Eight of New Zealand’s top advertising photographers are revealing a little of themselves to the public. Renowned for their world-class commercial work, this group of internationally awarded photographers is showcasing personal work in an exhibition to launch 1 December. 

Ah the swings and roundabouts of local branding with multinational companies.  Johnson & Jonson Pacific Ltd has been quietly reviewing its New Zealand organisational structure in light of changing business conditions in the local industry, and the entire marketing department is the first casualty.

Editor of The New Zealand Herald for the past ten years Tim Murphy has been promoted to the new position of editor-in-chief of Herald titles.

Collaborations between musicians and artists have brought us some of the most memorable pop culture images of the last 50 years. Think iconic images such as the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen, or The Velvet Underground and Andy Warholʼs famous collaboration. And now Beck’s is looking do the same by revamping a series of limited edition labels with the help of local talent.

For the first time in IBM’s C-suite surveys, chief marketing officers were included in the mix. And the results show many of them feel unprepared to deal with the volume and complexity of information available through social platforms. 

Much like DraftFCB and The National Bank, the industry has been waiting patiently to see what Colenso and Westpac would come up with after the account shifted from Saatchi & Saatchi last year. It’s already created the Impulse Saver app and a home loan spot and, while the new animated ad explaining the financial perils of the modern world that launched last night isn’t being seen as the big reveal, it is the first time the bank’s new tagline ‘help is what we do’ has been seen in the wild. 

Companies are having a creative dig at themselves in their bid to win $250,000 worth of business software and services in Greentree’s Game On competition.

Orcon has appointed M&C Saatchi as its advertising agency. Taryn Hamilton, general manager retail at Orcon, says M&C Saatchi was chosen on the merit of the team’s creative thinking and strong team focus.

The online realm is a rather fluid and exciting space at the moment. Companies large and small are chopping, changing and innovating in the quest to find the most effective model and close the gap between eyeball numbers and ad dollars. And MSN, with its parent company ninemsn, is set to embark on some big changes, with a new corporate umbrella brand called Mi9 that will encompass all of its brands, new ad exchange technology that basically creates a stock-market for online inventory, an increased focus on behaviourial targeting and a renewed effort to bump up online news numbers with a portal overhaul. 

Businesses are wasting time and money trying to reach people online without realising many resent brands invading their social space. This is according to findings from TNS’s Digital Life study, the most comprehensive view of online consumer behaviour available today, surveying more than 72,000 consumers in 60 countries, including over a thousand New Zealanders.

Christmas is fast approaching and The Warehouse, Noel Leemimg, Farmers, Whitcoulls and DTR all jump on the red and green Christmas bandwagon.  Already red, The Labour Party solicits themselves.  Gin Wigmore and Hayley Westenra sing their own praises, and dog whisperer Cesar Milan wants to show us how to be the leader of the pack.

You may have seen the worm on telly last night, when up to 1600 people from all over New Zealand gave their second-by-second reactions to the Leaders’ Debate on TV3 with Roy Morgan’s Mobile Reactor, an app downloadable to smartphones. TV3 compared that worm with the one provided by their studio audience of 65 undecided voters. But can the technology assist in the advertising realm? 

New Zealanders often have to wait for a bit longer than everyone else for the newest iPhone, hit TV shows and, occasionally, the latest blockbuster movie. And, as a new ad for Kia featuring three hip-hop hamsters that’s about to be launched on Kiwi screens attests, the same is occasionally true for commercials. 

Hamilton company Print House has won the rights to introduce technology into New Zealand that allows a video screen to be placed within printed material.

Fastway Couriers is targeting the online retail industry with the nationwide rollout of its simpler, more modern, logo, which replaces a logo that was almost thirty years old.

Stolen Rum has managed to gain a fair bit of attention in its short life through a combination of a good product, good branding and good PR. And it’s set up a cheeky wee competition with the help of its newish agency Pead PR that is judged by well-known columnist Steve Braunias. 

Ad agency Sugar and online DVD rental company Fatso are capitalising on paranoia about new video piracy rules with a clever new campaign. As record companies sent out warnings for people found making illegal downloads, they sent out phony warning letters with the fictitious logo of the New Zealand Copyright Authority and the message “notice of breach”.