Christmas is a time of family, binge-eating and falling asleep in the ambrosia at 3pm. But for some of our fellow beasts, as you can see in the Save the Children fund’s top-notch stop motion Animal Love dating video, Christmas often just enhances their crushing loneliness.

Auckland gelato store Giapo is “in business to put a smile on children’s faces”. But Gianpaolo Grazioli, the store’s founder, is attempting to raise $10,000 for 300 kids who can’t make it to the store this year because they have to spend Christmas in the Starship Hospital.

Just over a year ago, The Wine Vault would have been categorised as your traditional, conservative, small New Zealand business. Its marketing tactics consisted of leaflet drops, direct mail campaigns, a monthly email to the customer database and a few fairly unsuccessful radio ads. But owner Jayson Bryant changed all that when he decided to dive head-first into the then-nascent world of social media retailing in New Zealand.

‘They’ say it’s never been done in New Zealand—a wedding planned entirely via social media. But Orewa bride-to-be Pauline Stockhausen has vowed to use only suppliers she has met through Twitter, Facebook and the like for her March nuptials, and Waiwera Thermal Resort has jumped on board, offering a reception venue and spa makeover in return for frequent mentions on her blog.

Sochi 2014 recently launched its new brand, emblem and tagline (‘Gateway to the Future’) for the winter Olympics, introducing the first ever Olympic Games emblem that also forms a web address.

Clemenger’s Alphabet Soup will merge with Raydar, starting January 2010.

Monteith’s new website Worth Talking Over aggregates all the things Kiwis are yakking about online, making it easier for you to figure out what to discuss at the dinner party.

In a move likely to bring plague, pestilence and horrible smoting upon the land (but a smile to the dial of Richard Dawkins), an atheist group has launched a campaign to raise $10,000 for “ads carrying atheist and humanist messages on buses in major NZ cities, encouraging Kiwis to think critically about their beliefs”.

DNA design have just launched the first issue of their new online publication Open, “a forum for exploring what’s happening in the evolving world of consumers”.

Westpac Australia recently raised the interest rate on its variable mortgages by nearly twice the level of the Reserve Bank’s increase, to the chagrin of many of its ever-poorer customers. So, it decided to release a patronising little animation entitled Cool Bananas to justify the decision.

Michael Bay, the typically over the top director whose filmic style is probably best described as oversexed soap-operatic with explosions has taken it to a new level of cheese with his new Victoria’s Secret commercial, tongue and cheekily (we hope) referencing the teasing movie trailers he’s so adept at creating.

When two worlds collide, bad/cringey/entertaining things usually happen, as the exclamation mark-laden, uber-tech geek Christmas message from HP and its PR agency Acumen Republic shows.

Rejoice anachronists! It’s 8 December, much more commonly known as pretend to be a time traveller day, so be not afraid if you happen to come across any Victorian gentlemen, dystopian warriors, robot butlers or maybe even workers flying home on their jetpacks this evening.

The official release has been sent and no-one’s particularly surprised with its content: Clemenger Group has appointed Nick Garrett as managing director of Colenso BBDO, beginning 1 March 2010.

Eighty Kiwi marketing heavyweights (and a few lowly journalists) ventured to the floating pavilion in Auckland yesterday for a cup of tea and numerous pearls of wisdom that were delivered by a host of marketing thought leaders as part of the Marketing Association’s inaugural marketing forum.