As media agencies strive to reinvent themselves, FCB Media’s Rufus Chuter says they need to remember the unspoken power of brand behaviour—and their role in brand building.
Given the insight that Kiwi worker down their tools at 3.29 every Friday, at this time on 12 September FCB created a radio roadblock by playing Mitre 10’s ‘Bring on the Weekend’ song across six stations. And this creative—if somewhat unconventional approach—has now resulted in the agency winning an Orca award for the month of September.
After eight-and-a-half years at FCB Media—and “too long to remember working in media agencies”—managing director Derek Lindsay has decided he’s achieved all he can with the agency and is off to seek out new challenges.
Last year, FCB introduced the line ‘No More Beersies’ to the Kiwi vernacular via its ‘Say Yeah, Nah’ campaign for the Health Promotion Agency (HPA), and it became a ubiquitous catchphrase in weekly conversations. Now, just over a year later, the agency has carried the beersies line into a follow-on campaign that borrows from the tropes of beer advertising to reinvent the humble glass of water. In each of the clips, the pouring of a glass of water is accompanied by the stereotypically deep voice of a beer advert narrator, who over 30 tongue-in-cheek seconds draws attention to the crisp goodness of a simple glass of H2O. PLUS: we look at whether the ‘Say Yeah, Nah’ campaign was effective.
FCB New Zealand’s work for the National Depression Initiative has won plenty of industry accolades. And it’s now won one of the rarest: a gold and best international prize at the prestigious IPA Effectiveness Awards in the UK.
Last night, at a sold out event hosted at the Langham, FCB was crowned New Zealand’s most effective agency at the 2014 Effie Awards. And it wasn’t even a close race. With its tally of 94 points, FCB was convincingly ahead of Saatchi & Saatchi in second place on 54 points and Colenso BBDO/Proximity New Zealand in third on 52 points.
As part of our series with the One Percent Collective that’s dedicated to celebrating good work and inspiring a bit more generosity, David Thomason, FCB’s head of planning, lavishes praise on NZTA and Clemenger BBDO’s ‘Mistakes’.
There’s so much talk about innovation today and at Spikes Asia held in Singapore last week, innovation and technology were overwhelming seminar themes, says FCB’s James Mok. But what is the relationship between innovation and creativity? And is innovation always creative? What should come first?
DDB New Zealand has had a few good account wins recently, including Icebreaker and the Auckland Council. And it did pretty well at Spikes Asia over the weekend too, winning enough trophies to be placed second in the agency of the year category behind Dentsu Tokyo.
A glut of goodness this week from New World, Contact, Samsung, Vodafone, Spark and Rebel Sport.
Kiwi agencies have once again pulled in a decent haul of silverware on the international awards circuit, with the latest tally of gongs coming from the prestigious Clio Awards. And although the New Zealand contingent missed out on picking up a Grand Clio, NZTA’s ‘Mistakes’ campaign picked up two golds. The first of these awards went to Clemenger BBDO in the film category, while the second was awarded to Finch in the film technique category. PLUS: see which other agencies picked up awards. Updated with Clio Healthcare results.
Marketing gets a pretty bad rap from the general public for the sophisticated tricks it uses to influence behaviour in the quest for profit. But the Ministry of Health and Health Promotion Agency’s National Depression Initiative campaign by FCB is a prime example of the power of marketing to do good. And the campaign, which covers the period from 2010 to 2013, has just been shortlisted for the coveted IPA Effectiveness Awards, the first time since 1994 that a Kiwi campaign has earned that accolade.
After more than 170 preliminary judges and 60 category judges pored over the entries for the 2014 Effie Awards, 113 of them have made the finalist list, with FCB New Zealand topping the charts on 23, Colenso BBDO/Proximity New Zealand on 18, DDB and Saatchi & Saatchi on 11 and Ogilvy & Mather on ten.
An outgunned rooster, committed skaters and a big sporting supporter take the prize this week.
Mitre 10 has been trying to convince Kiwis that DIY is in their DNA for a few years now, and, following on from the clever ‘Easy As’ campaign, which aimed to inspire Kiwis to pick up the tools by teaching them a few DIY tricks on YouTube, it released a new campaign that hopes to further enhance the store’s position as a Mecca for the nation’s weekend warriors.
Axis gongs, client wins and the quality of campaigns usually define competition in the creative advertising industry. But every year, for one night, none of that matters, as the agencies take to the stage and vie for the greatest honour of them all: the Battle of the Ad Bands (BOTAB) title. This year was no different. A total of 550 fans converged at the Kings Arms to watch the madness unfold as Pegasus and The Job Numbers (Colenso BBDO), The Gypsy Thieves (DDB), The OG Villains (Ogilvy & Mather), The Expendables 5 (Sugar & Partners and String Theory), Foote Cone (FCB), Dooya (WhybinTBWA/DAN), Building 7 (Flying Fish) and The Chased (OMD) took a moment away from their day jobs to slap the bass in front of three judges.
Microsoft Surface New Zealand is jumping aboard the street art wagon, collaborating with FCB and renowned Kiwi street artists BMD to produce a bromance-y video showing the creative possibilities of the Surface Pro 3. The video kicks off a “purely social” campaign to be rolled out over the coming three months.
Bikers, robots and solitary actors star for Hallenstein Brothers, ASB and Noel Leeming in this week’s edition.
Noel Leeming has invested roughly $5 million into revamping its offering in a move that will see the company’s 77 stores emblazoned with a new logo and reconfigured to reflect some key changes. To announce the repositioning of the brand in the market, Noel Leeming has released a series of three TVCs that have come as a pleasant addition to a category that is usually inundated with shouty advertising focused on sales and products.
A tip of the trucker cap to Pak ‘n Save, V Energy and Action on Smoking and Health.
Advertising has a long history of animal anthropomorphism. And as part of its ongoing marketing campaign around the idea of change, FCB has tapped into that heritage by launching a mad ad featuring a singing sheep.
Coca-Cola’s new campaign by Ogilvy & Mather NZ is, like some of its recent international efforts, less about fizzy brown liquid making people happy and more about people making people happy, with its ‘Make Someone Happy’ campaign featuring a guy who installs swings around the place for anyone to use, and a girl who chalks up hopscotch drawings on the pavement.
FCB’s ad for Air New Zealand’s new seating options blew “most of our norms out of the water”, says Harriet Dixon, account director at Colmar Brunton. The ad has stolen the Ad Impact Award for June.
Vodafone has dug into the annals of recent pop culture and emerged with what is often referred to as the worst song ever made, Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’. And rather than keeping the nauseatingly catchy tune restricted to a private boardroom listen between the marketing managers, the telco has decided to unleash a cover of it through a new TVC by FCB.
After a few seasons with MediaWorks, Sky managed to grab the rights to one of the best shows on television, Modern Family. And to promote the launch of the politically incorrect show on its free-to-air station Prime, FCB has created a Facebook app that claims to detect favourite children.
ASB, McDonald’s and a double from Air New Zealand lift the cup this week.
Y&R NZ has picked up where FCB left off by launching its first campaign for What’sMyNumber.org.nz since winning the Electricity Authority account after a competitive tender earlier this year. The new campaign, unveiled over the weekend, features a series of of people in torturous work-based scenarios and aims to remind Kiwis of what they endure in order to earn their salaries.
Mercury Energy has confirmed via a release that it has selected FCB as its integrated partner across media, creative, digital and direct. In May, when StopPress first reported on the Mercury Energy pitch, it was thought several agencies—including FCB, DDB-owned RAPP, Contagion and Chemistry Interaction—were simply vying for the energy company’s direct business, but this announcement confirms that FCB’s win includes both above- and below-the-line aspects.
