It’s nearly time for this year’s Beacon Awards and CAANZ has announced the finalists, with FCB Media once again leading the pack by a decent margin, followed by OMD NZ and Y&R Media.
The New Zealand Transport Agency has launched a new campaign via Clemenger BBDO and OMD dubbed ‘Hello’, which aims to get young drivers to put down their phones and see things from the perspective of their passengers.
There’s no shortage of international experts being flown in to New Zealand to spread their wisdom to us New Zealand savages. But very few of them are as interesting and energetic as Faris Yakob, a dreadlocked ‘advertising philosopher’, author of Paid Attention and co-founder of Genius Steals. He was brought out by OMD to speak at its annual conference. So Ben Fahy sat down for a wide-ranging discussion about everything from the myth of originality to the fallacy of the impression to the musings of David Foster Wallace.
Colenso BBDO, OMD and DDB have come away as the big category winners at the Campaign Asia Pacific Awards, which have since 1994 been celebrating the standout talent in the industry.
While yesterday’s announcement by the nation’s big four publishers about the creation of a joint ad exchange has largely been welcomed by the industry as positive move that could, if effective, serve to keep a bigger chunk of ad spend in the local market rather than feeding it into the international exchanges, it has also raised a few questions that will need to be answered as it comes into effect. We chat to the big brains at Countdown, Pak ‘n Save, OMD, VivaKi, Acquire Online, ANZA, Bauer and TVNZ about this move.
Dulux has harnessed the power of the MythBusters for its latest campaign through OMD to prove whether or not Dulux’s new ‘Wash&Wear’ paint is up to scratch in four new TVCs.
On a dark and windy night, six advertising-employed goth bands slithered into the King’s Arms, fishnets, face powder, bad eyeliner and all, to pay homage to the likes of 1980’s goth bands The Cure, The Cramps and movement-starters Bauhaus. And despite straying from the theme and playing songs which you couldn’t really call gothic, Colenso BBDO aka Pegasus and the Job Numbers were crowned the winner of this year’s Battle of the Ad Bands organised by CAANZ and Flying Fish, after a polished and upbeat set that wooed the crowd and judges alike.
Industry happenings at eStar, OMD, Zyber, Aamplify and Nielsen.
Kiwibank has released a new campaign with Assignment Group and OMD for its Kiwi Wealth KiwiSaver product which targets women, and to get their attention it has channelled the Magic Mike XXL frenzy creating a special instalment ‘Indepen-dance’ videos to screen in cinemas nationwide before the film.
Education New Zealand has released a new campaign to raise the country’s profile as a great study destination through an online competition where international students may enter for the chance to have a friend or family member flown over for a 10-day study adventure.
The ‘Pepsi ON’ campaign by OMD took out the Grand Prix crown in the latest edition of the biannual Yahoo New Zealand Digital Strategy Awards, which recognises and rewards smart digital thinking.
Industry happenings at MPA, MediaWorks, OMD, CAANZ, The Pond and Unity Films.
Changes at NZME, Bauer, TVNZ, Omnicom Media Group, bFM and The Breeze.
We asked some stalwarts a simple question. Here’s what Andrew Reinholds, managing partner at OMD, had to say.
Standing outside Wellington’s Te Papa Museum is a cargo container tagged with warnings of the prehistoric live cargo carried within. And in the event that skeptics doubt the veracity of these cautions, the growl that comes from within serves to quickly convince them that something terrifying is concealed behind the corrugated iron. This quirky outdoor installation forms only part of the multi-faceted campaign that Te Papa Museum has rolled out over the past few months in an effort to encourge families to purchase tickets for ‘Tyrannosaurus: Meet the Family’, an exhibition that showcases the period when reptiles reigned supreme.
StopPress recently ran a story on how BuzzFeed is making moves in the Australasian market. And while most of the list-making juggernaut’s activities are focused on the other side of the ditch, Kiwi businesses are also starting to experiment with the company’s unique brand of native advertising, which holds such reverence for the power of the .gif. We look at what Sky and the NZTA are doing in this space.
Changes at OMD, MediaWorks, Grace, Designworks and Ambient Group.
Nigel Latta’s recent programme about the evils of sugar certainly got Kiwis talking. And the food industry—and the marketing tactics it employs—came in for plenty of criticism, with sugary drinks given the hardest time. When you see footage of two-year-old children having their teeth removed because their parents put fizzy drink in their sipper bottles, it certainly makes it tough to celebrate marketing campaigns that help sell more of the stuff, but, as Peter Cullinane says, ‘if it’s legal to sell, it’s legal to advertise’, so here’s to OMD New Zealand and Frucor, which have taken out Yahoo New Zealand’s Digital Strategy Award for the Pepsi On project.
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.
Roadshow Films has brought an ominous tremble to Kiwis’ smartphones with the launch of the mobile trailer of Into the Storm, the disaster film set to hit Kiwi cinemas on 4 September. The campaign, which has been running since 19 August and was pulled together by Snakk Media, takes over users’ smartphones by simulating a storm when certain websites are accessed.
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.
In the middle of last year, a new force officially arrived on the local automotive scene, with Fiat Chrysler NZ claiming it would soon be in the country’s top ten advertisers. And it has appointed OMD Auckland as its new strategic communications and media buying agency in New Zealand.
The first-ever Beacon Awards took place last night at the Viaduct Events Centre in front of a capacity crowd, and it was FCB Media that got by far the most exercise, with independent MBM winning agency of the year, MediaWorks TV winning media brand of the year, Maritime New Zealand taking client of the year and Nielsen’s Claire Harris accepting the inspiring individual award.
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.
In an industry renowned for its chopping and changing, there aren’t too many agency/client relationships that can claim to have lasted 20 years. But Sky and DDB have found their happy place and they’re breaking out the china to celebrate one of the country’s longest-running—and most successful—unions.
Football fever (and football-related advertising fever) is ramping up as Brazil gets ready to host the World Cup in June. And there was a bit of fancy footwork in New Zealand last week when a selection of Auckland agencies put down their iPhones and laced up for the inaugural CAANZ soccer tournament. Plus: agencies also skive off to play basketball for TRN’s 3 on 3.
FCB Media, OMD, SparkPHD and Mediacom have taken a large number of finalist placings in the CAANZ Beacon awards, for which winners will be awarded on 1 May. Mediaworks, TVNZ and iSite Media are in the running for the Media Brand of the Year.
In December last year, it was reported that OMD and MediaCom were involved in a pitching tussle for the Fonterra media account. And now, after several months of speculation as to where the account would go, the dairy producer has confirmed that MediaCom has won the pitch. Updated with information on the duration of OMD’s hold on the account.
