Last week it was revealed by the latest Nielsen Online Retail Report that two thirds of online New Zealanders have received email alerts from daily deal websites, and a further 40 percent said they made a purchase from such sites in the past three months. Now two of the world’s biggest deal sites, Groupon and Living Social, are set to arrive and take some more of New Zealand’s discount dollars.

It’s often said ad agencies need to get rid of the mirrors and work more closely with their clients to understand their business. Well, Auckland design and interactive shop Fracture has taken that to another level with one of its new clients after taking out first prize for Most Creative Trolley in the recent Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix.

Fairfax Media is expanding its portable news repertoire, last week announcing the launch of its first Android app for Stuff.co.nz. That means “more people than ever can get up to date with Stuff’s award winning news on the go”, according to Fairfax digital general manager Nigel Tutt.

New Zealand’s design students have been putting in quite the winning performance as of late, hauling in some top international awards. First up, Media Design School. Having recently picked up a double-whammy at the 2011 Honolulu Film Awards, the school continues its winning streak with four of its students each winning a gong in the ‘Comprehensive Identity Program’ category as part of the Brand New Awards in the U.S.

The promotional onslaught from Rugby World Cup sponsors hoping to make good on their significant investment into the tournament has begun in earnest, with the dangling carrot of Cup tickets already being used to lure the punters. Heineken is already offering finals tickets with its on-pack promotion and it’s dishing out a few more in the Heineken Trivia Series.

Ah, the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The time when all New Zealanders unite to celebrate sponsorship. And rugby. With the likes of MasterCard, Landrover, Toshiba, Brancott Estate/Montana, Heineken and ANZ already joining the official sponsorship ranks, comes news BlackBerry developers Research in Motion (RIM) will be nuzzling in for some cozy sponsorship action, with BlackBerry becoming the “official handheld mobile device” for the tournament. ACP is also involved, winning the contract as the official publisher. 

While it won’t help fix the most annoying part about hosiery—indiscriminate holes appearing all over the place—Columbine has farewelled its more than 20-year-old look and opted for a visual makeover in a bid to “modernise the Columbine image”.

The Church has embarked on a pretty expansive journey over the past 10 years. Starting out as a small design agency, it’s since gone on to become a design, advertising and communications agency and on Monday, to coincide with the opening of its first office in Australia, and as a “coming of age” of sorts, the communications agency officially relaunched itself. 

Things have been going pretty well for Yahoo!Xtra as of late. Just last month the joint venture between Yahoo!7 and Telecom New Zealand  announced a net profit of $1.88m for 2010, an increase of 37 percent on the 2009 results. But Telecom has decided to part with its 49 percent share of Yahoo!Xtra, announcing it has sold it to Yahoo!7. That means Yahoo!7, a 50/50 joint venture between Australia’s Seven Media and US company Yahoo, will now own 100 percent of Yahoo!Xtra.

DWA, “the world’s only tech-focused media planning and buying agency”, has just opened up a New Zealand branch in Parnell and tech media veteran and native Kiwi Stephen Old has been chosen to run it. 

Hot on the heels of winning the Nestle Milky Bar Kid Search in New Zealand and Australia, The PR Shop has won the recent CDB Consumer Products pitch to work on the SodaStream brand. 

BurgerFuel has once again hopped on the interactivity campaign train, starting a location based social media promotion with L&P and location-based digital platform for nerds, Foursquare.

Everyone likes a success story and Massey University is hoping to capitalise on all sorts of successful Kiwi global ventures as part of its new promotional campaign that carries the slogan, ‘The engine of the new New Zealand.’ 

It’s been a staple of the design industry for just shy of 20 years, but spatial, product and graphic design magazine ProDesign is set to permanently close its pages with AGM Publishing announcing the upcoming May issue will be its last.

This week’s roundup includes Countdown employing MasterChef 2010 winner Brett McGregor to offer tips on making the ultimate child’s cake; TV3 amps it up for this weekend’s ITM 400 Hamilton; another sporting push from Freeview for the Rugby World Cup; famed international landmarks get doodled on by hotels.com; Rexona employs a man impractically wearing sunglasses during the night to up the appeal of its deodorant; and Sara Lee goes retro with a sitcom cartoon featuring a 1950s baking housewife.