The RAPP team consisting of creative director Jason Hall, copywriter Kathy Riley, designer Asher Hutchings and Rachel Street on production duties has taken victory in the latest round of New Zealand Post’s Art of the Envelope awards for ‘Look Smart’, a piece to celebrate the launch of the National Bank’s Visa Debit card.
Lorenz Perry co-founded the small indie agency Splinter Group two years ago following stints with a few of the big boys. But he has decided bigger is actually better and started as the creative director at Interbrand this week, replacing Debbie Hyde.
… including Tui HQ’s gloating, a few more accusations of creative plagiarism, Dettol, Halloween chocolate, Kodak’s 20th anniversary, 42 Below taking the Glad Wrap approach, the Langham’s new twins, New World’s new data toy, sexy posters, amazing photographers, more Alt Group domination and practically everything else you can possibly imagine.
The third quarter ad revenue results for the major television broadcasters were released not long ago and showed things were slowly moving back to the level of the glory days. At the time, we couldn’t get hold of New Zealand Television Broadcaster’s Council chief exec Rick Friesen, but he called back and, while he wasn’t able to discuss results of specific broadcasters, he was able to shed some light on a few interesting sectoral trends.
Not Rick Friesen
The Auckland Chamber of Commerce has just released its 2010 salary survey and, given the economic events of the last few years, it’s not a huge surprise to find that Auckland business is still “running on lean” and—block your ears children—sales and marketing salaries have dropped. So check out the rates so you know whether you should cackle maniacally with Scrooge McDuck-esque glee as you roll about on your bed with wads of cash, or go crying to the boss about not getting paid enough.
Sick and tired of slaving away in your unsatisfying sweatshop? Well then, you’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for something better, because, after almost 31,000 employees from 245 organisations across the country gave confidential feedback to rate their employers for the JRA Workplace survey, 35 finalists across the four categories have been announced, with notable performances in the marcomms sphere from PR shop Porter Novelli, signage and display company DE Group, directories service Gopher and news portal Yahoo!Xtra.
Just as advertisers often need to push the boat out to capture the attention of modern consumers, the raft of awards ceremonies now competing for entries often need to do the same to capture the attention of the advertising world (recently, AWARD’s Ian sticks out). And, in an effort to compete with—and possibly confront—other events like Cannes Lions and the One Show, the English-based D&AD has gone with a multi-lingual presidential address from its president Simon Sankarayya, where he extols the virtues of creativity and ideas and attempts to speak to the world’s creatives in as many different languages as possible. If there isn’t one already, it can’t be long before someone starts handing out awards for the best call for entries campaigns.
With plastic bag hatred on the rise and new, more eco-friendly options now becoming more common, every single bag expert StopPress has talked agrees that it is now the golden age of the humble carrying device. And while their main role is still to make it easier to carry heavy loads, the bag makers (and marketers) of the future might want to take a look at this collection of creative bag executions from around the world courtesy of Bored Panda, “the only magazine for pandas”, apparently.
Like any new form of marketing, there was plenty of trepidation when social media began to go mainstream. And some senior executives still feel the jury is out when it comes to investing large chunks of budget in it. They want to know how it’s going to feed back into the business, and rightly so. So while the first phase of social media—the one where people jump online and create profiles—has already happened, companies are still figuring out how to make the central theory behind social media (conversation, not broadcast) relevant to the entire business.
It’s all go at MediaWorks TV at the moment. Demographic targets have been tweaked by the new puppetmaster Jason Paris, the Special Groupies are now turning their golden hands to channel rebrands and relaunches and the latest news is that MediaWorks TV has made yet another internal promotion, with Graeme Underwood (aka Woody) taking up the position of general manager, national sales, a role that was vacated by Linda Farrelly when she was promoted to director of sales.
With every new model released, mobile phones become less like mobile phones and more like computers. Data plans are slowly becoming more reasonable and, with Apple and Google already in on the action, mobile marketing is slated as one of the many next big things for the marcomms sector. As such, the demand for third-party metrics on mobile internet usage from advertisers and publishers in New Zealand is increasing, so Nielsen has responded to that demand with Mobile Market Intelligence (MI), something it claims is a world first in online audience measurement methodology.
Online niche retailer Natureshop isn’t particularly well known in New Zealand. But in these modern and increasingly environmentally-conscious economic times, that doesn’t necessarily matter, because through a combination of extensive online marketing, high quality e-commerce websites and a focus on sustainability, it was named New Zealand’s fastest growing exporter, fastest growing retail or consumer products business and second-fastest growing company at the 10th annual Deloitte Fast 50 index.
Those creatives grow up so fast these days don’t they? Soon enough they’ll be getting told to shut up by Devo for talking during speeches at the Axis awards (if they’re lucky enough to get jobs when they graduate). So if you want to see what the young whippersnappers from the AUT Adschool have been up to in 2010, make sure you head along to the end of year show on Tuesday 9 November at Film Construction, 22 Minnie St, Eden Terrace. It’s industry only from 5.30pm to 7pm, then the hoards of parents, pals and pets get to have a gander from 7-9pm. And, as is the custom during the burgeoning festive season, the drinks and nibbles will be plentiful. Here’s what some of the young’uns produced last year.
The Gruen Transfer, an Aussie TV show that screens on ABC and delves into the mysterious, manipulative and wonderful world of advertising, has been a surprising ratings success across the ditch. But who really wants those pesky moving images and sounds when you could have a book instead? Cue The Gruen Transfer, now in handy non-moving, literary form. You can win one of three copies of this very funny, good lookin’, highly entertaining, educational and quote-filled tome about what one academic described as the ‘poetry of capitalism’ and all you need to do is either tell us an amazing fact/quote/lie/myth/statistic/story about advertising. Or, if you’re struggling for inspiration, just go for the lowest common denominator and tell us your best Australian joke.
Who’s it for: Tip Top by Colenso BBDO and The Sweet Shop
Why we like it: Put this in the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ category. It may be filled with an array of summery Kiwi clichés, but clichés tend to become clichés …
Ben Lightfoot, the can’t-do-no-wrong boss of McCann Worldgroup’s New Zealand operations, has been appointed chief executive officer of McCann’s Singapore office, a promotion that’s just reward for Lightfoot’s efforts in relaunching a Kiwi face for McCann two years ago, according to Michael McLaren, regional director of McCann Worldgroup, Asia Pacific.
The Val Morgan Cinema Network is hosting a 3D Cinema Advertising Showcase next Tuesday night at Sylvia Park. But wait, there’s more than just a selection of awesome 3D ads from around the globe on display. All those who attend will also get to see an advanced screening of David Fincher’s The Social Network, a tale of mystery, intrigue, extremely wealthy nerds and banal status updates.
Humans have always strived to find new and exciting uses for fruit and vegetables (orange cannons, apple bongs and every kind of alcohol ever invented, for example). And New World, which now claims to be “different, just like you”, is the latest in a long line of grocery tinkerers, with a big new brand ad out of .99 that shows the staff band playing the likes of carrot recorders, cabbage guitars, pumpkin drums and other innovative musical instruments to the tune of Dave Dobbyn’s ‘Slice of Heaven’.
Comedy Central canned two of its most popular shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in September because the licences had expired. Cue protests, outrage and steam coming out of viewers’ ears. But, not one to let an opportunity pass it by, Comedy Central has, in truly arse about face fashion, now decided to create its own “campaign” to make the network change their own stupid minds.
Those NAB ad of the month judges are obviously pretty tough nuts to crack, because Jeneal Rohrback from Marsden Inch, Sue Worthington from Indiego and Jon Coles from .99 decided not to select a winner for the October round. But in true NCEA fashion, they did give DraftFCB’s ‘Night test drive’ ad for Mini a Highly Commended acknowledgement.
The 2010 AWARD awards have drawn over two thousand entries across the nine major categories, including the newly created music video, applications, social media, environmental design and branded content. And the organisation responsible for dishing out what are deemed to be Australasia’s most prestigious creative awards (and also for creating the call for entries juggernaut known as Ian), is opening up a number of wildcard position on its juries. So, any Kiwis with an interest in the creative arts—whether they be agency folk or plumbers—can apply to be part of the action.
Special Group has continued its hot run of form in 2010 by nabbing a slice of the MediaWorks TV business. And the first task has been to rebrand and relaunch the youth-focused music channel C4 and turn it into a slightly less youth focused mainstream entertainment channel called FOUR.
… with ACP Media, Sugar, DB Breweries and Alcatel-Lucent all issuing a few new swipe cards.
TVNZ’s Ondemand is all about choice; about giving viewers the opportunity to watch content when (and increasingly where) they want to. And, with the help of TVNZ’s latest online advertising innovation, Ad Selector, they now have the ability to choose what ads they want to watch.
In a bid to capture consumers in the lead-up to Christmas (which is—deep breath—less than eight weeks away), HP and Microsoft have teamed up and established a temporary pop-up store in central Auckland. Called Ten O’Connell, the store opened on Thursday night and will remain popped-up for …
With Tourism New Zealand’s campaigns to China, Japan, Australia, the UK, USA and Germany now firmly unleashed, comes good news for New Zealand’s tourism market, with fresh figures from the Tourism Satellite Account: 2010 showing spending by international tourists in New Zealand increased 1.6 percent ($149 million …
The wheels of change seem to have been spinning in opposite directions in New Zealand’s bike industry, with online cycle magazine RoadCycling.co.nz announcing its retirement last week and Spot On Publications this week announcing the launch of New Zealand’s first dedicated road cycling magazine, New Zealand …
As the UK plunges into the depths of a freezing, grey winter, tonnes of Kiwi’s look as if they want to give it up, opting instead for beaches, BBQ’s and that season called summer. Marmite’s Bringing Home the Kiwis competition, which will bring home 100 Kiwis for …
Next year is the 75th anniversary of Tip Top. So, as part of the celebrations that are sure to come in the new year (and to herald the arrival of the prime time ice cream consumption period sometimes known as summer), Colenso BBDO and up and coming Sweet Shop directors Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland have gone to town—and country—and made eight almost documentary style, nostalgia-inducing commercials that are filled to bursting with all the ingredients of the classic Kiwi summer.
It’s that time of year again: Sausages are consumed voraciously, jandal-adorned feet almost instantly become sunburned, refreshing beverages are sought and summer advertising campaigns are released. And, following on from the man-heavy launch spot for the new Ranfurly Frontier lager a few weeks back, Lion Nathan and Publicis Mojo have also entered the masculine mainstream beer fray with a new number for Speight’s, which documents a rather urban Southern Man’s domestic journey to dish out a few cold Gold Medal Ales to the boys.