…as another senior Adshel staffer departs, Val Morgan welcomes a new national sales director, the Newspaper Publisher’s Association announces a new business and marketing manager, and GrabOne adds to the family.
Place this in the ‘always check your mailouts before you push send’ category. We received an email from a Sydney-based market research company called The Seed asking us to fill in a survey being run on behalf of a “major out-of-home media company” that needed to remain secret because knowing its identity could influence the answers and compromise the findings. Unfortunately, despite an explanation for the anonymity in the body of the email, the subject line read: Adshel benchmark survey 2010. Whoopsie daisies. There but for the grace of God go us. In discussion with Adshel, the survey has been recalled and the research has been canned. But, on the plus side, The Seed is still honouring its commitment to the prize draw of 10x $100 Westfield vouchers.
Out-of-home advertising often relies on purty pictures and/or catchy phrases to capture the attention of passersby as they go about their business. But Adshel and University of Melbourne neuroscientist Dr Phil Harris have compiled a report that demonstrates how merely noticing something is not enough for consumers to recall a campaign.
It’s not every day you get to test yourself on a Segway, wax your bum crack, jump off the Sky Tower, drive maniacally around Auckland searching for bus shelters, dress up as an inmate outside a prison, almost run over one of your co-workers, ride a mechanical bull and do tequila shots at 3pm. But that’s basically what around 80 industry folk had to do last Thursday as part of the Adshel Rally. And, as you can probably see in these pictures, they appeared to love every minute of it.
Last year, as part of Adshel’s inaugural Creative Challenge, about 70 Kiwi creatives from 14 agencies gathered together at the Civic Theatre in Auckland to eat pizza, drink booze and, in just 60 minutes, develop a static poster campaign for the 2011 Auckland Fringe. When the final bell was rung, there were beautiful flowery turds, a range of moderately offensive slogans and even a picture of a woman smoking a baby in a pipe. But it was Publicis Mojo’s ‘Leave with more questions than answers’ idea that tickled the judges’ collective fancy. Well, that initial scribble has now blossomed in a fully-fledged visual treat, with the Auckland Fringe Adshel campaign being set free over the weekend.
Despite what everyone says, you marcomms folk are usually quite a generous lot, as evidenced by the fact that Adshel’s Christmas promotion saw 833 of its advertising panels being donated to 25 charities across Australia and New Zealand.
After one particularly big staff shift late last year, Adshel has rung in the new year with a few more changes to its sales and marketing roster and, in what new sales director Nick Vile believes is testimony to the quality and performance of the team, all three of the new positions have been filled by existing staff members, with Raewyn Anderson promoted to sales manager in Auckland, Phil Lucy to sales manager position in Wellington and Rochelle Weaver moving into the reinstated national marketing manager position.
It’s been fairly tough going for the out-of-homers over the past few years. But, with the numbers now going in the right direction, the Rugby World Cup expected to up demand substantially and OMANZ starting to regain its teeth, there seems to be a bit of optimism—and even industry cohesion—afoot. Adshel’s new sales director Nick Vile, who took over from Pauline Hanton late last year, speaks his piece.
Adshel recently moved back to Parnell after spending a few years in a city office. But that’s not all that’s new: as of next week it will also have a new sales manager, with ex-MediaWorks, New Zealand Rugby Union and Oggi man Nick Vile proving to be the standout candidate in the search to find a replacement for Pauline Hanton, who recently announced the arrival of her new shopper marketing offering Hypermedia.
It’s been a fairly wild and chilly Spring, so what better way to entice bundled up Aucklanders to their nearest McCafe to thaw out over a coffee than with a steaming Adshel bus shelter?
DHL announced its sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup today (and to celebrate Grant Fox kicked a rugby ball off the Skytower). And while the rules for the tournament’s official sponsors seem fairly clear, media owners, media buyers and the host of other companies that haven’t forked out but are hoping to jump on the RWC marketing bandwagon are still waiting to find out from the government how the Major Events Management Act (MEMA) could affect marketing activities, particularly when it comes to out-of-home media.
Pauline Hanton has announced her departure from Adshel after three highly successful years as the company’s New Zealand sales director in exchange for a role helping to set up a new media company specialising in instore.
Kiwi charity Sustainable Coastlines has revealed its latest Adshel campaign. And it’s intended to shock Kiwis into thinking about the unexpected places our rubbish could end up.
The judges had their opportunity to judge harshly at Adshel’s Creative Challenge a few nights ago and, while it was a pretty tight race, they eventually decided that the thought behind Publicis Mojo’s campaign was the best (read all about the one hour-long pressure cooker creative escapade here). But what would the stupid judges know? See if you agree with their decisions and impose your own judgements on these, the top three entries.
There were beautiful flowery turds, a range of moderately offensive slogans and even a picture of a woman smoking a baby in a pipe. But only one idea could take home the $125,000 prize on offer at Adshel’s inaugural Creative Challenge last night and, in the end, it was Publicis Mojo’s campaign ‘Leave with more questions than answers’ for the Auckland Fringe festival that was chosen as the best.
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.
Wonderful pearls of Wammo, Pound and Mash marcomms wisdom that have been carefully harvested from the oyster of ignorance especially for you.
Last week we had the pleasure of announcing the launch of the inaugural Creative Challenge, a new event being put on by Adshel, the Auckland Fringe and StopPress that aims to showcase the talents of Kiwi creatives and, at the same time, promote creative excellence in outdoor advertising. We also promised gratuitous publicity for the event, so here it is: registrations have been going very strongly so far, with DraftFCB first out of the gates. And there are also some generous new sponsors on board, with Carlsberg supplying the brown stuff, Stoneleigh providing the red and white stuff and Toto providing the delicious edible stuff.
Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline (aside perhaps from P). And Adshel, the Auckland Fringe and StopPress have joined forces to see if that rule also applies to the dark, mysterious advertising arts with the announcement of the Creative Challenge, a new event that aims to showcase the talents of Kiwi creatives and, at the same time, promote creative excellence in outdoor advertising.
The cellular bandwagon keeps rolling on in New Zealand, with impressive results for Adshel’s first mobile out-of-home marketing campaign and TXT2Get celebrating its 1000th mobile campaign.
The New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation (NZBCF) has seen the light – and the dark: its new Girls’ Night In fundraising campaign, which launched today, 22 June, and runs for two weeks, is putting a new, more contextual twist on the outdoor medium, with 20 of Adshel’s Create sites delivering a different image depending on whether the ad is seen during the day or at night.
Adshel has continued its recent streak of outdoor innovations with the release of its new LED advertising display technology, which will feature on selected Adshel Create bus shelters. And Vodafone’s latest campaign to promote the joys of mobile internet is the first to put it to use.
The Outdoor Media Association of New Zealand (OMANZ) has released its first quarter gross media revenue results. And, while it has shrunk 1.7 percent on the same period last year, with $13.618m spent outside, OMANZ says it is a significant improvement on the 8.1 percent shrinkage the out-of-home sector experienced in 2009.
Walk around any major New Zealand urban centre and you’ll probably notice a host of strange tardis-like constructions emblazoned with large white squiggles. Some call these relics from another time ‘phone booths’ or ‘payphones’ and, as a result of the rampant onslaught of technology, they are becoming increasingly irrelevant. But, as they’re typically situated in the most convenient locations, they’re also extremely visible. And where there are eyes, there are often advertisers. Enter Adshel, which has struck up a deal with Telecom to use its national network of 3,700 payphones as a new form of out-of-home media.
Phones at the ready, New Zealand: Adshel will be unveiling a new offering called ‘Adshel Mobile’ on Monday, which the company claims to be the first out of home mobile network in the country. And the first campaign to use the techy wares will be Fly Buys Music.
Adshel has announced the appointment of Peter Charlton as its new sales director, Australia and New Zealand, replacing previous sales director Adam Butterworth who was promoted to chief executive officer of Clear Channel Singapore early this year.
Adshel is making a habit of bringing sports to the world of public transport and it did it again during January’s ASB Classic, treating commuters to some unique ‘courtside’ action by combining specially designed bus shelters, posters, decals and even the modern scourge of female tennis, ridiculous grunting.
Adam Butterworth, Adshel’s sales director in Australia and New Zealand, has been promoted to chief executive officer of Clear Channel Singapore, where, according to insiders, there is approximately 20-30 percent less to talk about with work colleagues because the weather is always the same.
Adshel has launched its 2010 offerings with 11 redefined campaign packages, including a new innovation: New Zealand’s first mobile out of home network.
An Adshel bus shelter was transformed into a full-on football environment last week.
On Auckland’s Queen St, a whole bus stop was wrapped in images of a grandstand of Arsenal fans. Waiting commuters soaked in the sounds of chants and cheers of thousands of football fans from hidden speakers …