When New Zealand Post isn’t deciding what marketing-related events to sponsor, it’s devising ways to make some more money to pay for them all. And the Targeted Communications team thinks it has a big one on its hands with Genius, a ground-smasher of a new data segmentation product that aims to provide Kiwi marketers with the most targeted consumer information available in New Zealand.
Japanese tech behemoth Toshiba has followed up its sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup in 2007 by signing on as an official sponsor for next year’s event. And Pernod Ricard New Zealand, with its newly named international version of Montana, Brancott Estate, is also on board.
Wise New Zealand marketing oracle Michael Carney peers into his crystal ball for this week’s installment of Marketing Week. Analogue TV is either dead or on death’s door overseas. How long has it got to live here? How to catch the elusive black swan. Are you overlooking the oldies? The paywall prognostications come thick and fast. So how is Rupert faring? What people really think of advertising? The social media horse is starting to bolt. And there’s still time for marketers to try and mount this difficult beast. Tips and tricks for post-recession category management.
Tabulations are complete and the calculators have done their business for the 2010 Qantas Film and Television Awards, with a total of 637 entries being received. And while it’s two down on last year’s total, the award organisers feel it is a clear indication of the continuing “strength and resilience of New Zealand’s film and television industries”.
While most normal people merely think about ridiculous ideas and never actually go through with them, the beauty of the ad industry is that agencies are often given a big bunch of cash to make those ridiculous ideas come true. And that’s exactly what Colenso has done with its latest—and awesome—ladder-inspired campaign for V’s new Isokinetic, guarana infused energy drink.
With a solid crowd to make the obligatory live crosses from Breakfast weatherman Tamati Coffey look good, the spray painting talents of the Cut Collective and a host of confused-looking commuters gazing up at a giant billboard as they powered to work, Cadbury kicked off its nationwide roadshow for the Billboard to Bags campaign this morning at ‘experiential venue’ 1 Queen St in Auckland.
Cast your minds back to 2009. Now back at me. Now back to 2009. Now back to 2010. As everyone knows, it was a pretty lean year for all concerned, but the releases trumpeting various revenue increases seem to be flowing reasonably freely of late, with the latest coming from the Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand (OMANZ), which announced that gross media revenue for Q2 has increased by six percent from the same time last year, up from $14.3 million to $15.2 million in 2010.
The months are obviously getting closer together: the May winners of the ORCA’s were announced last week as The Radio Bureau did a bit of catching up. And the June certificates have also been handed out, with Karl Fleet and Tom Paine from Colenso BBDO taking out the top prize for their V Pocket Rocket Campaign for Frucor. Feast your ears on the June winning effort here.
Who it’s for: Freeview
Why we like it: Half the office said they vomited in their mouth and changed the channel when this chirpy old duck and her grumpy old curmudgeon husband graced their screens to tell everyone about Freeview, and the other half said they quite …
We all know the marcomms community thrives under pressure. As a result, entries tend to come in at the last minute (that was certainly the case for entries into this year’s Marketing Awards). And time is running out to get your name in the hat for the Creative Challenge—and get your hands on the $125,000 prize—with registrations for the inaugural event set to close tomorrow.
DDB NZ has added three new team members to its creative department, but it’s still on the hunt for a creative director to replace Adam Kanzer, who left in mid May. And Clemenger BBDO is in a similar position, with former creative director Paul Nagy yet to be replaced and a new managing director still to be found to replace Lesley Brown, who departed about 18 months ago to have a baby and chose not to come back.
For the second year in a row, DDB walked away with a cool $10,000 after the Sky Arts Channel Mark Rothco spot took out the Newspaper Ad of the Year prize last week (this Throaties spot won the 2009 edition). And the highlight of the night—aside, of course, from the big grand finale announcement, the delectable nibbles and the burly guard who was keeping watch over the silver briefcase on the table that was filled with $10,000 cash—had to be the Q+A video with Chuck Porter, the convenor of judges at this year’s event and co-founder of award-hogging US ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
The pioneering approach taken by the Ministry of Health for its National Depression Initiative proved to be something of a watershed for online social messaging and health communications in New Zealand. And the efforts of Wellington-based agency Resn have shown that the interactivity offered by the online realm is also proving to be an effective way of spreading the Smokefree/Auahi Kore message to Kiwi yoof.
Love it or loathe it, social media has become an extremely powerful communications force in recent times. And, according to Nielsen’s 2010 Social Media Report, its marketing star continues to rise in New Zealand as users start interacting more with brands online and rely on their social networks to guide purchasing decisions.
The economy seems to be moving slowly in the right direction, the marcomms job market is picking up and judging by figures from the New Zealand Television Broadcasters’ Council (NZTBC) based on returns from TVNZ, MediaWorks TV and Sky (including Prime), the broadcast advertising dollars are following suit.
Catching the eye this week, the wee orange electoral roll man is back for another round in a pretty cool numerical and alphabet-themed campaign; the Doritos ads out of Australia look set to resonate with your typical corn chip eater; the All Blacks get stuck into some Coke Zero (inside word: Dan Carter sucks Coke in the ad but didn’t swallow during the filming); Allison’s Pantry ramps up the cheese; and the new Sorbent ad is a pretty good effort in this category (much like this ad for Sorbent toilet paper in Aussie).
Wonderful pearls of Wammo, Pound and Mash marcomms wisdom that have been carefully harvested from the oyster of ignorance especially for you.
Is it just me, or is this billboard for Haier appliances unintentionally humorous?
A couple of weeks ago, Whittaker’s released its new commercial for Dark Ghana Peppermint into the wild. It featured a naked couple swinging about in the jungle and frolicking in pools of chocolate and, as expected, it led to a few wowsers venting their visual metaphor-hating spleens. Forgetting about the fun-hating crepehanger minority for a moment, the vast majority loved the new ad because it was different, slightly risque and visually compelling. But an interesting aspect of the whole tale is the persistent rumour that the chocolate used in the shoot wasn’t actually of the Whittaker’s variety.
The riches keep rolling in for DDB’s Sky TV Arts Channel campaign, after the Mark Rothko print ad, one of a series of newspaper advertisements promoting subscriptions to the channel, was awarded the Newspaper Advertisement of the Year for 09/10.
As carrots are to stew, news is to the internet.
Ah, the magazine cover. How we love the way you capture the consumer’s attention. How we love critiquing the efforts of our competitors. And how we love the mixture of art and science often required to create a stunner. Well, undercover cover lovers rejoice, for The Maggies have been shipped in from the UK and entries for the inaugural New Zealand competition are now open.
42BELOW is the latest company to jump on the augmented reality bandwagon with a new point of sale project it’s calling Fat-boy. And spokeshuman Jacob Pearson says the vodka gang is pretty proud of its new toy.
Everyone loves the Old Spice guy. His musk is like the bottled essence of man. His rich, dulcet tones have made ladies all around the world instantly fall pregnant. And his ability to be on a horse is unparalleled. The first ad went crazy online and rightfully took the Film Grand Prix at Cannes recently, the second was a reasonable follow up and he’s also done plenty of others, including this moustache spot. But the agency responsible for creating the ‘man your man could smell like’ meme, Wieden + Kennedy, has taken ‘conversations with the brand’ up a big notch with its latest effort.
Wellywood has its WETA, and Auckland may soon have something to match, after the launch of what is slated as New Zealand’s biggest purpose built computer generated (CG) animation studio, Oktobor Animation.
If you believe the hype, big, traditional agencies are on death’s door, the quest for integration is a futile one, TV is dead, and small, nimble, specialist agencies with new ways of thinking are the way of the marketing future. If you don’t, then it seems like the normal circle of business life continues apace as small agencies look for opportunities to expand and eventually become bigger agencies. And, in the case of digital creative and media company Wag The Dog, accredited media planning and buying agency MediaR and creative agency Advocate Advertising, it seems there is still some strength to be found in larger numbers.
One year after US media and marketing company Meredith Corporation took a 20 percent stake in mobile marketing company The Hyperfactory, which was set up by New Zealand brothers Derek, 32, and Geoffrey, 35, Handley in 2001, ‘full alignment’ has been completed. Or, in less corporate US speak, ka-ching.
Kelly Bennett
It’s been a relatively stressful time for TBWA\ of late: around the same time the ASB account left the building, Sony Computer Entertainment New Zealand (PlayStation) was also undertaking a thorough competitive review of its PR account. And it would’ve been a pretty bad look to lose that business too, but in news that’s sure to bring comfort to the Mayoral Drive offices, ELEVEN\PR, part of the TBWA\ Group, retained the account.
OMD looks to the future and appoints its first tech-head, Dow’s designs come to fruition and The Pond shores up its arsenal south of the Bombays.
