As the 2011 World Cup in Mumbai drew to a close recently, the design for the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup logo was unveiled, revealing cultural references that pay homage to New Zealand and Australia, who will be co-hosting the event.

While Skyline’s animated ode to garages took out our TVC of the Year award, it’s clear the ad won because of a concerted effort from the company’s staff and suppliers. Some felt it was a tribute to the passion and pride the employees have in the small company, but others felt the ‘win by any means necessary’ approach was slightly embarrassing, wasn’t in the spirit in which the award was set up and didn’t accurately reflect the best, most popular ad of the year. It was within the rules, but if you’re in the latter camp, then it’s fair to say Lotto’s ‘Lucky Dog’ by DDB and The Sweet Shop was the ‘pseudo-winner’, as it was leading the polling by a fairly large margin up until the last couple of days. And with five other DDB creations also making it into the top ten, DDB had an impressive overall showing, something executive creative director Toby Talbot says can be put down to the power of solid client relationships. 

Subway has just pimped out its Subcard App and turned it into the first mobile-only loyalty card in New Zealand. You can also load cash on your account and pay with your phone, be it an iPhone, Android or other. So to celebrate the release of this wonderous sandwich-buying technology we’re making all your bread-related dreams come true and giving away two $50 Subcard credits. Just devise an absurd sandwich and come up with an absurd name for it. The best combo wins.   

Dan Carter is a marketer’s dream. He comes across as a fairly nice chap, he’s well-spoken, he doesn’t get into drunken brawls outside bars, he’s bloody good at rugby and, as evidenced by the fact the E channel voted him the third sexiest sports star in all the world and Jockey chose him to model their gruts, he’s easy on the eye. But Daikin and its agency The Works have somehow managed to make him look creepy in their new TVC by sticking him on a wall, making him perform the role of a heat pump and having the female talent make googly, come hither eyes at him.

With a relationship that stretches back ten years, Gregg’s is a well-established brand in the DraftFCB stable. And, having started up in Dunedin almost 150 years ago—and with its instant coffee being a “mainstay of every pantry since the early 1960s”—it’s also a well-established New Zealand brand. So who better to celebrate that than with what Gregg’s general manager of sales and marketing Brendan Downey-Parish calls the “iconic characters played by the Topp Twins”. 

Breaking down language barriers to engage all New Zealanders in a conversation with our deaf community is a challenge. But that’s exactly what Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand (DANZ) and Wellington design agency Creature hope to do with their new campaign for New Zealand Sign Language Week 2011 that proudly states ‘I am Deaf, Let’s Talk.

The marcomms community has already offered plenty of assistance to those affected by the earthquake in Christchurch, and NZ Marketing’s social media columnist Simon Young is hoping there might be some more corporate generosity left over to help out with Servolution, a project involving a whole bunch of churches and community groups doing a range of good deeds such as painting out graffiti, picking up rubbish, checking for smoke alarms, providing school makeovers and cleaning parks and reserves from 14-20 April.

Having ticked the call for entries box by means of a multi-lingual presidential address, English-based D&AD has taken another unique measure to draw attention to its awards, this time by updating its website over the course of judging week (which began yesterday) with how it’s all going.

In March we shared the awards haul goodness from the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival, aka Adfest, held in Thailand. But despite how much we know you all love to read, nothing quite beats seeing the winning efforts for yourself, and now that the Adfest winners showcase has been made available online, that’s exactly what you can do. And if you’re into all of the nitty and gritty behind the winning efforts, there’s a stack load of info under each video. So go on, click and watch to your heart’s content.

Between 2009 and 2010, retail sales of Fairtrade certified products in Australia and New Zealand increased by almost 200 percent to over $200 million and, with Cadbury and Whittakers deciding to listen to their consciences, Fairtrade Certified chocolate sales grew by more than 1500 percent. It’s already a powerful ethical consumer movement but a global campaign that’s being called the first ever ‘filmic petition’ aims to raise that even profile even further and bring more value to the farmers.

More than 240 agency staff and marketers came together to hear the ‘New Rules of Brand Engagement’ from an impressive list of speakers in Auckland on Tuesday. And with marketers increasingly trying to create memorable experiences for consumers and get the humans talking about their brands, PR and experiential are increasingly being employed to achieve those goals, as the results of  the CAANZ Marcomms Leadership Group survey shows. 

The MYOB Business Monitor Internet survey of more than 1000 local businesses of various sizes across New Zealand examines the wide-ranging ways businesses now use the internet. And, according to latest results, the biggest e-transformation the digital world has led to is in where Kiwi businesses now choose to advertise. 

Publicis Mojo and Hallensteins received a smack on the hand recently after a fun-hater complained about the lyrics of the Sleigh Bells song used in its first ‘Brothers’ commercial. And the pair have gone down what could be another slightly controversial road for the next big push, with a campaign that hopes to catch the illustrious yet highly elusive New Zealand Canadian moose.

If you thought Mike Hutcheson was the smartest man in New Zealand, you thought wrong. Turns out it’s Brennan Martin. And we couldn’t help but chortle with delight/smack our gobs in disbelief at the man’s brazen show of commercialism when we received a press release boldly offering his services to endorse various goods and services. “Everybody who is human has their price,” he says, very intelligently, while smoking a pipe in a room filled with leather bound books. “As a unique promotional opportunity being offered to public and private businesses, I anticipate I will be well paid for my efforts. The rights to use my image and voice are a bargain at any price. However, my performance and appearance fee are negotiable.” Mmmm, confidence. He’s basically the thinking man’s Dan Carter. So tell us what kind of product/service/promotion you could use the country’s smartest man for and we’ll send the best effort a Tui gnome, a hip flask of Smirnoff and maybe even a couple of crappy business self-help books.

It was a time when Vanilla Ice was cool, Windows 3.0 was released and Tim Berners-Lee came up with a little thing called HTML. But 1990 also saw the birth of a company in Wellington called BNA design. Fast forward through an impressive client list that has included the likes of Telecom, Solid Energy, Formway, National Bank, NZTE and Yellow Pages, add in a rather scientific name change, and you get to the auspicious milestone of design agency DNA’s 21st birthday. To mark the occasion, DNA showed this video to clients and staff at its recent 21st parties in Auckland and Wellington. And having partied with the DNA folks at the Auckland bash, we felt the rest of you might want to have a gander at the entertaining documentation of the DNA story as well.