The company credit cards are out in force this week for Spikes Asia and most of the shortlists have been announced, with, unsurprisingly, many of the campaigns that featured at Cannes also featuring in Singapore.
A couple of senior departures from DDB, an addition at DraftFCB, Julie Elstone joins Waitemata Films, Charles Miller takes the reins at Mailshop, Belowtheline shows its stripes at APPA and announces new clients, Siobhan Keogh joins Datacom, Voice Brand Agency opens up in Oz, InMobi announces a new Australia/New Zealand leader and Ecoya chooses a new PR agency.
TBWA\ got a big slap in the face a few weeks back when it lost the 2degrees business to Special Group. But, in what chief executive Todd McLeay says is “some consolation”, it has picked up the TradeMe business.
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.
The Digital Arts Network is just over a year old and TBWA’s digital arm is making strides into New Zealand’s interactive advertising scene. Siobhan Keogh sits down with managing director Che Tamahori to talk about the challenges and opportunities in New Zealand’s digital sector.
Over the past year or so, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has been on a mission to assemble a panel of trusted advertising soldiers to join its army, just as it has done with a range of other suppliers. After a bit of a delay, it released the longlist in February. And now the final list has been released, with 37 agencies in the mix. But not everyone’s happy with the end result, or the process used to create it.
There are many people in this world who assume those who work in the field of advertising are basically paid liars. But are they really? As part of a campaign to drum up interest in the Effies, TBWA\ has attempted to find out by filming a host of senior agency folk taking a lie detector test. And, as you’d expect, the results make for very entertaining and enlightening viewing.
After scanning the nation’s big and small data, the GCSB has decided that The Co-operative Bank’s ode to profits, Pio’s multiple personality disorder and ANZ’s moments of clarity are this week’s worthy winners.
Most good ideas need a bit of money to get them going and ANZ Bank is positioning itself as the money lender to go to when inspiration strikes.
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.
There’s been plenty of change at TBWA\ over the past few months, with Todd McLeay and Toby Talbot coming on board to take over from David ‘I’m not fucking retiring’ Walden and Andy Blood. And now there’s some more change, with Eleven PR’s founder and managing partner Kelly Bennett leaving to set up his own corporate public relations business.
There’s been plenty of spy-related news recently after the Edward Snowden leak. So it’s pretty good timing for the launch of CAANZ and TBWA\’s Effies call for entries campaign, which taps into the shadowy world of blacked out documents, lie-detection. and subterfuge. Perhaps they know more than they’re letting on?
It missed out on the big Foodstuffs account recently, but the new executive team at Whybin\TBWA has chalked up a welcome win after being appointed as the new creative and strategic agency for the Bell Tea & Coffee Company’s (BTCC) stable of tea brands.
One-dimesional welders, trans-Tasman comparisons and enthusiastic old men take the TVC crown this week.
To promote the fact that 2degrees customers on a Carryover Plan can call and text their Aussie mates at no extra cost, the cheeky telco has released an ad via TBWA that details the similarities between the two countries. But it still manages to stoke the trans-Tasman coals with a Troy McClure-esque disclaimer at the end.
Whybin\TBWA’s David Walden was honoured for his long—and entertaining—career in advertising on Thursday night at the Axis awards. So have a gander at this video to see what the people he has worked with over the years, like Andy Blood, ASB’s Barbara Chapman (who debunks a few myths), Roy Meares and Mike Hutcheson, had to say about the quintessential ad man, charming rogue and renowned restaurant-goer.
As the 25th anniversary of the film How To Get Ahead in Advertising approaches, Kelly Bennett offers some advice on how to avoid being corrupted by the worst excesses of the industry.
Despite the prevalence of high-tech devices, slot-car sets still retain their almost retro allure and TBWA\ and Match Photography took seven hours to construct a rather large track in a living room for ANZ’s latest print ad, as this behind-the-scenes clip shows.
As the recovery mission for the submerged plane thought to be holding the bodies of Eric and Kathy Hertz kicks into gear, tributes are flowing for the 2degrees chief executive—and plans have been put in place by the company to continue his mobile mission.
Despite the huge amount of customer data energy companies have at their disposal, not many of them have used that data well to create useful tools for customers to manage their power consumption. Some might say that’s because it’s in the interests of energy companies for their customers to use more energy, even though it might not be in the best interests of society as a whole. But following in the footsteps of Powershop’s useful online usage meters and hints on how to reduce consumption, Mercury Energy has also come to the utility party with a new product called the Good Energy Monitor, or GEM.
Hello there Toyota’s vehicular version of The Hangover, Mercury Energy’s new toy and GE Money’s one-word campaign.
TBWA\ welcomes more new blood, Brendan Hewitt gets the nod as a rising media star, Marlen Smith pushes the CAANZ advertising barrow, Beat gets growing and Hotwire launches new analytics tool.
Digital Arts Network’s Ross Howard talks about the year-long development of TVNZ’s OnDemand app, building an in-app advertising platform, and the possibilities of integrating major social elements into the product in the near future.
It’s been more than a year in the making, but TVNZ has finally launched its OnDemand app for iOS, meaning Shortland Street and Seven Sharp is now viewable across iPhone and iPad.
After nine years at TBWA\, Andy Blood, one of the industry’s most awarded, respected and well-liked creative directors, is handing the reins to Toby Talbot. How’s that for disruption.
It’s all go at TBWA\ at the moment, with Todd McLeay set to step into the big shoes of Dave Walden soon and Toby Talbot set to take over from Andy Blood in March. And, following on Steve Kane’s shift, it’s added two more DDB scalps, with Lisa Fedyszyn and Jonathan McMahon joining as creative directors.
After seven years with DDB Group, and three in the role of experiential creative director, Steve Kane has taken a role as “a senior, multi-faceted creative director” at Whybin\TBWA, where he will work under executive creative director Andy Blood.
There still seem to be a few holiday tumbleweeds out there in marcomms land, but we managed to find a few contenders, with TVNZ’s colourful Seven Sharp promo, Animates’ accurate Doomsday prediction and nzgirl’s raunchy ‘regretgasm’ spot featuring in the year’s first round.
YWCA’s turning of the tables, Igloo’s double Ohs, 2degrees’ Christmas push and Telecom’s mistaken identity get the vote this week.
When David Walden left the relative safety of the multinationals to set up the Auckland office of Whybin\TBWA back in 1997, there were more than a few doubters predicting its swift demise or claiming it would simply be a postbox for the international network. Those doubters were wrong, of course, and the agency has become firmly ensconced in the upper echelons. But he’s not going to be around forever, and Walden, one of the most enigmatic characters in the ad industry, is making preparations to hand over the reins. PLUS: Vincent Heeringa’s NZ Marketing profile republished.