Who’s it for: Sky TV by DDB NZ and Capital City films
Why we like it: The DDB/Sky relationship has been a particularly fruitful one recently. The Arts Channel campaign won every award in the world. The ‘Your Happy Place’ content campaign also got a few …
Crisis communications is one of the easiest areas to study and gain an appreciation for tangible social media ROI. And while we can never fully prepare for a natural disaster or acts of God, the advances in digital media can help accelerate the recovery. They can also help change the structure and procedures of previously traditional and parochial communications departments, as the State Government of Victoria in Australia discovered when it was subjected to some of the worst bushfires ever seen last year.
The shock tactics directed at young drivers on TV don’t seem to have the desired effect anymore. So Ogilvy instead decided to use shock tactics with a hoax ad and a fake but fairly intense phone message to try and drive home the point that fast cars can be deadly.
Regional branding efforts and their associated tourism pushes often have a whiff of desperation about them. But there seems to have been a coming of age in New Zealand recently, with some solid and distinctly uncringeworthy new marketing initiatives from Wellington, Christchurch and, most recently, Dunedin, which has just launched its new brand with an outdoor and online campaign.
As Westpac chief economist Brendan O’Donovan said at a CAANZ/ANZA seminar ‘Nurturing the Green Shoots earlier this year, when economic times are tough, they’re usually much worse in the marcomms sector. But, conversely, when things start looking up, it reacts faster than the economy. And, judging by the just released third quarter television advertising revenue figures from the New Zealand Television Broadcasters council (as well as the outdoor results released last week) the long-awaited upswing appears to have cometh.
Trinity P3’s founder and chief ‘pitch doctor’ Darren Woolley was one of more than 30 agency management consultants and search company representatives who attended the AdForum CEO Summit in New York last week and found out where the advertising industry was heading and how the agencies were taking it there. The consultants represented more than 530 agency searches each year, or the equivalent of $9 billion in billings, from marketers around the globe looking to find agencies with the right chemistry for their needs. And here’s what he learned from the six day conflab.
In this edition of Ads@6, the iPad shows its stuff, the Vogel’s campaign keeps hitting the mark, the House of Travel inspires plenty of holiday envy, Telstra Clear and 2degrees face off with their respective monthly mobile plans and there’s even an ad for Lancaster Bomber magazine.
Three men, three very different presentations and a multitude of ideas about what could be around the marcomms corner … for your viewing pleasure, Pure Productions has released recordings of the sage words of Colenso BBDO’s planning director James Hurman, TVWorks chief executive Jason Paris and Image Centre Group’s Mike Hutcheson from the Future of Television Advertising event it held recently. So, if you weren’t cool or important enough to actually be there, they’re certainly worth a gander.
As draconian media overlord and Rhys Darby lookalike Vincent Heeringa opined soon after the recent New Zealand International Business awards were handed out this week, the creative economy used to be something that cute, boutique Kiwi businesses talked about. Now, however, design and intellectual property have become an integral aspect of the really big New Zealand exporters as well and they were the two elements that bound many of the winners—and particularly the supreme award-winning Pumpkin Patch—together.
There were over 1,000 entries from around the world, but there were just 16 golds awarded at the US Direct Marketing Association’s Echo awards and two of them went to New Zealand agencies, with .99 continuing its Midas touch with Air New Zealand’s ‘Nothing to Hide’ in the Consumer-Travel & Hospitality/Transportation section and RAPP Tribal winning for its ‘Thank You Notes’ campaign for Heinz Wattie’s Gourmet Dog in the Production Manufacturing and Distribution category.
A spoonful of appointments news always makes the medicine go down.
The up-until-relatively-recently New Zealand-owned mobile marketing company The Hyperfactory has managed to get four finalist nods in the 2010 Mobile Marketing Association Global Awards. And Tui Blond’s consumer sampling campaign for the brand’s launch by POCKETvouchers is also in the running.
The Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand (OMANZ) has just voted in a new chair in the form of Phil Clemas of APN Outdoor. And it seems he’s joined at a good time, with quarter three results showing continued growth in sales.
Resn, one of the few digital agencies in New Zealand doing regular international work, picked up a host of awards last year, including digital agency of the year for the second year running in the CREATIVE Hotshop awards and more Pixels than you could shake a stick at. And ’tis the awards season once again, with the Toyota Racing Sponsafier website it created for Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles chosen as one of three finalists in the ‘Advertising and Branding’ section of Adobe’s MAX Awards and the same website winning a silver in the Brand Destination Site for the American Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mixx Awards.
Everyone loves passing judgment on new TVCs. Almost as much as they seem to love passing judgment on new logos. So here’s a massive selection of the newest/best Kiwi commercials we’ve seen recently, including the continuation of Wilson’s journey and some nice work for National Bank, Purina One, Jim Beam, Apex rentals and Kapiti ice cream.
It’s a day filled with Tonys. First Bradbourne, now Gardner, the new general manager of Ogilvy Wellington. He’s replacing Fraser Holland, who has returned to Hawke’s Bay “for lifestyle reasons”.
How does $15,000 of free advertising from the New Zealand Herald and Easy Mix 98.2 sound? Pretty good if you’re the Prenzel Shop in Botany, which snatched the winners loot after beating out 121 other finalists at the 2010 TOP SHOP Retail Excellence Awards. The Prenzel Shop, which retails New Zealand made foods and liqueurs, was described by the judges as “a store that compels you to buy things you never dreamed you needed”.
In anticipation of another year’s worth of world-class entries, the New Zealand Marketing Association (NZMA) has secured over 50 big brained experts, specialists and industry virtuosos to determine who will take home the metal at this year’s RSVP and Nexus Awards.
After Pauline Hanton announced her departure from Adshel and as chair of The Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand (OMANZ), APN Outdoor’s general manager Phil Clemas was pegged as the logical choice to take over. And the OMANZ members agreed, voting him in as the replacement chair.
Yet more proof, if any were needed, that the indie agencies are now too legit to quit after Special Group’s creative director Tony Bradbourne was appointed as the convenor of judges for the 2011 Axis awards, the first time the honour has gone to anyone from an independent agency.
DDB NZ is making a name for itself for breaking the international rules. In a good way, of course: first it was Freida the dancing bovine, the first Glass and a Half Full production that didn’t come out of London. And now it’s another piece of milk-related work for Volkswagen.
The fine folk of sunny seaside suburb Devonport can now buy a $20 ‘carbon neutral meal’ from their local New World supermarket, and CarboNZero’s marketing and communications manager Kathryn Hailes says this initiative is a long-overdue acknowledgment of the growing number of Kiwi consumers who are now more discerning about their purchasing decisions.
The fund-raising ball is well and truly rolling for LifeWise’s The BigSleepOut. But it’s not too late to send a few dollars the way of some of your fellow marketing/business types who are sleeping rough for a night on 14 October and raising awareness and money for homeless people.
There were entries from over 20 countries in the 2010 edition of the Pentawards, a show dedicated exclusively to the best packaging design in the world, and three Kiwi entries made the cut.
It was beaten by cat food at the EFFIES. But the DraftFCB trio of Antony Wilson, Iain MacMillan and Kate Murchison have eased the feline-related pain slightly by taking out the first monthly Art of the Envelope Award for their transparent effort called ‘the Naked Letter’.
Who’s it for: ASB by TBWA\Tequila and Paul Middleditch
Why we like it: Ira Goldstein has been a feature of New Zealand’s advertising landscape for about 10 years. And this is his final swansong for ASB. So let us bow our heads and give thanks …
The lazy susan spins, bringing with it a couple of big creative departures at Rapp/Tribal, a few new arrivals at OMD, a promotion at nzherald.co.nz and a timely lesson in goat farming.
Every six months, about 15000 radio listeners scattered across the country take pen to paper—or pen to diary as the case may be—and share their most intimate of radio listening habits as part of Research International’s Research Audience Measurement Survey (RAMS). And the results for the second half of the year are out.
First it was naked staff. Then it was naked old ladies. Then it was blow up dolls. And the latest campaign from Air New Zealand to promote its new 777-300 planes, which take flight later this year, is also a bit raunchy, featuring as it does a budding travel author/furry lothario called Rico who has an entertainingly poor grasp of English and a talent for unintentional innuendo.
The internet is celebrating its coming of age in New Zealand this year and downtothewire.co.nz, a very cool website dedicated to telling the story of a “connection that revolutionised the nation and finally laid waste to our fear of geographical remoteness” went live this morning, Monday 11 October.