CAANZ chief executive Paul Head this morning announced that Simon Lendrum, managing director of JWT New Zealand, has been elected to the position of CAANZ president, which was vacated by DDB’s Sandy Moore after his recent resignation.
If the results coming in from the international awards shows are anything go by, then New Zealand clearly enjoyed a strong year in terms of creativity in 2013. In addition to winning several nominations toward Yellow Pencils at the D&AD Awards, Kiwi agencies also appeared consistently across most categories at the 35th edition of the AWARD Awards, which are held annually to honour the best creative communications work in the Asia Pacific region.
It was a case of the usual suspects with last week’s announcement of the D&AD Awards nominations, as most of the recent winners at the Axis Awards were also honoured with nominations for the international show. At past events, New Zealand has confirmed itself as a creative hub, and this year’s shortlist of nominees served to reiterate this point. Here’s a breakdown of who’s in contention for the coveted Yellow Pencil awards.
Sky’s fairly firm grip on sports broadcasting in New Zealand is one of the major reasons for its continuing success. And a new initiative called Sky Next is aiming to give some of that success back to help 18 of the country’s emerging athletes get to the top. Plus: DDB and The Sweet Shop offer a glimpse at the life of an athlete.
At last year’s Moas, the motion picture Shopping picked up seven awards, making it the biggest winner of the night. And now, to promote the television premiere of the film on Sky’s Rialto channel, DDB launched an auction-based campaign with a humanitarian twist.
Charity auctions, health programmes and beer-funded documentaries get a 21 gun salute this week.
A high five this week, with Stihl, Tower, Treasury, 2degrees and Woodstock tickling our extremely ticklish fancies.
The sibling rivalry, cruelty and dastardly power (tool) games seen in Stihl and DDB’s advertising first kicked off in 2009 with ‘Bequeathed’ and returned a few years later with ‘Mercy Dash’. And now the brothers are back in another campaign that asks Kiwis a difficult question: in a raging barn fire, would you save your cherished chainsaw or a cute little lamb?
Only a week after leaving the Axis Awards with the Production Company of the Year gong for the third year in a row, The Sweet Shop has now been announced as the most-awarded production company in the Asia Pacific region in the 2013 edition of the Gunn Report.
DDB’s Hadyn Kerr shares five observations about day three at SXSW 2014.
Moves and shakes at Carat, DDB, Cannes Lions, 3rdeye, Dow Design, WOW, Pfizer and Word of Mouth.
While Clemenger BBDO’s ‘Blazed’ campaign and Colenso BBDO/Proximity’s Smartphone Line stole much of the attention at last night’s Axis Awards, the magazine category showed that the Kiwi creative streak still extends to print.
Last night’s Axis Awards, hosted by Newstalk ZB’s Andrew Dickens at the Viaduct events centre, delivered a plush showcase of the country’s best creative talent for the 34th year in a row. The theme for this year’s edition was ‘share the love,’ and this was certainly a sentiment that all 800 people in attendance embraced as smiles around the room were as ubiquitous as celebratory drinks. Here’s a rundown of how the event went.
Changes at DDB, Carat, ASB, Snakk, Nielsen, Auckland Airport, Darkhorse and Provoke.
The tenth and final Axis love letter has been released ahead of the show on March 6, and it’s another doozy, with DDB’s Mark Lorrigan harnessing the immense power of song to showcase his intense and probably illegal devotion to Y&R in ‘It ain’t stalking if I love you’.
The creative oneupmanship is in full effect for the Axis ‘Share the Love’ campaign, with some very entertaining inter-agency love letters being sent. And the penultimate clip from Y&R, which takes a leaf out of Jimmy Kimmel’s Celebrities Read Mean Tweets by getting DDB staff to read mean blog posts about their work—followed by some nice ones at the end—has just been released.
Using the premise that the high five is the veritable Rosetta stone of celebratory language, DDB’s new Lotto NZ ad takes a likeable Kiwi Everyman on an international journey, during which he only speaks in palm slaps.
The creative love may have been shared in the call for entries campaign, but now the creative competition begins, because the 2014 Axis finalists have been announced and Colenso BBDO/Proximity is in a familiar position atop the list with 56 nods, followed closely by DraftFCB on 54, DDB on 37 and Saatchi & Saatchi on 30. Plus: Clemenger BBDO’s new Axis logo.
Sky, Vend and TVNZ each leave a memorable imprint on another week in adland.
Sky launched Sky Go, the long-awaited update to its online and catch-up service iSky, in October last year. And, after a fair bit of social media activity to promote the new website and mobile apps, it’s now launched a print and TV campaign via DDB that shows how easy—and potentially perilous—it is for subscribers to ‘Watch On’.
Father Time was shown begrudgingly accepting his obsolescence in the face of MySky technology last year. And he’s back in two new spots by DDB NZ and Exit Films that show he’s still enjoying its time-shifting power.
It was a year of light and shade for DDB NZ. In the plus column, it took the no. 1 ranking at Spikes Asia, won more Cannes Lions than ever, was named the Campaign Asia Agency of the Year, won most effective agency at the Effies for the second year in a row, welcomed new clients BMW/Mini, Speights and Telecom (through Dynamo) and made some fairly big changes to the executive structure as Sandy Moore stepped back and Chris Riley stepped in. On the other side of the equation, it was forced to let a few staff go late in the year after losing VW and George Weston Foods to Colenso BBDO and it’s currently seeking a new ECD after Andy Fackrell took up a regional role in Australia. Here’s managing director Justin Mowday stoking a few coals.
In November, when Volkswagen and George Weston Foods departed DDB for Colenso BBDO, it seemed as though the Auckland-based agency was headed for a subdued Christmas party. But only a matter of weeks later, DDB managed to pull a pair of rabbits out of its hat by adding BMW and Speight’s to the ledger. These two wins capped off an award-filled year, which saw the agency’s planning director, Lucinda Sherborne, walk away with the Austrailia/New Zealand Planner of the Year Award at the Campaign Asia Agency of the Year Awards. And now it’s over to her for some insights on a year of contrasts for the agency.
Mango Communications got Kiwis on their side in 2013 with the ‘Freedom Friday’ campaign that encouraged Kiwis to reduce the work week. But the year wasn’t all about fun in the Bay of Islands sun. It also had a busy year working with a range of clients—around 25 percent of which are aligned to DDB—and helped deal with some big changes to the DDB’s executive team (it also farewelled Bob Glancy for a life in literature). Mango’s managing director and CAANZ marcomms leadership group member Claudia Macdonald reflects on the year and divines on what the future might hold.
It’s been a busy end-of-year for DDB NZ, with some big losses and a few big wins. And it’s got some more news to share because executive creative director Andy Fackrell has decided to take up a new role within the DDB Group as regional creative director for Asia Pacific and will move to Sydney in the new year.
Only a few weeks after suffering dual account losses, DDB seems to have turned things around and it looks as though the agency will be ending the year on a high. In addition to recently returning to the driver’s seat by winning the BMW/Mini account, DDB has been announced as New Zealand’s leading creative agency for 2013 at the annual Campaign Asia Agency of the Year Awards. PLUS: there are rumours that the agency will be toasting with a Speight’s in-hand at the end of the year.
Inanimate objects often seem to be having quite a lot of fun. And now Lotto and DDB have anthropomorphised some of those weird inflatable tube people that used car salesmen often put outside their yards to show what it might feel like if you won the Christmas Triple Dip.
