It’s a long way from the Sundance Film Festival, but, hey, a man’s gotta eat, so big directorial gun Toa Fraser has decided to take on his first ever advertising project, a series of new commercials for Freeview and TBWA\TEQUILA.
Interbrand has released the 11th annual 100 Best Global Brands rankings and, out of the corporate turbulence seen over the past 12 months, it’s the high profile technology brands that have performed best.
Mike Walsh is what’s known as a ‘futurist’. Somewhat disappointingly, he doesn’t wear a silver boiler suit, he doesn’t employ the services of a rocket pack and he doesn’t know if the Mayans are right about the world ending in 2012. But, by focusing on nascent consumer trends in certain regions that have the potential to become mainstream everywhere else, he does know a thing or two about how the rise of the machines is completely changing the marketing game.
After we posted this story about the companies and organisations that were deemed to have the best reputations in the eyes of Kiwis, we had a few requests for details about the Corporate Reputation breakfast seminar. Originally, this event was aimed at the 20 companies featured in the study, so they could find out about their rankings and those of their competitors, but there was enough interest from outside this exclusive club to open it up further. So Core Communications and AMR Interactive have extended an invitation to anyone interested in hearing about the New Zealand study, the international index and global best practice for reputation management from AMR’s reputation expert Oliver Freedman.
The faces have been put forward, the votes have been cast and the six hottest humans in the marcomms biz have been chosen for APNO’s inaugural Friends in High Places Advertising’s Next Top Model.
As Air New Zealand’s young, slightly more controversial upstart brand, grabaseat has always been given a bit more marketing rope than its parent. It’s certainly come up with some slightly unusual promotions in its time and it openly claims to do things in a way “that sometimes offends, sometimes makes you laugh, sometimes makes you cry and sometimes is just plain dumb”. But whatever grabaseat does, there’s always someone out there who will tell them how to do things better, apparently. So instead of fighting against the haters, it has decided to harness the creative power of the masses with the grabaseat billboard website.
I came across this discussion on Mumbrella about what PR agencies need to do to win awards at Cannes and why “adland is the home of awards-obsessed backslapping knob-jockeys”. And I thought it was quite interesting because I’m sad and have no life.
If, as Bill Bernbach exclaimed, profit sets you free, then the folks at DDB are presumably relishing their freedom this week after holding on to two massive beasts, Cadbury and The Warehouse.
DraftFCB snatched the National Bank account off Clemenger BBDO in October last year and since then, industry chinstrokers have been eagerly awaiting the fruits of the new relationship. Well, the new, zany, big budget, weirdly patriotic TVC epic has finally hit the shelves and it’s an interesting—and entertaining—evolution to a banking brand that’s long been seen as a fairly serious one.
In this instalment of ads@6, Eco Strand gets a little bit ‘matrixy’, DraftFCB’s campaign to stop family violence strikes a chord, Axxis steel framing could be ramping up its presence after being given a fillip by the quake, State and Tower go head to head and a host of retailers yell loudly about their various specials.
Over 1000 New Zealand made photographs across ten different categories were entered in the 2010 Epson/NZIPP Iris Professional Photography Awards. And New Plymouth came out on top, with Tony Carter taking out photographer of the year for the third time, Chris Hill winning the commercial/advertising category and Niki Coates winning the portrait category.
High culture is often seen as the exclusive domain of the rich, old and über-educated. And “stuffy” is the word Kirsten Leighs, an account director at design agency The Church, uses to describe the highfalutin image of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) before 2009, when the two outfits started working together.
Who’s it for: National Bank by DraftFCB and Robber’s Dog
Why we like it: Diehard Dr Seuss fans could potentially cry into their hands at the use of ‘Oh, the places you’ll go’ in a bank ad. But bank ad fans will presumably rejoice because …
After the recent Canterbury earthquake, no-one wants to hear about any more movings and/or shakings. Except if it’s got anything to do with the enthralling recruitment carousel they call the marcomms industry.
For its latest customer service trick, ASB has fully embraced social media, gone completely virtual and launched a real-time, secure, person-to-person banking application on Facebook, something it claims is a world-first.
With more and more visitors to New Zealand researching online—and with the Rugby World Cup just around the corner—there is a big opportunity for increased business across a range of different sectors. So how do you move up the search chain and tap into that demand? First Rate’s Grant Osbourne offers a few digital tips for tourist operators and, by extension, other small business owners and marketers who are hoping to enhance their online presence.
Colenso BBDO’s planning director James Hurman will be delivering his ‘Thinking3’ course at the CAANZ/AUT Communications School from Monday 20 to Wednesday 22 September. And there are still places left for anybody in the advertising and marketing industry who wants to improve their strategic thinking abilities.
Charlie’s Group Ltd has appointed Hunter to look after its array of refreshing beverages, handing the Charlie’s and Phoenix Organics folios in Australia and New Zealand to the trans-Tasman indie “cloud agency”.
DDB has nabbed a host of new (and some old) talent for its retail department, with ex DDBer Mark Lorrigan returning to the mothership and teaming up with Jordan Sky in the newly-created role of joint head of retail positions, and three more newbies adding some firepower to the arsenal.
Ten Kiwi companies have been recognised for creativity and innovation in their campaigns in the sixth annual Fly Buys Marketing Awards, with New World Wellington taking home the supreme award, as well as awards for Customer Retention & Behaviour Change and the Best Use of Database for their Lifestyle Mailer.
Air New Zealand recently launched its new ‘Seats to Suit’ option for flights between New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands, giving customers the opportunity to choose between four different ways of flying — Seat, Seat + Bag, The Works and Works Deluxe. And, in now fairly traditional Air New Zealand/.99 style, it’s created a quirky piece of promotional content to highlight the different options.
Loyalty New Zealand and Datam have flown the creative Wellington flag overseas, winning the hotly contested direct mail (DM) category in the Asia Pacific and Japan HP Digital Print Awards for the Fly Buys Points Summary mailing.
More proof, if any were needed, that New Zealand is still hitting it out of the park when it comes to creativity in advertising after the Adschool at Auckland’s Media Design School was named the fourth best (a very good position, as DDB’s Moro campaign shows) advertising school of the decade on account of the gongs its students have taken home in the first ten years of the YoungGuns Awards.
Is TV dying? Or is it just evolving? And what do the big changes mean for the important bits between the programming, the ads? Death, Taxes and TVCs, an event being organised by the generous folk from Pure Productions, will delve into this issue to find out what the future of television advertising in New Zealand holds. And while the inaugural event, which features a stellar speaking line-up, is an invite only occasion, StopPress has got five tickets to give away.
Get your read on with a host of entrancing tales about new RWC sponsorships, BIG moves, renaissance buses, the power of cinema, Pauline Hanton, photography, cool new campaigns, the Effies, online pre-research shopping tools, MINI art, sustainable business accolades, rock paper, the branding success of the Smokefree Rockquest and so much more.
There were plenty of celebrations when the team behind interactive online TVNZ drama Reservoir Hill won the country’s first ever International Digital Emmy in Cannes earlier this year. And there were a few more last week after mobile marketing company Run The Red and KHF Media took home the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) Innovation Award for best mobile application of the year.
It’s not unusual to see companies extolling the virtues of their own products and criticising the products of their rivals. But it’s much more unusual to see a battle raging between two products from the same company. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening with Monteith’s new campaign for its crushed pear cider. And it kicked off in fine, confusing and rather unique style with a fake protest at the DB Breweries Waitemata site.
The marketing campaign for the Art of the Envelope awards was pretty sexy. And so are the first three monthly finalists, with Dave Rogers from Geon Group, Guy Needham from Les Mills and Antony Wilson, Iain MacMillan and Kate Murchison from DraftFCB all making the cut.
We’re big fans of heated debates here at StopPress and a heated debate kicked off yesterday after the Christchurch earthquake relief efforts of t-shirt company Mr Vintage were pegged by Ana Samways in her NZ Herald Sideswipe column as a cynical marketing ploy to try and make a quick buck from the disaster.
Nigel Keats, managing director at OMD Wellington, is one of the country’s most respected media men. And after more than 20 years in the business and a slew of awards on the mantelpiece, he’s decided it’s time for something new.