Most notable this week is TelstraClear with a raft of metaphors in a rather politically directed effort to convince us that netball hoops should stay the same height at each end of the court. Countdown are still staying exclusive with One News, which means we went for the second ad slot for a few of One’s breaks. As for the rest, creepy Dan Carter continues to lounge around at precarious heights for Daikin; George Clooney, it seems, likes Nespresso more than beautiful woman (it can’t be that good); The home of eggs is Hokitika, just kidding, love Eggs throw in a weird ad; Learning Crochet sounds like so much fun and of course Mazda have a long list of reasons why zoomzooming is good.

When Shell’s fuel business was sold to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and Kiwi infrastructure company Infratil in April last year (for a cool $695 million, we might add)—both of which are owned and operated by Greenstone Energy—the wheels were set in motion to replace the brand with something Greenstone Energy describes as “entirely Kiwi”. $35 million later, the new petrol stations, called Z Energy, are being unveiled across the country as part of a complete brand overhaul. And, coupled with extensive market research, the finished product comes courtesy of a number of industry players, including Cato Partners and Assignment Group.

Market research always does its best to enter every facet of our lives, but Christchurch mobile feedback start up company Texsys has taken it to a whole new level, asking Christchurch residents what they think of the recovery effort—while they’re on the dunny. They’ve done so by developing a software that allows multiple question surveys to be systematically completed via text message.

We were thinking of what approach to take when looking at KFC and their Double Down. The ridiculously effective campaign that proved any PR is good PR managed to run some stores out of bacon (we are presuming it’s real bacon), some stores to have queues outside and some stores probably with broken toilets.

But after looking at the most popular trends on Twitter in New Zealand, aside from seeing #doubledown at number four, something that stood out was the number one trend which had a “promoted” badge next to it. That trend?  #McDFrozen.

For over ten years now, Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Pure New Zealand campaign has been a staple brand for marketing New Zealand to the world. But whether we ought to be laying such a pure claim at all has come under fire on many occasions, most recently on BBC programme Hardtalk where John Key was left sweating after host Stephen Sackur put some tough questions to the Prime Minister about the clean and green image on which New Zealand prides itself.

Loyalty NZ’s Fly Buys programme has captured the attention of another telco after Telecom pulled out of its partnership with the rewards programme close to three years ago. 2degrees has announced it has joined up with Fly Buys to rake in some loyalty points with its ever rising number of customers.

Smartphones just keep getting smarter and smarter. Even the NZ Hi-Tech Awards think so, hence awarding mobile voucher company VoucherMob the Ministry of Science & Innovation Best Hi-Tech Start-up category at the Hi-Tech Awards held in Wellington last week.

When it comes to wildly impressive imagery, it doesn’t get much better than National Geographic, and National History New Zealand’s (NHNZ) Moving Images knows all about it. The stock library has been selected by National Geographic Channels (NGC)  Worldwide as the first and only footage sales agent for more than 20 years of accumulated footage from its blue-chip factual programming library, including hundreds of hours of HD footage.

The 64th Cannes Film Festival kicks of this week in France and while we mentioned a couple of week’s back that Sweet Shop director Sam Holst’s short film ‘Meathead’ has been selected to compete for the prestigious Palme d’Or, there’s another Kiwi nominee thrown into the mix.

By the time you finish reading this paragraph, another daily deal or group buying site will have been set up in New Zealand—or at least that’s the way it feels at the moment, with so many recent launches overwhelming our senses. We’re reminded of the days shortly after Trade Me was sold to Fairfax, when something like 70 new auction site operators clamoured into the marketplace, hoping for a similar nine-figure payday. Where are they now, we wonder?

Omnilab Media’s online delivery baby Adsend has launched its new digital asset delivery surface for NZ and Oz, called Certified Soft Proofing (CSP). Successfully launched and well received over in the UK, the soft proofing tool is selling itself on its ability to, in the words of Adsend chief executive Grant Schuetrumpf, “accurately simulate a print ad on the desktop as it appears when printed in the magazine or newspaper publication”.

The automotive industry has had a rough time of it recently and there’s been a consolidation of automotive media in the local market, but the New Zealand Herald is obviously confident things are looking up, because it’s taken a fairly bold step and launched a comprehensive new motoring lift-out called Driven and backed it up with a big launch campaign. 

The good news keeps coming for Alt, which is no stranger to winning global accolades. The design agency has picked up a bronze from the Art Director’s Club of New York for its efforts on Auckland Museum’s I AM campaign, developed from an acronym of Auckland Museum, and a pattern language developed as part of the identity of the museum. And Strategy Design is also sitting pretty with a nomination in the Clio Awards. 

With the rise of daily deal sites, smart phone technology and e-commerce, the way we’re shopping is changing rapidly and a discount culture has well and truly taken hold. And while New Zealand may be lagging behind slightly in comparison to other tech-savvy nations, lasoo.co.nz is hoping to remedy that slightly with the launch of its “smarter shopping assistant” on Android and Windows Phone apps, which allow shoppers to find and select the best deals while wandering in ‘meatspace’.

‘International indie’ bcg2 has picked up an account double, and they’re at opposite ends of the ad spectrum: the Tongan tourism business and Pfizer’s Avigra from Viagra incumbents M&C Saatchi.