At the start of summer, Cadbury and DDB set themselves a goal: to Share the Joy with the country and find out exactly what joy sounded like to New Zealanders. This manifested itself in cool experiential efforts like the giant snowglobe in Auckland, clap-activated Christmas lights and a massive sprinkler that travelled to beach hotspots around the country and a call to fans to send in their own sounds of joy to add to those recorded for the impressive launch TVC. Now the campaign is getting close to its denouement, with a new ad that was launched last night to promote “the first song created by the joy of a nation”.  

And the fresh TV work keeps on coming, with a new cerebral/agrarian spot for Volkswagen’s first ever ute, V takes street art to a new level with the help of Humpty Dumpty, Mitsubishi speaks the car-related, localised truth and Cirkus Animation’s TVC for Vietnamese stationery brand Thien Long. 

You chose ’em. And here they are. A few surprises in the mix, most notably the fact that little old Skyline got more votes than DDB’s epic canine adventure for Lotto (which is closing in on one million views on YouTube) in the TVC of the Year poll. The much-discussed brand ad for New World by .99 took 13th spot, ahead of Colenso’s ‘V Pomparkour’ and Genesis ‘Pukekos’ by DraftFCB came in near the top at fourth. Not too surprising, however, is the fact that six ads made by DDB, an agency renowned for its excellent TV work, made it into the top ten.

52 overly sensitive souls complained to the ASA about DDB’s last ad for Stihl because they felt it lacked sensitivity and was disrespectful of death. The vast majority, including the agrarian warriors who buy such machinery, embraced the dark humour. Thankfully, the ASA saw sense and none of the complaints were upheld. Well, the complainers will probably have their pens at the ready again after the latest in the Stihl series ‘Mercy Dash’ went live last night and while the death isn’t quite as overt this time, it’s still lingering there entertainingly in the background. 

Having picked up a bronze at the recent AWARD awards, DraftFCB has gone one better at the Axis, this time picking up two silvers in the Magazine Single category for some crafty interpretations of takeaway food in the wild. The first came for its ‘Fries’ print ad and the other for its ‘Kebab’ print ad, both part of its ‘Eating Out’ campaign for Prime TV’s Man vs Wild. The ‘Eating Out’ campaign snagged another silver for DraftFCB in the Magazine Campaign category and DDB picked up a bronze for its ‘Newman/Davis/Noland’ campaign for Sky.

DDB New Zealand is the only agency in the country with an experiential creative director. And with brands increasingly looking to create more memorable experiences for consumers, you only have to look at recent campaigns like Cadbury’s Billboards to Bags campaign, ANZ’s Rugby World Cup promotion and Cadbury’s ‘Share the Joy’ Kiwi roadtrip to see this events mentality is infusing itself into more and more of the agency’s advertising. And the ‘Snow Globe’ it created in Auckland just before Christmas for Kraft Foods NZ was deemed to be one of the best examples of that, taking out gold in the PR/Experiential category. Colenso and Yellow also took gold in this category for Yellow Chocolate, as well as two more bronzes, one for ‘A Rubbish Idea’ for Heart of the City and the other for ‘Beer: The Untold Story’ for DB Export’.

DDB’s Lucky Dog remains goldless, despite being a big crowd favourite, but it takes a silver in Cinema and Projection, while Colenso’s moderately controversial ‘Beer: The Untold Story’ comes home with a bronze. And in the Long-Form Content category, Colenso and DB Export win again with a bronze, as does TBWA\’s ‘Give Your All’ papier mache for Adidas.

As the industry worked itself into a gibbering mass of excitement after it was announced late last week that the ANZ account had shifted to TBWA\, ANZ, DDB and Ogilvy Media were getting ready to launch their ‘Welcome the World’ promotion as part of the bank’s Rugby World Cup sponsorship. And with a big TV blockout on Sunday, a flash mob-esque stunt to welcome commuters in Auckland and Wellington this morning and plenty more media activity planned to ramp up interest in the competition, it’s set to be the bank’s biggest promotion yet—and quite possibly the biggest of the tournament. 

It’s no secret that Lion Nathan has been perusing the agency field for someone to give its Steinlager brand a bit of fresh lovin’. And now the winning agency has been revealed as DDB. But Scott Wallace, group business director at DDB, wants to make it clear the agency will only be working on one project for Steinlager this year.

The awfully shouty Gunnery Sgt Cleaver is still on a mission to get SKY cameramen ‘Match Fit’ for the Rugby World Cup 2011. And DDB New Zealand and Prodigy Films have maintained the quality—and the self-reflexive humour—for the third instalment of the series with ‘Shooting Practice’. Sadly for many red-blooded rugby fans, however, it seems streakers are still off limits.