Despite the almost audible industry sigh whenever another campaign is released with a focus on New Zealandness—and there’s been a few of them recently—the fact remains that New Zealanders are quite interested in themselves and their culture. And Tasti and Contagion have taken that to the nth degree with a campaign that hopes to find ‘New Zealand’s Kiwiest Kiwi’.
Browsing: Contagion
Old Navy by Crispin Porter+ Bogusky and Curious’ Miki Magisiva, the V Motion Project by Colenso and Thick as Thieves and the Sir Peter Blake Trust’s clip by Contagion take cakes this week.
Facebook is a big believer in the hack mentality; in “putting a bunch of ridiculously talented people in ridiculously small quarters under ridiculous time pressure and building cool stuff”. From time to time it employs this approach to come up with big ideas for big clients or charities in some of its larger markets, but last week, the hack came to New Zealand, when around 40 digital and creative folk from the likes of Contagion, Colenso BBDO, Rapp Tribal, DMD, Gladeye, DraftFCB, Saatchi & Saatchi and Young & Shand put aside their rivalries and gathered in the Contagion offices in Auckland to come up with ideas that would help cement the legacy of Sir Peter Blake and spread the word about the work of the Sir Peter Blake Trust.
Les Mills International (LMI) is one of the country’s biggest under-the-radar business success stories, and its fitness products can be found in more than 14,000 gyms in 80 countries. And to help keep in touch with them all—and reach some fairly ambitious goals for growth—it has appointed Contagion as its new global media social media partner, effective immediately.
Colenso was named as TVNZ’s ‘agency of choice’ in October 2009, when the Brent Smart/Jason Paris agency-client combo was in effect. But, judging by some of the national broadcaster’s recent projects, that doesn’t appear to be the case any more.
May the fourth be with you as Contagion announces a creative promotion and a new piece of business, McDonald’s adds two to the grill, Rawdon Christie makes it an English breakfast, nzgirl finds its new general manager, Datamine welcomes a new geek, Sir Dryden Spring steps down and Phantom Billstickers crows about a new Auckland site.
Contagion welcomes a new, very experienced partner, merger she wrote as Method Studios and Magnet Design join forces, Suzanne Dale says adios to Taste magazine, glossy mag ME adds a new partner, and Let’s Travel editor-at-large Gary Dickson picks up an international writing award.
Tasti Products Ltd is celebrating 80 years of making bars and baking bits this year and to make sure it’s looking its best for the important milestone it has shouted itself a whole new brand wardrobe and appointed Contagion as its creative partner.
Grabaseat’s ambassador Ron Rowwdy will be sharing his exclusive reports every Thursday throughout March on grabaseat.co.nz and Grabaseat’s Facebook page. His weekly reports reveal the very scientific formulas Grabaseat use to discover each week’s ‘nice price’. The campaign was developed in conjunction with Rowwdy Productions, the Grabaseat team, and the agency Contagion.
15-29 year olds make up 25 percent of New Zealand’s total visitors. And while they may not spend as much as the older folk, they stay here for a longer and are an important chunk of revenue for the industry. Due to a combination of new, exciting and probably cheaper destinations coming into fashion and a lack of activity directed at the youth market over the years, New Zealand has fallen off the radar slightly for this demographic, but Stories Beat Stuff, a digital campaign launched by Contagion last year that asks potential travellers to give something up in exchange for a trip to New Zealand, is helping to change that.
The WLG pop-up restaurant in Fitzroy, Melbourne, is now into its second week and it’s proving fairly popular with the locals, just as the first incarnation did in Sydney. And Air New Zealand has jumped on the bandwagon by getting a few of its cabin crew to perform an in-restaurant safety video and dishing out free return flights to Welly to 60 lucky diners.
Most of Tourism New Zealand’s sizable marketing and comms budget now gets directed towards digital channels in an effort to get ‘active considerers’ on the plane. And its latest work via Contagion is trying to tempt the Gen Ys back for some backpacking with Storiesbeatstuff.com, something the agency believes is “possibly the largest social media campaign a New Zealand agency has produced”.
The Air New Zealand business is thought to be up for pitch, with a rumoured list of Saatchi & Saatchi, DraftFCB, Special Group and the incumbent .99/Colenso all gunning for one of the country’s best-loved brands.
Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) has announced its intention to review its Australasian creative and media agency support to manage its Australian advertising and global brand work.
The unofficial word was out a while back that Dean and Bridget Taylor were heading back to New Zealand with some big plans. And now the official word is out: the couple have taken up the reins as directors of a new outfit called Contagion that will, from October, partner with Vivaki to lead the Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) business won by Razorfish in moderately interesting circumstances back in May.