OMD general manager Zac Stephenson has left the agency to take over the reins at Ikon.
Browsing: Ikon
After taking over Tower Medical Insurance in late 2012, Nib launched into the New Zealand market in October last year with short-lived rugby convert Benji Marshall fronting the campaign. But now, just like the Blues, it has put him on the bench and released a new brand campaign that celebrates the joy of being human—and shows the need for adequate protection. Plus: a look at the launch of another overseas insurance company, Youi.
In May, New Zealand Post and its subsidiary Kiwibank announced that they would merge their media accounts and appoint a single agency to take care of the media side of the business. This announcement came with the consequence that at least one of the long-time account holders for the respective businesses—Ikon (Kiwibank) and Starcom (NZ Post)—would lose its account. And now, after a pitching process, Kiwibank’s head of marketing communications and content Regan Savage has confirmed that OMD has won the account, leaving both incumbents’ ledgers a little barer.
Jetstar has been doing its darndest to shift perceptions among some Kiwis travellers that the low-cost airline is cheap for a reason, with its last campaign offering $24,000 worth of flight vouchers and drawing attention to the fact that, despite a reputation for unreliability, it was named New Zealand’s most punctual domestic airline in 2013. And it’s backing itself once again, offering a $25 voucher to all passengers if a domestic flight during the next eight days arrives more than ten minutes later than scheduled.
Forget the rowing world cup, forget the basketball world cup; the real action last week was at Yahoo’s Dodgeball Keg Cup. Eight agencies competed in the tournament for the honour of winning the moderately prestigious Keg Cup and the highly coveted 50-litre keg of beer.
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.
New Zealand Post and its in-house subsidiary Kiwibank have announced plans to bring their media accounts together, and several agencies are currently involved in a pitch for the new combined account.
For the first time in the three-year history of the competition, Kiwi and Aussie entrants went head to head as they vied to be selected as one of Yahoo’s Digital Stars. And while our neighbours across the ditch dominated proceedings by taking seven of the nine available spots, employees from two Kiwi agencies placed among the winners. Ikon’s communications planner Meei Chai and OMD Wellington’s senior digital planner Will Innes were both singled out at the competition, which recognise the best up-and-coming talent in the media agency arena.
Spilt rabbit, self-deprecation and schadenfreude catch our attention this week.
In late November last year, Ikon restructuring led to the rather unexpected ousting of then-managing partners Lee Parkinson and Tom Davidson. And now, fewer than two months later, the pair has announced the launch of a new agency called The Family.
Ikon, which recently added the 2degrees account to a client portfolio that includes the likes of Coca-Cola New Zealand, Kiwi Bank, L&P, Mercury Energy and Trademe, announced that it has decided to restructure its offering, and as a result both managing partner roles have been made redundant.
Carat recently had to say goodbye to 2degrees after Ikon won the business in a pitch. But it’s made up for that loss with the recent addition of Dick Smith to the client roster.
Ikon Communications has won 2degrees as a client, snatching the number three telco away from its previous partner Carat.
There were plenty of naysayers when Kiwibank was launched, but, after ten years, few would argue it has done a stellar job of facing up the big Australian-owned banks on the personal banking front (it announced a tripling of profits recently and now has around ten percent of the retail market). But now it’s aiming to bump up its business banking credentials with a campaign by Ogilvy and Ikon that aims to demonstrate how the bank can save SMEs time and money and let them get on with running their businesses.
Switching banks is such a hassle almost nobody bothers. But by triggering change to the system and then creating a category-breaking campaign to let everyone know how easy it was to do it, new customers came flooding in to Kiwibank.
In September last year, Coca-Cola Australia put people’s names on its cans and bottles for the first time in the company’s history. The campaign won loads of gongs at Cannes and its global marketing chief Joseph Tripodi said the idea would be exported to other markets. Now New Zealand is getting the personal treatment, with 150 of the country’s most popular names being put on millions of Coca-Cola bottles and cans “to remind and inspire people to connect”.