To coincide with the cinematic release of Alien: Covenant, 20th Century Fox is bringing New Zealand’s first paid Snapchat lens to life by transforming users into the film’s Xenomorph villain.
Brands are just coming of age in the new collaborative economy. Like any teenager though, a lot of their actions at the moment are a bit awkward. Most of us learnt at some point that joining in on an existing conversation is much easier than starting your own by shouting until you get someone to pay attention. But to join in and be heard means being relevant and on code, and of course the ‘on code’ bit is what brands need to work out because it is constantly changing.
There’s no better way to unleash a bit of tension than by smashing a hollow piece of celluloid across a table at your agency foe. Not only does this activity carry the possibility of knocking over the drink of the said frenemey, but it also gives you the opportunity to engage in the most obnoxious victory dance ever contrived should you win. And for those who do not have teh limberness to claim ultimate glory, fear not. You can still go full McEnroe upon losing every point. It’s very cathartic. So, if this feels like something that you’d like to partake in, enter your team (mixed doubles or singles) into the inter-agency table tennis championships (aka the Flying Paddle), which as set to be held on Thursday, 11 August.
Humans regularly pay for having their photo taken (when it’s horrible and it gets posted on social media, or when looking back and wondering why you ever thought that hairstyle was a good choice). But, following on from a tease at its I/0 event, Google decided to let people pay with a photo to promote the enhanced search functionality of its upgraded Photos app.
Standing for input/output and “Innovation in the Open”, the annual Google I/O developer conference explores the latest in technology, web, and mobile. Held at San Francisco, this year’s event sees some major upgrades to Google’s Android platform, new projects from the ATAP team, and some nifty VR.
At the first two first editions of the revamped Beacon Awards, there wasn’t much open space available on the FCB Media table on account of the sheer number of gongs the agency had collected over the course of the respective nights. At this year’s edition of the flashy awards evening that again seemed more akin to boxing event, the agency picked up a total of 13 awards, which is believed to be the highest number in the history of the event. Coinciding with this strong run of form is the tenure of FCB Media’s head of strategy Rufus Chuter, who joined FCB from London’s MEC in May 2012. And StopPress recently chatted to him about industry.
Where brands used to simply advertise, now they’re regularly ‘creating content’—and often hoping to inspire warm fuzzies. Vodafone and True nailed it, Air New Zealand did it over Christmas, Samsung made a very special delivery in Australia and to show how it is helping to preserve our national icon, Tasti has got in on the act with ‘Project Nest’.
Where do creative types find their inspiration? New research by Adobe shows it’s increasingly in the online realm. PLUS: the creative skills deemed to be most in-demand in 2015.
Every year around this time, banks attempt to grease up the young’uns heading off to expand/erode their minds at University. But banks are rarely at the top of the priorities list at this stage of life and erecting a makeshift tent and handing out branded pens at a festival or over Orientation Week just doesn’t cut it anymore. So ASB is running a Snapchat campaign called Snap Scholarships—replete with the obligatory prizes—to try and lure them in.
The internet loves animals. According to CBS, a remarkable, nigh-on unbelievable, 15 percent of internet traffic is cat-related. And dogs probably aren’t far behind. Chuck in a celebrity or two and a well-made video and you’ve got all the ingredients required for modern-day marketing gold, as ASB can now attest after its promotional stunt for the ASB Classic tennis tournament received plenty of love.
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.
Lydia Ko took out her fourth professional win yesterday, making the 17-year-old golfing phenom the youngest ever player to make it to US$1 million in prize money. ANZ sponsors Ko (and the ANZ Golf Show) and it’s celebrating her win with a simple social game via Whybin\TBWA that offers Facebookers a chance to win $2000 if they can guess where she’s hit her tee shot.
Saatchi & Saatchi NZ’s communications director sat down for a chat with Tom Eslinger, Saatchi Worldwide’s director of digital and social, author of “Mobile Magic” and inaugural jury president of the mobile lions at Cannes.
Whether it’s online, in the skies, on TV or in real life, quizzes are universally popular. And travel company Adventure World has tapped into that interest with its biggest ever online campaign, Extraordinary World Trivia.
Hell’s hugely successful Pizza Roulette campaign showed that punters were willing to try something new, even if it burned the crap out of their (or, preferably, their friends’) mouths. And its gourmet (and slightly experimental) Rabbit Pizza proved it again after it sold out in less than three weeks and delivered the business its best week of sales in its 18 year history.
Are you a social media guru? Do you want to show the world how guru-ey your social-fu is? Then Social Media Stars is the show for you!
There have been some massive changes inside Telecom recently, with chief executive Simon Moutter announcing a restructure that plans to axe between 930 to 1280 jobs by the middle of this year a few months back. And as a direct result of the decision to reduce the headcount, it has outsourced a few previously internal functions and appointed Clemenger Group-owned Touch/Cast.
Only last year Samsung was mocking those waiting in line for the iPhone 5, but it seems the Korean tech giant has had a change of heart when it comes to queues with its Galaxy S 4 launch campaign in New Zealand (via Colenso BBDO).
If Rule 34 of the internet is “If it exists, there’s porn of it”, then surely Rule 35 is “If it can host porn, it will host porn”, a lesson Twitter’s new video service, Vine, has learned today.
The media landscape has been transformed and fragmented by the power of digital, mobile and social technology. And it’s increasingly difficult to work out a plan to get traction for brands in this new, less certain environment. Contagion’s Tom Bates looks at three areas worthy of focus for modern-day marketers.
Organisations that embrace the notion of a social business have the opportunity to gain loyal, engaged employees and find a competitive edge in recruiting, retention, talent development and business performance, writes Theresa Clifford.
There was plenty of excitement when music streaming service Spotify finally launched in New Zealand in May. And it has announced its latest numbers and a few big changes to make the service more social, more personalised and hopefully more attractive to advertisers. Plus: Nielsen’s Spotify’s numbers.
There have been some impressive campaigns harnessing social data in recent years, with Intel’s Museum of Me and Me the Musical coming to mind. Now Colenso BBDO is putting that information to good use for Amnesty International with Trial by Timeline, a Facebook application that shows users what some comments or behaviours might have cost them if they lived in different, less tolerant countries.
While New Zealand’s international awards hauls have earned it a reputation as a hotbed of advertising creativity, Google’s New Zealand country manager Tony Keusgen believes we’ve got a lot of work to do when it comes to digital marketing and he is on a mision to get Kiwi marketers using data to inform their decisions. So how important is search? How can YouTube being harnessed? And are Kiwi marketers prepared for the brewing mobile storm?
Despite the almost audible industry sigh whenever another campaign is released with a focus on New Zealandness—and there’s been a few of them recently—the fact remains that New Zealanders are quite interested in themselves and their culture. And Tasti and Contagion have taken that to the nth degree with a campaign that hopes to find ‘New Zealand’s Kiwiest Kiwi’.
There’s plenty of debate about how to measure the value of social media, and, in some cases, whether sites like Facebook and Twitter are at ‘the heart of a fallacy’ around online advertising. But, according to a new study by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the business and economics research arm of McKinsey & Company, social technologies have the potential to raise the productivity of knowledge workers by 20 to 25 percent, as information is made more accessible and searchable and communication streamlined.
Aegis recently announced its official arrival on the local scene after the merging of Carat and Mitchells. And now it’s announced the local launch of bespoke consumer study, the Consumer Connection System (CCS), which provides insights into how consumers choose and use media in an effort to better connect them with brands.