As everyone knows, Telecom’s Abstain campaign died a horrible death before it was even born and it was a regular inclusion in the ‘least favourite’ campaign category in our Year in Reviews. Vaughn Davis managed to pin down the former head of marketing Kieren Cooney for a chat about the campaign, the thinking behind it and its unfortunate leakage for Idealog before he headed off to Australia and we’re pretty sure you markety types will be interested in what he had to say. So put your finger on this. 

With the huge—some might say completely OTT—number of courses available in New Zealand, education is a very competitive sector. And, as is usually the case over summer, a range of academic institutions are currently ramping up their marketing activity in an effort to get more students to sign up. The last phase of Unitec’s year-long docu-ad series went live recently, AUT is pushing its interesting new campaign, and many smaller, more specialised schools are also advertising. But two new ads caught our attention this week: one featuring the inspiring ‘and not but’ message for the Open Polytechnic, which was created by Ogilvy Wellington and follows up from the very successful ‘Open World’ campaign, and the other a nice animated spot for the Manukau Institute of Technology, which was created by BCG2 and Cirkus. 

An interesting bit of biz news in from the States today, which has some relevance for this end of town. Namely that this year in the States, for the very first time, internet ad spending is set to eclipse total spending on all print media. But this has been long predicted. What is surprising is the e-marketer.com chart showing that online ad spending is set to overtake TV in the States by 2016.

Fourteen months after launching its mobile application, GrabOne’s mobile sales are at an all time high. Twelve percent of all GrabOne purchases over the Christmas period were via the GrabOne mobile application, up from 5.45 percent in November 2011 and 1.5 percent over Christmas 2010.

Every year, tickets to one of the best events on New Zealand’s sporting calendar, the Wellington Sevens, sell out in minutes. The 2012 edition, which now has Hertz as naming rights sponsor, has already sold out, but never fear, because our cauliflower-eared friends at NZ Rugby World have got a couple of tickets to give away. All you need to do is send a message from your brain to your fingers, click here and fill in a few details. Then, if you win, you just have to come up with an amazing costume idea like this.

Early in 2010, Pernod Ricard’s Montana wines were given a bit of a design refresh, with Dow Design embracing the Marlborough mountains for the brand’s global push. It then rebranded the products sold overseas to Brancott Estate, apparently because of confusion that the wine was from the state of Montana and Marlborough was deemed to be too close to cigarette brand Marlboro. And now, after a big year of RWC sponsorship and above-the-line activity (including this TVC as part of the ‘Stay Curious’ campaign), it’s just had another label spruce up, with new packaging launched across the entire Brancott Estate range.

New Zealanders could soon have a new way to proclaim their Kiwiness online, regardless of where they are, as Dot Kiwi Limited enters into the application process for the .kiwi domain.

Tip Top launched its new range of Ice Bar Co. ice blocks last year and, slightly unusually, aimed them directly at the grown-ups. Typically, ice blocks were something for the kids to get all over their faces, and their popularity with this demographic meant such treats were always in jeopardy if the stash happened to be discovered in the freezer. But thankfully, Colenso BBDO has come up with an ingenious product that aims to keep the goods safe from the greedy little thieving parasites (or from curious flatmates): a frozen pea packet camouflage system that uses the threat of vegetables and phrases like ‘now extra bland’ and ‘eight fewer flavours than ever before’ to put mischievous kids off the scent. Get yours for free here. 

The final episodes of Unitec’s reality-doco campaign show just how much three students can change in one year. The last installments in Unitec Institute of Technology’s ad campaign which has been following three real life students for the past 12 months go to air nationwide from tonight.