New Zealand maintained its reputation as a direct marketing powerhouse at the 32nd John Caples International Awards in New York late last week, with Colenso and AIM Proximity’s Yellow Treehouse once again in the upper echelons and DraftFCB and TBWA\Whybin\Tequila also claiming some precious metal.
For anyone unfortunate enough not to be at the 30th birthday shindig of the CAANZ Axis awards last night, you can read all about the glitz and glamour here. But why be forced to think and read boring words on a screen when you could instead let two of the exciting videos that were played at the event go inside your brain with the click of a button.
Ads@6, where the name says it all. No pithy comment this week. StopPress has got a hangover.
Fairfax Magazines has purchased Driver magazine and will merge it with New Zealand Autocar from the May issue, after it became clear to John Baker, of former Driver publisher Tangible Media, that the publishing landscape had changed and two magazines devoted to new cars couldn’t be supported, particularly given the large decrease in sales of new cars in recent times.
The Air New Zealanders have done it again, this time brewing up an interesting marketing ploy they like to call the Aviation Design Academy, which is asking customers from New Zealand and around the world to submit their ideas and add a few finishing touches to the offerings in the airline’s new 777-300 aircraft.
You can almost feel the collective hangover after 680 creatively-minded humans gathered together last night at the huge and rather impressive Orams Marine Boat Park to celebrate the 30th birthday of the CAANZ Axis awards, as well as the creativity, ideas and personalities the industry has fostered in that time.
Optimism was in the air at the New Zealand Marketing Association’s Northern Regional Event today, with the general consensus among some of the country’s bravest and ‘upto’ direct marketers being that with the fancy tools now in the box there’s never been a better time to be in the game.
In strange things for sale on TradeMe news, committed Mexi-Dougophiles can bid to get their hands on the authentic and presumably extremely valuable Mexi-Doug Instant Kiwi costume, with the proceeds from the auction going towards WWF’s Earth Hour.
Somewhat surprisingly, for a man who’s the president and chief creative officer of the massive behemoth that is the Time Warner Global Media Group (oh, and he’s also the senior vice president of Time Warner), Mark D’Arcy exudes calm and charm. And, with a silver tongue and a penchant for strange magazines like this, he seems like your quintessential creative director. The strange thing is he’s actually working for a media company and he’s at the forefront of what he sees as a move towards media-led creativity in marketing.
So I’m 32, I’ve been an advertising creative for almost a decade and I’m beginning to feel old. Worse still, I’m running scared. It’s the ‘kids these days’. Seems like they can do anything.
After analysing the visual searches and choices of more than 1.5 million creative professionals around the world and reviewing thousands of tearsheets, commercials and other websites to discover trends, the global creative research team at Getty Images has produced some rather revealing white papers that show how the kinds of imagery used in marketing material in the technology and telecommunications, pharmaceutical and financial sectors has evolved in recent years.
Over 150 marketing professionals are expected to attend the New Zealand Marketing Association’s (NZMA) Smarter Data: Working Harder forum next week, with Affinity Id’s chief executive Geoff Cooper leading the lineup of speakers.
The finalists for the CAANZ media awards have been announced, with OMD New Zealand (fresh from the agency of the year win at the Fairfax/AdMedia soiree), SparkPHD and Starcom NZ nominated for the big one, media agency of the year.
Wholly Bagels owner and founder Charlie Daily decided on his marketing strategy out of necessity: he had no budget for mainstream advertising, so, instead, he decided to use giving and generosity as his major marketing tool. And so far it’s proven to be a very effective approach.
All the news (about pyar, new baby food, ice cream, banned ads, loin tingling, non-profit organisations and green marketing) that’s fit to print – and now in handy meta format.
Why we like it: As Mother always said, put some animated needlework in your ads (or your songs) and you’re bound to win the TVC of the week prize on StopPress. And the artisanship on display in this quirky, handmade and awfully time-consuming little number that was …
Magnation, the purveyor of fine periodicals, has recently embarked on “its most revealing promotion ever” by offering customers that strip down to their unmentionables and head into one of the shops a reward for their brave exhibitionism. And, according to Sahil Merchant, the founder of Magnation and “chief magazineologist”, the promotion has been wildly successful, highly amusing and, given its unexpected popularity, nigh-on financially catastrophic.
Econsultancy and the Online Marketing Summit have produced a US-based report called the Value of Social Media that is based on a survey of more than 400 client-side marketers and agency respondents. And Andy Beal, founder and editor of MarketingPilgrim.com, took a gander, with his major observation being that 61 percent of the companies felt their measurement of the return on investment (ROI) from social media is either poor or very poor.
Claire Stapleton and Duncan Munro from Y&R Wellington have taken out the Bolly Award for their Metservice campaign ‘You Can’t Change the Weather’, impressing the boffins with a digital execution that allowed punters a chance to play God.
Absolut vodka today launched its new ‘Drinks’ campaign in New Zealand, with renowned fashion photographer Ellen Von Unwerth and smokin’ screen hotties Kate Beckinsale and Zooey Deschanel combining forces in an effort to show off some of the world’s best known drinks and the stories behind them.
M&C Saatchi has added a prize trophy to the cabinet after being appointed the New Zealand-based marketing team for Jetstar, ousting the incumbent Harvey Cameron and beating out DDB.
This week in the Ads@6, the Suzuki Swift is apparently still the one. And the ad is definitely still the one that will make you scratch your own eyes out. Protex follows suit with an ear/eye-scratchingly bad jingle of its own. Perhaps John Rowles should think about becoming a consultant following his famous victory in the Great New Zealand Twitter jingle survey recently.
There’s plenty of ambiguity going around when it comes to channel planning. So the time is right to shed some light on what it is – and, equally, what it isn’t.
NZ Lotteries isn’t spilling any beans on how much it paid to get Donald Trump involved with the new Big Wednesday promotion, but David Higgins of Duco, the events company behind the highly successful Tua versus Cameron fight, has intimate knowledge of the magnate in question and believes it probably cost much more than the estimates currently doing the rounds.
In the world of ‘feminine hygiene products’, sometimes known as ‘tampons’, there are certain advertising rules that have, over time, become engrained: weird blue liquid, euphemisms galore, unrealistic happiness, slow motion beach shots, dancing, basically all the things the above video parodies. But ad agency JWT and US tampon company Kotex decided to flout some those rules for a new campaign in an effort to ‘get real’ about ‘that time of the month’. But everyone knows TV isn’t about reality (unless it’s ‘gritty’) and it seems there’s no room for the horrible, disgusting v word on US TV screens.
DDB New Zealand has announced the promotions of two of its senior creatives, with Dave Brady replacing previous head of art and “crafty bastard” Mike Davison and Paul Hankinson taking on the role of head of copy.
Sam Neill is the new face of Kiwibank’s ‘Kiwi Thinking’ campaign. And part of the campaign implores Kiwis to submit their best ideas. Well, at StopPress we like ideas too. So we want you to submit your best ideas to us.
The New Zealand Lotteries commission recently roped in Donald Trump to be the frontman for a Big Wednesday promotion. The winner and a few friends get to live like him for a week (presumably being forced to put squirrels on their heads for veracity’s sake) and, if his busy schedule allows, they’ll even get to meet him (presumably licking the filth from his gold-plated shoes). So, to honour the business magnate, we want you to come up with a catchy new slogan for The Don and his vast portfolio.
The 2010 Seminar Programme at the Cannes Advertising Festival has been announced and more clients than ever are set to take to the stage and dish out their 0.02c, including Yahoo!, Microsoft Advertising, Facebook, MasterCard, Kraft Foods, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Hewlett-Packard and Coca-Cola. So, get the company credit card out and pick those brains.
Bill Payne – US angel investor – is in NZ to invest
Sick of your idiot boss? Tired of working the same old, same old? Got a great idea? Bring your marketing or advertising business idea on April 15 and meet an angel investor. And it’s free.