For the relaunch of the McRib, Mcdonald’s went down a slightly crazy path by featuring a passionate individual dancing as a bucket of thick sauce was emptied out on his head. While the clip was unappetiwing at best and downright disturbing at worst, it was memorable and a definite improvement on the usual fast-food launch approach of showcasing carefully constructed burgers in the ideal light from the best possible angle. McDonald’s clearly sees value in the quirkiness, because the brand has now followed on from the McRib launch with an equally outrageous (and messy) spot that features a human guinea pig comparing the newly launched butter chicken Georgie Pie to its pastry-free alternative.

We’re sure by now many must be aware of Cadbury’s new fusion with its other product offering, Jaffas, as the new chocolate currently appears to be advertised in every supermarket aisle. And now a new TVC has been released by DDB promoting the chocolate which shows the mixing of the two products, but not in the way you might expect.

Advertising can be a bit like a mirror, or perhaps more like the Mirror of Erised (cue cheesy reference) from Harry Potter where an idealised version of ourselves is reflected back at us. When targeted well it can be so pervasive that we come to think of advertising scenarios as being normal “Of course I should be wearing those shoes”, “Clearly I need that marble bench top in my kitchen”. Advertisers try to reflect our relationships too, marketing to couples and families. But wouldn’t it be strange to see advertising bypass us, for us to see ads embodying relationships or representations of people that don’t reflect our reality. For the reported 10 to 15 percent of New Zealanders that make up our LGBT community, it has been like this for a long time. But things are changing, the world is slowly but surely progressing, and so is the advertising world along with it. Here are a few examples of advertising that includes this community, and why it would be of interest for advertisers to continue doing so, particularly in light of gay marriage increasingly becoming legalised in more countries.

Following the recent announcement that Sky TV had signed a long-term deal with The Walt Disney Company to add the Sky Movies Disney channel to its programming portfolio, the broadcaster released a short online video showing that the fairies, genies and flying nannies that typify the Disney experience had arrived in New Zealand.

McDonald’s seems to be a little obsessed with sauce at the moment. Following on from the spot featuring a man dancing underneath a downpour of McRib sauce, McDonald’s is now trumpeting the potential of Big Mac sauce to make everything better.

Following on from the report of two departures at DDB earlier this week—and what DDB says was the unrelated resignation of Chris Riley—we followed up on comments suggesting there were more departures than DDB chief executive Justin Mowday was letting on. He referred us to Rapp managing director Robert Limb, who confirmed the staff count on the third floor of the building would also be going down. PLUS: what changes to the Spark roster might mean for Dynamo.

Two years after joining the agency from OMD, DDB’s chief operating officer Chris Riley is set to depart.

As Mad Men comes to a close, DDB chief creative officer Damon Stapleton considers whether the end of the show also signifies the end of advertising as we know it.

If you are a child between the ages of five and nine, being a toy tester for a job is truly living the dream. The Warehouse and DDB are helping realise this dream for two Kiwi kids through a competition where young entrants upload YouTube videos of themselves reviewing their own toys. Two will be selected as official toy testers.

Earlier this year, Speight’s introduced Kiwis to Little Henry, the not-so-little Kiwi bloke who gathered his friends together to build a glorious shed featuring masculine decor, a dartboard and pull-out barbecue. This ad no doubt created envy in the hearts of many loyal Speight’s drinkers and the brand has now responded by launching an online competition that will give ten* lucky Kiwis a similarly legendary shed.

The marketing world is keen on vending machine stunts, with stunts allowing them to accept everything from hugs to Canadian passports to piano playing to motionlessness (this trend was skewered nicely by Taxi). Now, in an effort to tackle pollution, Volkswagen has created one that accepts batteries instead of currency in Russia.

Greenpeace Australia has teamed up with DDB’s Andy Fackrell for a campaign called ‘The Meal of Fortune’, which aims to draw attention to the lack of fish labelling laws in Australia by reminding viewers how little they know about where their fish is sourced from.

After its last successful campaign, DDB has again teamed up with Paw Justice launching a campaign yesterday that aims to push sites such as Trade Me into incorporating regulations to stop puppy milling. As part of the campaign dubbed ‘Don’t Trade Me’, the agency and the not-for-profit listed auctions on Trade Me selling advertisements to support the campaign, and all of the ads sold out within the first five hours.