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.
The IHC shows some every day inspiration, Gravity goes on an international adventure, Lindauer turns on the waterworks, Fly Buys ventures into the wild, Flip assumes the juxtaposition, and Kleenex dresses itself up.
The shots were downed at the door, the undies went flying onto the stage regularly and the screams were deafening last night as seven bands came together and rocked the hell out of the King’s Arms for the fifth annual Battle of the Ad Bands, a night that some jokingly—or not so jokingly—call the most important in advertising. And after being there or thereabouts in previous years, the worthy rock gods and goddess in Barnes, Catmur & Friend’s Friends Electric finally took the top prize, prying it from the cold dead hands of TBWA\, which had won it for the past two years but didn’t feature in this year’s festivities.
Two winning campaigns from the same agency fold this month, with Ogilvy Wellington’s Nigel Richardson & Steve Cooper scaring the bejesus out of the judges—James Mok and Regan Grafton from DraftFCB, Phil Yule from Voicebox and Kate Humphries from Media Design School—with their Consumer NZ campaign ‘Appliance Nightmares’ and Adam Barnes & James O’Sullivan taking the merit for their KFC ‘Facebook/Double Down’ campaign, which was written at Ogilvy just before they popped over to join DDB.
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”.
As the bean counters might say, if advertising doesn’t improve the bottom line, it’s really just art. And expensive art at that. And the agencies that improved their clients’ businesses the most this year have been announced, with perennial Effie performers Colenso BBDO and DraftFCB on top with 22 and 16 finalists respectively, followed by the bolter Barnes, Catmur & Friends on ten and DDB on nine.
If the last two rounds of the ORCAs are anything to go by, making the move from one agency to another bodes well for an ORCA win. Last month Clemenger BBDO’s Jon Pickersgill and Sarah Jackson picked up an ORCA just before they headed across the ditch to Sapient Nitro in Brisbane, and the July round has been won by Matt Williams and Freddie Coltart for a campaign they created just before they left Ogilvy for Draft FCB.
‘And’ is by no means the sexiest or most attention-grabbing word in the dictionary. But Ogilvy Wellington’s clever and repetitious use of the word in a print ad for Open Polytechnic has garnered it the top spot in July’s round of the Glossies.
Kleenex’s Paper Dresses campaign has been plodding along nicely since 2009, showing just how dextrous Kiwi fashion students can be with masses of toilet paper. This years campaign, however, has upped the ante with a concerted effort to bring the promotion further into the mainstream, thanks to a collaborative effort between Ogilvy, Kimberly-Clark and TVNZ that seeks to directly engage, and interact with, the public over the course of nine months.
Yahoo! New Zealand’s inaugural Digital Stars Awards have been on the hunt for the country’s best emerging digital media talent and, after scrutinising 18 savvy entries, the list has been narrowed down and the five finalists revealed, representing a decent cross-section of Kiwi agencies.
As is often the case in the advertising biz, losing big clients usually means losing staff. And after Sugar decided not to go back for a BNZ booty call, managing director Jeremy Johnston says it has said goodbye to approximately four full-time equivalents over the past few months. But now that the “recalibration” is complete, he says the newly restructured business is on the upward trajectory, as evidenced by the arrival of ex-Ogilvy executive creative director Damon O’Leary, who has joined as creative partner.
Having recently departed his executive creative director role at JWT Sydney to return to New Zealand, Angus Hennah has joined a different member of the WPP family and taken the role of executive creative director at Ogilvy.
When Ogilvy launched Kiwibank’s tenth birthday ad a few months back, we said: “Wait for the moaners to see the kid jumping off the rock”. And whaddya know, the haters hated, the moaners moaned, and, in its latest round of decisions, a complaint was partially upheld, with a majority of the ASA complaints board finding the ad had “not been prepared with the due sense of responsibility to consumers and to society”.
Kiwis have quite the penchant for running and even in the colder months it’s not uncommon to see many a dedicated runner pounding the Winter pavement. But while it’s all too easy to snigger as you drive past in your heated car whilst stuffing a bag of chips down your throat, Powerade is hoping to lure in these avid runners with its Powerade Challenge after a successful debut of the event last year saw over 2000 runners take part.
Ogilvy’s Adam Barnes and Hywel James have taken out the March/April round of the new ORCA year after judges Karl Fleet (Campaign Palace), Lachlan McPherson (Publicis Mojo), Harriet Crampton (The Radio Network) and Chris Schofield (DDB) chose their KFC ads ‘Poor Old $5’ and ‘Ginga Note’ as the best of the bunch.
The Shopping Channel announced its arrival last week, and dropped a few hints about the industry bigwig that would be running the ship. Seven days later and it has been confirmed that Alistair Duff, currently TVNZ’s general manager of media sales, will be the network’s chief executive.
Ogilvy has retained the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority account, beating out regular Wellington combatants Saatchi & Saatchi and Clemenger BBDO for the spoils.
When Kiwibank was launched in 2002, there were plenty of doubters. But, according to its new website, 804,221 customers have signed up to the bank in its first ten years and to celebrate the milestone it’s launched a new campaign featuring a few other adventurous and industrious Kiwi ten-year-olds.
We heard a dirty little rumour yesterday that recruitment companies were on the loose looking to place some of Ogilvy’s digital staff because its entire inhouse development team had been shut down. This got the spidey senses tingling, so we had a chat with executive director Paul Manning, who called BS on it and, slightly ironically, took the opportunity to announce the addition of experienced digital creative director Andrew Berglund to the team.
AA Insurance has said adios to Ogilvy and appointed Special Group and direct and digital specialists Twenty following a competitive RFP and a rigorous two month pitch process.
Last year, Ogilvy was awarded the contract for the Auckland Tourism, Transport and Economic Development’s (ATEED’s) Rugby World Cup campaign and positioning the Big Little Super City as the host was a huge, multi-million dollar, multi-headed initiative. But now the dust has settled on that, the organisation is getting back to basics and has appointed Big, Barnes, Catmur & Friends and 4i’s on a roster basis.
.99 hasn’t had a particularly good run of it recently, after handing the keys to both Air New Zealand and Vodafone over to DraftFCB. But we thought we spied a glimmer of light when we saw this leap year-related billboard for BP.
After a one-year stint as executive director at Ogilvy, former National Party president and PR recruiter Michelle Boag has kicked off her newest venture, a strategic communications company with Cedric Allan, a former national president of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand, and Andrew Pirie, who worked as the strategic communications advisor for Auckland Airport and spent more than a decade overseas as the Asia Pacific head for global PR firm Weber Shandwick.
DraftFCB was told it had won the Vodafone account on Friday afternoon. And as if that wasn’t enough good news for one day, it also won the Grand Prix at the RSVP and Nexus Awards that night for the Electricity Authority’s What’s My Number? campaign.
“The review will be completed by mid-October 2011.” Those were the words used in a statement sent by Vodafone in late July last year after it decided to shift from its agency of four years Colenso and move the troops up the road to .99 during the RFP process. Now, almost seven months later, and after a pitch was held in December, no decision has been made. So what gives?
Special Group duo Kim Fraser and Sarah Frizzell took the combined Dec/Jan ORCA with their ’91 Days of Summer’ campaign for Streets Ice Cream. They made 91 different ads, turning each day of summer into a national day. “December 4. National Weta Freak Out Day. Nothing says summer like a weta under that thing you just picked up. Is it a giant insect or a tiny brown crayfish? Doesn’t matter, your boyfriend still needs to man up, and grab a glass and a piece of cardboard.”
Last year the marcomms industry rallied for DDB’s Pip Mills, who was diagnosed with melanoma. And now it’s banding together to help Tom Wells and his family. And you can help.
Shopper marketing and retail activation is still in its infancy in New Zealand, but, given some figures show up to two thirds of purchasing decisions are made instore, things are starting to heat up. And Ogilvy New Zealand, which already has a solid presence in this space with connections to the Greg Partington-owned instore media company Hypermedia and product demonstration company Demoworks, is aiming to tap into this growth area by bringing these entities under one name and launching a new local office called OgilvyAction. And, in its first month of existence, it has already won the New Zealand Pork account in a competitive five-way pitch.
It was not without a sigh and a grunt that agencies with relaxation on their minds received a notice from the Treasury on December 15 asking for interested parties to put their hands up if they wanted to work on the ‘extension of the mixed ownership model’ account. They obviously don’t know Christmas is a time of reflection for the marcomms industry. But it seems the biggest live pitch at the moment (aside from the decision on Vodafone, which is still thought to be in the hands of the global bods), is now down to the shortlist stage.
Just before the RWC began, Sonny Bill Williams’ management kicked up a bit of a stink when the NZRU decreed that he wasn’t allowed to sign a sponsorship deal with a drinks company considered to be a rival to official All Blacks sponsor Coca-Cola. It turned out he should have been thankful for the denial, because the interested suitor, South Pacific Beverages, used actor Ben Barrington to front one of the biggest turkeys of the year for its Pure Energy brand and Coca-Cola then decided to sign up the man mountain themselves (for an undisclosed sum, of course) as an official ambassador to help launch its new fizzy 300ml Powerade Fuel+, which aims to snatch a share of the energy drink market.