Much sympathy and concern to our friends and colleagues in Christchurch. Your loss is ours. And let us know about how you and your workplaces are affected. We’re keen to hear and help. Just add your news and messages of support to the comment thread. And if you’re looking for someone or have info to share, check out Google’s people finder.

Just Juice is celebrating 30 years of Kiwi summers by dishing out a range of “sweet classic prizes” to anyone who enters their barcode online. And it’s drumming up interest in the promotion with a gloriously incongruous TVC from Colenso BBDO that shows some overly enthusiastic old folk engaging in their favourite summer activities—and all in horrible slow motion.

Jason Saunders, the creative director at Auckland-based graphic design company Everything Design, has caught the attention of the folks at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. A piece of his “modernist design” work is to be featured as part of an upcoming exhibition titled ‘Standard Deviations: Prototypes, Archetypes, and Families in Contemporary Design.’

Colenso is always harping on about the conversation economy; about creating content that’s interesting and/or mysterious enough to get talked about by the masses. V’s Rocket Man succeeded in this regard, but the agency’s latest foray into the dark viral arts, a production/social experiment called the Rear View Girls that aims to promote Levi’s new range of Curve ID women’s jeans, has taken it to another, more international level.

The nation’s watercoolers have been abuzz with speculation for the last couple of weeks after the NZ Notworth News campaign went live. Well, the culprits can be revealed, with nzherald.co.nz, its agency M&C Saatchi and production company Small Town Media behind the satirical Anchorman-esque broadcasting network.

In an effort to capture a slice of the growing demand for online print services from smaller entities and freelance publishers and designers, Auckland based Soar Print is introducing an innovative new web-based full-colour service called PDF2PRINT, which claims to provide an easier, faster and cheaper solution for customers wanting full colour print jobs.

Consumers crave realness and human touch, according to Trendwatching.com. And Botany Town Centre is attempting to get real by performing what it describes as random acts of kindness on its customers.

RSVPs for the APN Outdoor Summer Party have closed and almost 400 industry folk have registered to attend the Friends in High Places soiree next Thursday. However, in shameless advertising fashion, sales director Kent Harrison has taken advantage of the remaining demand and opened his own unofficial RSVP list. So …

Breaking up is never easy, but for virtual sports portal Jimungo, it’s hoping there’s plenty more sponsorship fish in the sea. The website, allowing players to pit themselves against mates, work colleagues and strangers, by virtually picking sporting winners, is fresh out of a partnership with the NZ Rugby Union (NZRU)—a relationship that lasted ten fruitful years.

Following the scholarship announcement made by Derek Handley in November at the annual Marketing Association industry forum, applications for The Hyperfactory-Handley Marketing Scholarship are being accepted from now until 4 April 2011. And, after plenty of interest was shown in the opportunity from those over 35, the age restriction on applicants has been removed.

Omnicom-owned Fleishman-Hillard has jumped into bed with Omnicom-owned ELEVEN\PR in an effort to expand its extensive global and Asia Pacific footprint to New Zealand, while “broadening both firms’ areas of expertise and geographic reach”.

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Interactive Advertising Bureau have released the advertising spend figures for Q4 2010, and they make for pretty damn good e-reading if you’re in the digital biz, with a total of $71.11 million for the quarter, up from $67.93m in Q3 and up 26 percent year-on-year. Total spend was $257 million, up 20 percent from 2009 ($214 million) and up 33 percent on 2008 ($193 million).

APN emerges as the winner in the latest newspaper readership numbers, continuing to defy world trends in daily rags and thumbing its nose at nearest rival Fairfax Media.

Earth Hour is set to take place on 26 March. And, after 2008’s TVC was viewed 1.3 million times on YouTube, it’s launched a new global commercial for the 2011 edition in an effort to increase awareness and get people to take action ‘beyond the hour’.