This year might not have seen the biggest awards haul by Kiwis at the Cannes Lions, but rather than wallow, we figure why not celebrate those in the industry that did it best, particularly in the Press Lions category. And so, without further ado, here’s some creative inspiration by way of the Grand Prix and Gold winners.

The Australasian Promotional Marketing Association’s Star awards aim to acknowledge and reward outstanding strategic prowess and creativity in the field of experiential and promotional marketing. And the New Zealand branch of Apollo was the only local agency to take anything home at the 2011 edition last week, winning a gold, two silvers and a bronze.

Ahhh, the meat tube. Such flavour, such convenience and, in most cases, such dubious content. Kiwis who dislike mystery meat in their bangers will be pleased to know Freedom Farms, “the only company to only farm pigs the ‘kind’ way”, has just launched a range of pork snarlers made from ‘Happy Pigs’. We’ve got four $10 Freedom Farm vouchers to give away and all you have to do is come up with a name for a new variety of sausage (eg Campylonossi, The Melanie Kransky or Hawk and Sage). Extra points for telling us what your creation would include.  

Sometimes the planets align. On the same day the July/August edition of NZ Marketing magazine hits the shelves with a cover story about Charlie’s chief executive and co-founder Stefan Lepionka comes news that Japanese beverage giant Asahi has offered to take the company off his hands for $130 million. You can read all about the deal on the new Idealog website here and, if you want to find out how the business got to where it is now through a combination of savvy ‘gut-feel’ marketing, astute brand-building and good old-fashioned honesty, you can subscribe to NZ Marketing here. 

Local brand and marketing company Tuskany Agency last week unveiled its new vision and strategy for downtown Tauranga, including a new logo (which at first glance seems reminisce of the Microsoft logo) and the positioning statement: “Locals. Love it!”. But when it comes to the actual logo and slogan itself —as seems to be the inevitable case in almost every brand redesign— not everyone actually loves it.

YouTube and Ridley Scott captured the world in action to great effect recently with Life in a Day. And now Vodafone is taking a similar idea and localising it with Share Everything Day, which aims to find out what New Zealanders are sharing and how they’re using social media. 

In early 2009 MasterCard was announced as the second worldwide partner for the 2011 Rugby World Cup (RWC) and the TVC campaigns flowed shortly after. One of the first, ‘MasterCard Roadshow’, saw the boys in black racing with drinks on trays in one hand and baguettes in another. But the unveiling of the latest round of TVCs—at the hands of agency McCann Sydney and Prodigy—reveals a more emotional and grass roots-orientated campaign, honing in on the memories of those who made history and those who watched it happen. 

Steinlager’s relationship with the All Blacks started the year before the successful 1987 Rugby World Cup. Fittingly, with the next New Zealand instalment just a few months away, 2011 marks 25 years of ‘Unconditional Support’, so to celebrate the milestone Lion is bringing back the classic white can and, with the help of DDB, launching a big new ad campaign. 

Last week BrandWorld’s David MacGregor let his opinions be known about James Hurman’s new book The Case For Creativity. Now it’s ex-Colenso bod and adman par excellence Mike Hutcheson’s turn. 

For years, brands have created ads and placed them in appropriate media in the hope that they’d help sell more of their stuff. These days, brands are increasingly creating experiences in the real world that are relevant to the product and involving consumers in those experiences. And The Powerade Challenge, a 9km running course/interactive marketing campaign around Auckland’s waterfront, is a prime example of this shift. 

There’s been plenty of discussion about the daily deal model recently, due mostly to 1-Day’s decision to can its 1-Day Out offering because it believed the model was unsustainable. GrabOne’s founder and chief executive Shane Bradley certainly thought otherwise and, one year after launching its popular experience-based site, it’s ready to take on 1-Day at its own game with a new initiative that aims to put even more crap in people’s cupboards, GrabOne Store.

…Hazel Phillips’ replacement stands up, Bill Francis takes up the Radio Broadcasters Association reins, Jenni McManus swaps business journalism for a comms role, The Listener says goodbye to another deputy editor and The Pond puts some of its freelancers on weekend duty.  

Those generous Handley brothers, who sold their share in the Hyperfactory to Meredith Corp last year, launched a scholarship to help improve New Zealand’s marketing smarts by sending them off on a jaunt in the US and giving them access to marketers working for some of the world’s biggest companies, such a L’Oréal, Kraft, Nestlé and AB InBev, as well as a few cutting-edge start-ups. And they’ve chosen their finalists, as well as the panel of six big-brained judges to decide on the winner.