A veritable (slightly delayed due to technical difficulties) banquet of advertisements taken from the gloaming for connoisseurs of fine goods and services to gorge upon.

The unfortunately all-too-common combination of a troublesome client and the cool recessionary winds have forced Parnell indie agency Brave New World to shut up shop. But it hopes to go out in a blaze of glory and highlight a serious issue with shelf companies that the agency’s general manager David Brash believes is currently going under the radar of the authorities.

Waikato University marketing professor Harald van Heerde has received a $740,000 Marsden grant to look at the role marketing can play in a recession and whether slashing or increasing marketing budgets is actually the best strategy.

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the movings/shakings of our lives.

Way back in the mists of time, the number of vouchers redeemed by consumers was often seen as an indication of how effective a print ad had been. Since then vouchers have been put inside books, on dockets, in letterboxes and on the internet, each with varying degrees of success. But Auckland company POCKETvouchers claims to be improving the success rate—and efficiency—by sending discount deals to consumers’ mobile phones.

Colenso BBDO was singled out for praise in the role it played helping BBDO win network of the decade in the YoungGuns International awards and also for helping New Zealand reach second place on the list of top performing countries. And these acknowledgments were obviously well-deserved, because it’s also taken out the YoungGuns agency of the decade honours.

Jason Paris’ switcheroo from the head of digital media and marketing at TVNZ to chief executive of MediaWorks in March created, quite understandably, a fair swag of industry chatter. And, while he’s learning quickly about the differences between working for a company owned by a private equity firm and one that’s owned by the government, he’s still grappling with a lot of the same televisual issues and the social changes that are influencing them. And, in his presentation at the Death, Taxes and TVCs event last week, he agreed wholeheartedly with Colenso BBDO’s planning director James Hurman that, despite many assertions to the contrary, mass media is still alive and kicking. In fact, he says “television has never been more popular”.

The last billboard ecostore put up outside its flagship Freeman’s Bay store in Auckland was an image of what looked like a dog covered in spaghetti sitting in front of a curtain. And it has followed up the ‘un-billboard’ with another artistic and environmentally friendly effort, an ‘eco-billboard’ created by Special Group and DDB’s ex head of art Mike Davison to advertise its spring sale. 

Hot on the heels of Interbrand’s Top 100 Brands rankings, another study conducted slightly closer to home showed similar shifts towards technology brands in Australia, with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Nokia and eBay all making it on to the top ten list.

Colenso’s new campaign for Anchor set about breathing some new life into milk—a product that had, as a result of a focus on price, become seen as a something of a commodity—and create a point of difference for the brand. And, as well as a stellar TVC, outdoor and print campaign, Dow Design has had its wicked way with the packaging and given Anchor a new “vibrant, upbeat” look. 

BNZ’s GlobalPlus has, up until very recently, been the only credit card where users were able to earn Air New Zealand Air Points through their everyday purchases. But the airline decided to expand its credit card offerings in November, which means New Zealand Airpoints Members can now earn Airpoints Dollars with a few new banking providers. And what better way to show off this exciting evolution than with a sexy, slightly ridiculous romp around Auckland with a blow-up doll.