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.
Changes at MediaWorks Radio, Saatchi & Saatchi, GrabOne, Reckitt-Benckiser, Pfizer, The Pond, Bauer, Thick as Thieves and Marine Vouchers.
Changes at Saatchi & Saatchi, Tourism Malaysia, Fairfax, The Edge and Hanmer Springs, new business for Sputnik and Pead PR, Fonterra’s rumoured new sponsorship, RIP Richard Clark, kudos for Belowtheline and Award School returns.
In New Zealand, Duracell clutched at straws with its follow-up to the All Blacks sponsorship launch ad by saying “when the All Blacks want to play at their best, there is only one battery they trust”. But in the US, Duracell and Saatchi & Saatchi have taken a more realistic and much more inspiring approach for its latest sponsorship push by telling the story of Derrick Cole, the first legally deaf player to be part of an NFL offense.
Judging by the prevalence of orange T-shirts at the recent T20 match between the West Indies and the Black Caps, it’s clear that cricket fans are very keen to get their hands (or hand) on one of 12 cash prizes of $100,000 that Tui is giving to spectators who make a one-handed catch while at the West Indian and Indian T20 and ODI games during the 2013/14 season.
Saatchi & Saatchi has been steadily regaining its confidence under Nicky Bell, Antonio Navas and Murray Streets. And while Brian Blessed was quietly put out to pasture and its Telecom business continues to be chipped away, it did catch plenty of eyeballs with Tui’s Beer plumber stunt and took out our TVC of the Year for Toyota’s ‘Feels Good Inside’. Plus, as Colenso BBDO’s Axis love letter shows, taxi drivers still think the agency is synonymous with advertising. Creative directors Guy Roberts and Corey Chalmers spill their beans all over 2013.
Saatchi & Saatchi, Blacksand and Trade Tested clink eggnog glasses in the last round of 2013.
In an effort to provide images that resonate more strongly with an increasingly diversified market, Getty Images has launched Curve Visual Trends, a series of insights that takes note of how advertising is stepping out of set moulds to celebrate people irrespective of their ethnicity, body type, age, sexual orientation or gender.
The bar for call for entries campaigns has risen significantly in recent years, with the likes of DraftFCB’s ‘The real judge of advertising is the consumer’ campaign for the 2011 Effies and TBWA\’s ‘Results Don’t Lie’ effort this year standing out. And there are a couple more good ones bubbling away at the moment for the Axis Awards and the newly rejigged Beacon Awards.
Prime TV and DraftFCB have taken out the November round of News Works Newspaper Ad of the Month for ‘Dish—Doctor Who Moon Bounce’, while DB and Saatchi & Saatchi took a highly commended for their Big Boys Toys Tui Breweries Lager voucher.
Saatchi & Saatchi’s crowd-sourced action shots, Cirkus’ fantastical motorbike mission, Kiwibank’s take on box living and safe.org.nz’s star studded PSA wear the crown this week.
On 17 November, Saatchi & Saatchi NZ and Coca Cola Amatil (NZ) launched Pump’s ‘grab life by the bottle’ TVC, which showcased a host of Kiwis having a good time with a Pump bottle in hand. PLUS: read how adventurous Kiwis can send in entries to become part of the next commercial.
After taking out last year’s best ad at the Fair Go Ad Awards for ‘Tight on Tour’, MasterCard backed it up last night for the follow-up, ‘Wedding’. And, at the other end of the spectrum, ASB and Saatchi & Saatchi’s bearded bellower Brian Blessed took the booby prize for ‘No biggy. Yes Biggy!’
Russell Browne heads to Brazil, Angela Spain gets some Asia-Pacific props, Veitch subs in for Deaks, Brent Smart moves up the Saatchi chain, 3rd Eye adds twins, Otago University students impress at Australian Planning Idol and Kenexa names New Zealand’s top workplaces.
The creatives at Saatchi & Saatchi NZ are stretching the beer-plumbing theme with a competition that gives entrants the chance to win a beer-plumbing addition to their homes. PLUS: more Tui pranks to follow.
It’s lemon, Kiwis, but not as we know it. Saatchi & Saatchi has given the drink brand made famous with a giant bottle in Paeroa a twist by showing a new side that’s more fierce than fruity.
An emotionally charged Duracell, a retro Tip Top and a modern Kiwirail get the nod this week.
The NZRU is openly hunting for new international partners in an effort to squeeze as much value out the national team as possible. Main jersey sponsor AIG was a big scalp, and it’s used that platform quite well. And now it’s added Proctor & Gamble’s Duracell brand to the list of All Black sponsors, launching the partnership with a new TVC and marketing campaign based around trusting your power.
DDB’s campaign for the YWCA promoting equal pay for women has found plenty of favour with awards juries around the world, most recently at Spikes Asia. And it’s also got the tick of approval from the judges of the 2013 Newspaper Ad of the Year awards, winning the main prize and the award for Best Topical advertisement.
Saatchi & Saatchi’s Purpose Built recruitment campaign for the New Zealand Army draws on the organisation’s wide range of trades to show military life is about more than combat.
A fictional blogger who dons unusually large hands is the key figure in Saatchi & Saatchi’s campaign that gives prepaid users a whack around the ears from Telecom.
BNZ, New World, Telecom and Peugeot get a ticker tape parade this week.
Toyota is renowned for creating brave, entertaining and memorable advertising that resonates with New Zealanders. And it continued that trend last year when it introduced the nation to a car-loving cat called Alloroc, the furry star of the ad that took out the 2013 StopPress/MediaWorks TVC of the Year Award.
Chins have been stroked, cases have been put, voices have ben raised and chocolate thins have been consumed. Which can mean only one thing: the winners have been chosen for the StopPress/MediaWorks TVC of the Year.
ASB Bank was the first in the country to offer social media banking through Facebook and now stands to become the first in the country (if not the world) to offer a home loan rate completely dependent on the number of Likes it receives on Facebook. Although the premise of the competition is simple, its actual mechanics are shrouded in mystery.
DraftFCB’s having a brilliant Cannes Lions, DDB’s doing better than expected and took out one of the biggest awards on the roster, and usual top performer Colenso BBDO hasn’t had much to write home about. Now DDB’s in line for three more awards after the release of the Film shortlist.
Whybin\TBWA has been the The Radio Network’s (TRN) agency partner for a number of years, but Saatchi & Saatchi was chosen ahead of it to rebrand Radio Hauraki last year. And while Whybin\TBWA\ worked on a campaign for its flagship brand Newstalk ZB recently and is still thought to be the agency of record, some big changes in TRN’s management team and a commitment to increase its in-house capability through agency Carbon and reduce agency fees means there might not be quite as much work ahead.
As evidenced by the Axis exhibition in the Viaduct Events Centre last week, it’s good to see all the work done in one year in one place. And Saatchi & Saatchi and Flying Fish did just that as part of the Axis festivities, with a clip showing some of the quality video content created by local agencies and directors in 2012/2013.
The Hip Op-eration dance crew is the dopest, flyest dance crew to ever come out of Waiheke – and it’s lending its street cred to the ASB Stage Challenge.
As the videos of people attempting the Cinnamon Challenge or Hell’s Pizza Roulette attest, watching reactions to strange and unpleasant mouth sensations usually makes for compelling viewing. And, as part of TedX Sydney, Saatchi & Saatchi and Heckler have given us some more with ‘The First Taste’.