It’s been an unusually exciting few months in the world of magazine distribution, and the 2011 tit-for-tat has continued apace, after Netlink re-signed its agreement with Tangible Media, New Zealand’s largest independent magazine publisher.
The newly refreshed New Zealand Innovators Awards launches today and, in addition to the awe and jealousy you will inspire in your colleagues and competitors if you win, clever and inventive types will also have the chance to win a diamond encrusted, platinum-plated, gold-infused oversized paperclip.
It’s obviously a day to celebrate the peddling of sugary beverages. Colenso’s latest V campaign for Frucor just took out the May edition of Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award and, to welcome three new flavours of Mountain Dew to the Frucor stable, the agency also just launched what its managing director Nick Garrett believes is the best thing they’ve done in years: skate pinball.
With the monster truck, rocket man and ladders campaigns, Colenso BBDO’s marketing initiatives for V have gained a well-deserved reputation as attention-grabbers and conversation starters. And its latest push, which features a large paintball truck splattering humpty dumpty on a wall, has done it again, tickling consumers pink in May’s Colmar Brunton Ad Impact Awards.
…as a ‘hostage drama’ unfolds between DDB and Colenso, Waxeye gets Carter, Aegis names its regional big cheese, King St advertising’s Chris Williams gets some media traction with his Rugby World Cup song, Wellington’s soon-to-open Le Cordon Bleu school finds its main man and Donovan Boyd adds an account manager.
When news of Osama bin Laden’s demise was beamed around the world, it didn’t take long for Hell Pizza to capitalise on the news in its typical controversial style, unveiling its ‘Come in, Osama, we’ve been expecting you’ ad. And the creative culprits behind the ad, Barnes, Catmur & Friends, have been rewarded for their efforts by taking out NAB’s May Newspaper Ad of the Month award.
There were 730 media folk in their gladrags, a couple of unfortunate but highly comical stage mishaps, some well-received self-deprecating humour from Martin Devlin, some cheeky on-stage planking hijinks and a large sumo wrestler dishing out gongs—quite literally—at the CAANZ Media Awards last night at the Langham in Auckland. And it was DraftFCB Media and OMD that left with the biggest smiles.
North Shore-based printer Benefitz has sold its significant interest in publishing business Mediaweb to major shareholder Toni Myers after managing director Aidan Bennett decided it was time to move away from offset printing and focus on some of the other, more exciting aspects of the business.
Bureaucrats have been suffering in their jocks for the past couple of days after the Government announced plans to cut $1 billion off the public services bill. And one of the suggestions is for the Advertising Standards Authority to be folded in with the Press Council, the Broadcasting Standards Authority and the Office of Film and Literature Classification.
Design agency Designworks looks to be going from strength to strength. Its Skycouch for Air New Zealand has picked up a finalist nomination at the Australian International Design Awards and, in line with Australian-orientated news, the agency has just announced it will open its first Australian office. With offices already in Auckland and Wellington, the agency last year also expanded to set up shop in Christchurch.
Last year New Plymouth-based manufacturer Howard Wright’s M8 Intensive Care bed took out the top nod at the Australian International Design Awards, and with the finalist list for the 2011 awards recently revealed, Kiwi products have once again made the prestigious design cut.
Facebook seems to have stumbled upon the perfect mix of narcissism and voyeurism. But in an effort to promote its new Core i5 processor, Intel has taken that to new, very impressive extremes with one of the coolest online branding efforts we’ve ever seen: The Museum of Me.
In just five-and-a-half years, Facebook has morphed from a network of four or five million college students in the US into a massive social network of over 500 million. It’s also gone from banner ads and text links to an advertising medium that’s completely transformed the way brands talk to their customers. Now Facebook has taken another big step in its social marketing journey with the launch of Facebook Check-in Deals in New Zealand, a geo-location innovation that allows users to look for relevant offers and discounts on the fly—and tell their friends about it in the process.
Apparently, if you read those preachy books by internet evangelists, the crowd has great wisdom. If you’ve ever met anyone from ‘the crowd’, you’ll know that’s highly debatable, but there’s no doubt they like having their say these days. And, in the latest incarnation of the burgeoning trend to get consumers to help decide on the product that actually ends up on the shelves, Barnes, Catmur & Friends and the Boundary Road Brewery, a division of Independent Liquor, have set out to find 999 Kiwi beer tasters.
Who’s it for: Foundation of Youth Development by Ogilvy, Robber’s Dog and the kids from FYD
Why we like it: It stands up on its own as a great TV ad, but it also has a cool backstory, because the kids who feature in it are …
Yellow has just pinned its new digital, hyperlocal colours to the mast with the launch of Yellow Local. As has been the case for around three years, Colenso was responsible for coming up with the creative and wooing the users, while Rapp/Tribal, which has been working with Yellow for almost two years, took care of the direct and digital grunt work. But there’s been a new, albeit rather small development in Yellow’s advertising mix, after DDB was handed some project work.
Melanie Palmer
The comms response to the outbreak of bacterial vine disease Psa in New Zealand kiwifruit has won Melanie Palmer from ZESPRI International Limited and Andrea Brady from Catalyst Communication Consulting Limited the supreme award at the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand’s PRINZ Awards.
After a fairly long period of relative austerity when it comes to the outdoor sector’s trade marketing efforts, it seems things are starting to brighten up, with the Adshel Rally making a welcome return a few weeks back and APN Outdoor ready to celebrate the first birthday of its ‘Friends in High Places’ series by hosting the after party of the CAANZ Media Awards.
In our debut Colmar Brunton nzgirl Tracker, we uncovered some noteworthy social media statistics. While we’re all aware of high usage of Facebook (our results show 70 percent of respondents check/update Facebook daily or more), we were surprised by the sheer size of the networks: 65 percent had between 100-400 friends and the average number was 300.
…as Jim Tully and Peter Bush take their place among New Zealand’s media greats; Freeman’s Bay indie Republik opens an Australian office; the Saatchi & Saatchi regional HQ shifts to Singapore from Sydney as Chris Foster takes on a big new Asia Pacific role; Fairfax looks for some creative, integrated inspiration in its new Auckland offices; and Method Studios is acknowledged for its digital work at the New York Communicator awards.
Ah, Ads@6. Welcome back. We’ve missed you. In this edition, unlike ANZ, Westpac thinks life can be perfect; Mitsubishi lets one rip; State continues the stop-motion approach and offers car protection instead of car replacement; Specsavers attempts to save the short sighted from humiliation; Big Save keeps yelling; Stihl’s dark humour makes a welcome return, as does the Spray and Walk Away guy; Hyundai launches a new model, while Ford harnesses the design strengths of the All Blacks for its AB35 project; MasterCard taps into its World Cup sponsorship by revisiting a classic match; and Infratil goes large with the big ‘Z’ launch campaign while BP fights back with a fairly hard to swallow petrol love fest.
As the old biblical adage goes, there’s nothing new under the sun, which means that cynical industry brows are usually furrowed when anyone claims to have come up with a world-first. Well, Ogilvy has laughed in the face of potential ridicule and claimed it’s done just that with a new TVC for the Foundation of Youth Development (FYD), which shows young people involved in the foundation’s programmes making a television ad about themselves.
Cadbury is currently dealing with yet another crisis after likening one of its chocolate bars to Naomi Campbell in an ad campaign. As you can probably imagine, the diva is not pleased. But, on the plus, less racist and much more feelgood side, it launched the next rhythmical instalment of the Share the Joy campaign on Kiwi TV last night. And it can be summed up with this quote from an unnamed StopPress staffer: “Yeah, I’d grind to that on the DF.”
Comparison shopping site PriceMe asked 460 of its registered users a range of questions about their online shopping habits as part of its annual survey recently. And, in the slightly surprising/unflinchingly honest words of PriceMe’s marketing director Chris Palmer, the results are “not exactly riveting reading”.
A galaxy of industry stars gathered at Sky City on Friday night as the country’s most important and highly sought after print media accolades were dished out at the Canon Media Awards. And there were a few sore heads among the APNers on Saturday morning after they walked out with what they’re calling the ‘Grand Slam’: best website, newspaper of the year, best daily newspaper and best weekly paper.
There are a huge number of boring statistics we could tell you about. For example, the increase in the amount of tissues purchased by men on Sundays, ROI on SEO for CEO’s KPIs, or possibly even the amount of TV watched by people in Invercargill aged 45-46 between 6.15 and 6.30pm. But humans are simple creatures. And we’re interested in simple things. Like whether the end of Oprah is deemed to be more important than the end of the world. Well, if you believe social media, and you probably shouldn’t, it turns out she’s not.
Rumours that Groove Guide lives to fight another day are entirely … true.
The Wellywood debacle has led to a vast array of humorous jibes being directed at the Windy City (add your suggestion here and we might send you some beer) and Tui has joined the cacophonous debate, in typically cheeky fashion, claiming the proposed sign will detract from the awe inspiring TUIWOOD sign that was erected six years ago in Mangatainoka.
BMW’s Summer Sale 2011 campaign by DraftFCB has been awarded top spot in Yahoo! NZ’s first quarterly Digital Strategy Award.
They’ve been gaining plaudits and raking in awards for DDB New Zealand for a while now with campaigns like ‘Mexi-Doug’ for Instant Kiwi, Sky TV’s ‘Que Sera Sera’, ANZ’s ‘Perfect World’ and the internationally heralded Sky TV Arts Channel print and radio campaign. But it appears the grass is slightly greener across town, because creative team James Tucker and Simon Vicars are saying goodbye to the Death Star at the end of June to take up roles at Colenso BBDO.