy films met Natalie Murphy, 20 months after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was laid to rest in late December, one of the two New Zealand women who lose their battle against breast cancer every day, but in that time they created a very powerful—and very beautiful—film that tells her story and the story of the scientists working to find a cure by 2018. So watch the clip, check out the Facebook page, share it around and donate some cash to help them reach that goal.
Back in 2008, swarthy old seadogs Roger Holmes and Jamie Duff ditched their fancy London day jobs and returned to New Zealand to launch Stolen rum. Since then, the sugary nectar has won a few awards, added names like Peter Gordon, Nick Worthingon, Brent Smart and James Hurman to the investor list and, through a combination of savvy PR and branding and a good product, is now stocked in a number of classy bars, swanky restaurants and luxury lodges. And, to launch a new rum variety called SX9 that’s aimed squarely at the hospitality industry, it’s taken a leaf out of the 42 Below book with a potentially controversial campaign enlisting the services of local mules to help smuggle its illegal contraband into Australia.
M&C Saatchi and the New Zealand Fire Service have launched a new multi-media campaign ‘Could you live with yourself?’ to promote the installation of smoke alarms. Currently over 90 percent of fire fatalities the New Zealand Fire Service attends do not have working smoke alarms.
On Wednesday CAANZ Marcomms Leadership Group (MLG) is hosting a special event, Re-Imagining PR. It’s PR, ‘but not as you imagine, or know it’–because with social media constantly evolving, PR business models are also having to. Lynne Anne Davis, managing director Fleishman Hillard Asia Pacific, is one of the speakers at the forum, and she answers a quick Q&A for those of you who can’t wait for Wednesday’s gig.
PHDIQ wins Yahoo! New Zealand Digital Strategy Award, and in doing so, finally knocks Draft FCB off its winning streak.
From 1 April 2012 APN Online’s adhub will solely represent Interest.co.nz – NZ’s premium source of financial information. The website is one of New Zealand’s biggest online publishing successes, with many of its video presenters and journalists, like the esteemed Bernard Hickey, now key commentators on everything financial, from mortgage rates to personal finance. The site has a solid stable of advertisers and an ever-increasing, loyal fan-base. Interest.co.nz has been represented by the Trade Me advertising team since 1 May 2009.
News surfaced this week that Sky and TVNZ had a date with the Commerce Commission after a complaint was laid about their joint venture Igloo and whether it met merger obligations under Section 47 of the Commerce Act. So if the decision goes against it, will it put the kybosh on the new mid-play TV network?
The NZTA, Clemenger BBDO and OMD’s short, sharp mass media blitz to educate all Kiwi road users about two changes to the country’s give way rules that kick in on March 25 at 5am probably won’t win any Gold Axis awards. But the $1.2 million campaign could certainly help save a few insurance claims and/or hospital stays.
Unlimited hunts for a new helmsman, MediaWorks plays some more news and current affairs swapsies with TVNZ, Rodney Hide sharpens his pen for the NBR, Grownups.co.nz finds some independence, EMC names new marketing director, Village PR adds to the flock, and Hamilton company Torpedo7 hops into bed with an Aussie suitor.
For a time, it seemed as though men—and quite a few ladies—couldn’t get enough of FHM’s tall-tales, humour and glamour shots of well-endowed models. But ACP has made the decision to close the magazine after it lost almost half of its circulation in the last six months of 2011 in Australia. And, as of May, it will also be taken out of the market in New Zealand.
After BNZ’s parent bank NAB recently shoulder-tapped Clemenger Group and asked Colenso BBDO to hop into bed with BNZ, Westpac was pushed out onto the floor and swiftly put its account up for pitch. At present, the Clemenger-owned .99, which recently had to show around 15 staff the door after the loss of Air New Zealand and Vodafone to DraftFCB, is Westpac’s retail agency but this new regional alignment and other agency changes for BNZ means it might be pretty tough to keep it that way.
Publicis Mojo’s executive creative director woes have continued, with Mike Barnwell resigning after 15 months in the job to return to his South African homeland and take up a role as the executive creative director at DraftFCB Cape Town.
Behind every great campaign there’s usually a very clever client. One of the most remarkable ads of recent years was Cadbury ‘Gorilla’ by Fallon London. With no dialogue, no product shot and minimal branding, it was a brave call for the FMCG giant, but it was credited with rekindling love for the brand and driving a five percent sales rise. We wondered how the idea came about, and how it lived to make it to air. So we tracked down the man behind the campaign, Phil Rumbol, former marketing director of Cadbury UK, and now founding partner of creative agency 101 London.
Hell Pizza is well-accustomed to gaining media attention with its controversial marketing stunts. But it has taken that to a whole new level with its Pizza Roulette promotion, which has been featured in the New York Times, TIME, Huffington Post and Reddit and also formed the basis of a story about sado-masochistic trends like the cinnamon challenge on CNN. We’ve got ten Pizza Roulette vouchers to give away to anyone foolish/brave enough to give it a go, so email [email protected] if you’re game and we’ll let our robot of randomness decide who gets them. The only prerequisite is that you have to agree to film the process.
The Dulux colours of New Zealand promotion, which asked Kiwis to send in pics of their region with the promise they might end up on TV, was pretty classy. And Clemenger BBDO and The Sweet Shop have maintained that momentum with a new ad for its Weathershield range that blurs the lines between the real and the fantastic with a combination of handcrafted and computer animation.
The results of a survey into value perceptions of some of New Zealand’s leading brands were released yesterday at Westfield’s Retail Breakfast Seminar in Auckland. And Pak ‘N’ Save was deemed to be the best value brand in the country, followed by TradeMe, Bunnings and Mitre 10.
After launching in January, giving away a new car to one person who signed up and doing a fair bit of promotion through MediaWorks’ channels, over 43,000 smartphone users have downloaded the Pluk app, which claims to offer an added level of interaction between brands and consumers and was developed by local company Foxtrot Media. And, after the first Pluk-enabled TV commercials went live this week, Foxtrot’s managing director Boyd Wason is fairly chuffed with the initial results—and so, he says, are the first clients Holden, InsureMe, Subway and Roadshow.
Success is fairly subjective in adland. Depending on who you’re talking to, it can be about the cash earned, growth rates achieved, accounts gained or creative plaudits won. And while DDB Group hasn’t quite had the run of things when it comes to awards of late, its “exceptional” business performance over the past year was enough to win it the 2012 Fairfax AdMedia Supreme Agency of the Year last night at the Imperial Lane Bar & Restaurant, adding to the agency of the year titles it has recently been awarded by the NBR, Campaign Brief and Campaign Asia Pacific. DraftFCB was a close runner-up, justONE won specialist agency of the year and OMD took the media title.
The Ad Contrarian is Bob Hoffman, chief executive of Hoffman/Lewis advertising in San Francisco and St. Louis. He also writes one of the world’s funniest (and painfully truthful) blogs on advertising and marketing. Bob is former chief executive of Mojo USA and ex-president and creative director of Allen & Dorward. And in a former life he was a middle school science teacher. It’s with this objective point of view that he has burst many a hype bubble. His honesty and straight-forwardness is refreshing in a world of marketing mumbo jumbo. So if you like what Bob has to say, you’ll enjoy his books, The Ad Contrarian and 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising.
February was the last month of the ORCA year and two very different ads came out on top. BCG2’s Chris Long and freelancer Martin Brown took the win with the euphemism-heavy ‘Ridiculously Refined’ ad for Jesters Pies. While at the other end of the spectrum, Sarah Litwin-Schmid and Emily Drake from Saatchi & Saatchi took the Merit for their powerful ‘Jane’ ad for Women’s Refuge.
Nielsen’s managing director of media Stuart Jamieson is set to depart after around ten years in the hotseat to take up a role running the Nielsen business in the Philippines based in Manila. Rob Clark, who was appointed managing director, consumer group in August 2009, is set to take over the new position of country head, but a replacement as MD of media has yet to be announced.
National Australia Bank’s (NAB’s) ‘break-up’ campaign was so good it ended up as the lead story on the news, and generated countless free publicity before going on to win last year’s Grande Prix at Cannes Lions. With digital technology evolving faster than you can say business model or best practice, it’s now even more important to stay up to date with PR. To this end, CAANZ Marcomms Leadership Group (MLG) is hosting a special event on 21 March: Re-Imagining PR. The brains behind the ‘break-up’ campaign, NAB’s Kevin Ramsdale and Clemenger BBDO’s Tim McColl Jones, will be sharing their creative nous at the forum, but here’s a few morsels of their method to whet your appetite.
Back in the day, my mother occasionally used to make lamingtons. One of her favourite party tricks was to cut a square piece of mattress foam, cover it with chocolate icing, coconut and cream, put it on the plate along with all the actual lamingtons and then laugh maniacally when some unlucky sod bit into the trick treat. So a wave of nostalgia surged through me when I noticed this pizza roulette campaign for Hell Pizza by Barnes, Catmur & Friends that aims to tap into the sado-masochistic pizza-eating market.
Who’s it for: Cody’s by Barnes, Catmur & Friends and Curious
Why we like it: You can take the boys out of Roto-Vegas, but it seems you can’t take the Roto-Vegas out of the boys. More nice work from BC&F for Independent Liquor and typically …
Fairtrade schemes typically aim to help end child labour, address child poverty and give producers in developing nations a fair shot at a good life. All Good Bananas has been doing just that by helping kids in the El Guabo cooperative in Ecuador, but it decided it was time to try and help out some of the local young’uns in need by giving away 5,000 bunches (25,000) bananas this year.
Local ad network Adhub is claiming first place in a couple of eyeball races, with new sites Gloss, Beauty Bible, GardenNZ, FashionNZ, My Netball, The A List and View New Zealand soon to be added to its existing list of online properties like FLICKS.co.nz, Realestate.co.nz, allblacks.com, BBC.com, Lonely Planet and E!Online. The new sites come online on April 1 and, according to Adhub’s managing director Josh Borthwick, create the largest household shopper (1,486,335 monthly UBs) and entertainment/lifestyle (618,570 monthly UB’s) channels in New Zealand.
NZ Post certainly doesn’t like the trend towards receiving bills electronically, but it makes a lot of sense in these digital, environmentally conscious times. And RAPP Tribal and Telecom tried to bump up their numbers by dangling a philanthropic carrot with the Bills to Storybooks campaign, what they’re calling ‘the country’s first ever storybook written by New Zealanders for New Zealanders’.