New Zealand lingerie brand Rose & Thorne is on a mission to get its products on more New Zealand bodies—and, in time, more international bodies. And it has appointed Special Group to help define its brand and grow the business.
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In an effort to consolidate its agency partners—and in a show of support for Kiwi-owned businesses—New Zealand Trade & Enterprise has appointed Special Group as its lead design and communications agency following a competitive pitch late last year.
Last week Special Group made Barnes Catmur & Friends a quilt of love as part of the Axis Call for Entries campaign. And, after a slight delay due to ‘censorship issues’, Barnes, Catmur & Friends has returned the favour, with creative managing partner Paul Catmur embracing the confrontational interviewer within, aggressively singing the praises of his fellow indie and probably ensuring his agency will never be bought by WPP.
Unitec has done a good job of bringing academia to life in recent years, with its reality-advertising campaign Change Starts Here, GPS-enabled buses that turned Auckland into a media platform for ‘We make the people who make it’ and, most recently, the personalised Umag. And it’s once again taking the school to where the potential students are: the mall.
Humans are simple creatures. Put their name on a Coke and they go crazy. Put their kid on the cover of a magazine and mums will clog up the internet. And now Unitec, Special Group, Open and Bauer are attempting to tap into that feverish narcissism once again with U Mag, a personalised magazine that doubles as a customised prospectus and is thought to be a world first.
DNA creative director Grenville Main and Formway Design Studio joint manager Kent Parker have been awarded the Black Pins as the Best Design Awards celebrated the cream of Kiwi design talent on Friday night. While Special Group won the top packaging award for an unprecendented third time in a row with its Karma Cola work and Clemenger BBDO took the Purple Pin in digital for its Flash driving game for NZTA.
Not long after one German car company chose its favoured agency, another German car company is following suit, with DDB, Special Group and DraftFCB getting set to duke it out for the BMW and Mini business.
Unitec says its latest campaign with Special Group and 8Com brings together the best of its earlier efforts Change Starts Here and We Make the People Who Make It.
TBWA\ has been in the trenches with 2degrees since it started in 2009. But that fruitful relationship has come to an end, with Special Group coming out on top after a competitive pitch.
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.
The New Zealand advertising scene is always pretty proud of its per capita hauls in the world’s big creative awards. And 2013 appears to be no different, with the combined awards won between Kiwi agencies—a record haul of 32—placing us 9th on the list at the 60th Cannes Festival of Advertising.
New World has been celebrating its 50th anniversary recently. And Foodstuffs has taken steps to ensure a few more successful years in the grocery biz by appointing Colenso BBDO as its official brand agency.
Ecostore and Little Treasures’ personalised magazine campaign by Special Group, Naked/Open and Salt Interactive has already earned its fair share of industry accolades, from Media Awards gold to the inaugural winner of The Glossies. And now it’s got another one to add to the list after being nominated as one of 18 finalists in the WARC prize for innovation.
New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world where Red Bull isn’t the number one energy drink, with Frucor’s V taking that honour. But it’s aiming to rectify that—and make more of its burgeoning content business—by appointing Special Group as its creative agency.
Not content with the attention it receives in the trade media after an award win, Special Group has made a habit of paying to get a bit more of it by placing full-page ads in the Herald, making it one of a rare few ad agencies that actually advertise. And it’s done some more showing off after winning Best in Show at the Media Awards alongside Naked/Open for Unitec’s ‘We make the people who make it’ campaign.
News Works NZ revamped its newspaper ad of the year awards programme last year, and it’s continued to innovate with the arrival of the Agency League, a points-based scoring system for the newspaper ad of the month award that aims to tap into the competitive nature of creative agencies.
To celebrate the passing of the Marriage Equality bill last week, New Zealand candle manufacturer Ecoya has put up a billboard showing two candle wax-covered men embracing with the words “Just Add Equality” beneath.
TSB Bank is bringing history back with the launch of a new Special Group-created brand campaign taking aim at Aussie-owned banks and Sir Roger Douglas’ financial policies of the late ’80s.
For the past few years, Unitec, Special Group and Naked—which has recently closed and been reborn as Open—have tried to bring a bit more chutzpah to the education sector and change the impression of the institution in potential students’ minds, first with the ‘Change Starts Here’ docu-ads and then with the trade-focused follow-up, ‘We Make the People who Make it’. And in a slightly surprising victory, the campaign managed to beat out the big boys for the best in show prize at last night’s Media Awards at the Langham.
There was a bit of kerfuffle recently when Carl’s Jr. had its American television commercial promoting its new Memphis BBQ Burger banned from television in New Zealand by the Commercial Approvals Bureau for using sexual appeal in an exploitative and degrading manner to sell an unrelated product. It responded by running a digital campaign driving people to view the ad on its YouTube channel. And it’s continued to embrace the controversy, with Special Group letting imaginations run wild by repurposing the TV commercial for radio.
A sand artist, a rural recreationist, some see-through beasts and a wild man walk into a bar…
There was a new addition to Waiheke Island’s hospitality scene late last year when the The Oyster Inn opened its doors. And from the food to the service to the interior design to the look and feel that ties it all together, it’s been very well-received. Here’s how Special Group “made it feel right”.
The inaugural Glossies Magazine Advertising Awards kicked off last night to smoke, meat and unfurling banners. Ecostore, Special Group and Naked Communications take top prize.
Daikin’s last big splash involved a surprisingly creepy Dan Carter hanging on a wall and plenty of come hither eyes. But the agency behind that campaign, The Works Sydney, has now been exchanged for Sugar & Partners, which won a two-way competitive pitch for the New Zealand business.
Ecoya came in for some unwanted attention for its very visible nudity in 2011, with its Lady Godiva-inspired billboard getting a slap from the ASA (and also getting stolen). And in the latest campaign it’s maintained the sans clothes approach, although this time it’s claiming the nudity is ‘invisible’.
The battle for New Zealand’s 7pm eyeballs in 2013 has been a topic of much conversation recently given the departure of Close Up last year and the arrival of Seven Sharp. That battle became even more interesting when the architect of those changes, Ross Dagan, resigned from TVNZ after less than a year in the role to head back to Australia. And, not surprisingly, Campbell Live, which kicked off again last night after its summer marketing campaign with a new logo, a new set and a renewed focus on “the issues that matter to New Zealanders”, is hoping to capitalise on the changes.
We’re fans of Charlie’s ‘Mission from Good’, Unitec’s ‘We make the people who make it’ and Fly Buys ‘Every time you swipe something a little bit good happens’. And they just keep on giving.
Auckland Fringe 2013 officially launched today with a snazzy new look devised by design partner Special Group and the promise of three weeks of the bizarre, the beautiful and the baffling in February as “joystick orchestras, boy bands, Antarctic song cycles, cross dressing history celebrities and stories about dogs, Nazis and curry” vie for attention. And for all the creative types out there, festival sponsor Taxi Impact is offering you the chance to plaster one of its taxis with whatever wrap you want* as part of its Taxi Art Project.
AA Insurance and Special Group took the opportunity to remind the nation about the positive aspects of insurance with the launch of its big 90 second brand ad a few weeks back. And now it’s following that up with a series of 30 and 15 second product ads—once again nicely crafted by Special Problems—and an attention-grabbing outdoor campaign that aims to communicate the new ‘Let’s get things sorted’ positioning and showcase the various facets of the business, from tailored car insurance to personal case managers.