At last year’s Moas, the motion picture Shopping picked up seven awards, making it the biggest winner of the night. And now, to promote the television premiere of the film on Sky’s Rialto channel, DDB launched an auction-based campaign with a humanitarian twist.
Browsing: The Sweet Shop
Charity auctions, health programmes and beer-funded documentaries get a 21 gun salute this week.
Only a week after leaving the Axis Awards with the Production Company of the Year gong for the third year in a row, The Sweet Shop has now been announced as the most-awarded production company in the Asia Pacific region in the 2013 edition of the Gunn Report.
The One Percent Collective is on a mission to inspire more generosity and convince Kiwis to give away a small chunk of their total income. And to raise awareness of its mission, it’s called on the generosity of many others to create an ad that co-founder Pat Shepherd believes is “a bit different to your average charity campaign”.
Sky, Vend and TVNZ each leave a memorable imprint on another week in adland.
By the time the curtains had been drawn at the end of New Zealand Film Awards, those sitting at the ‘Shopping’ table had seven awards to carry home, making the film, which was released in New Zealand in May, the biggest winner of the night.
Steinlager recently launched a fairly brave and entertaining responsible drinking campaign called ‘Be the artist, not the canvas’ that showed some creative/violating uses for marker pens, aimed to poke fun at those who over-indulge and marked a slight change in strategy for the brand. And, as brand manager Michael Taylor says, it’s gone down a treat with the punters.
There’s been a range of brands playing the absurd advertising card in recent years, from Old Spice to Skittles to HTC. And Aussie loan company Nimble has joined that club and pushed the boat a long way out with three weird—and weirdly compelling—ads from Clemenger BBDO Brisbane and The Sweet Shop’s Steve Ayson.
Another week of quality Kiwi TV work, with DB Export, Sky, Steinlager, Trade Me and Telecom getting special ribbons to wear on their blazers.
Film duo Campbell Hooper and Joel Kefali (aka Special Problems) permiered their short film Echoes at Cannes last month to some of the biggest names in the global film industry.
Meet Lloyd. He’s got a tongue—and he knows how to use it. And, in this new spot by DDB and the Sweet Shop’s Damien Shatford, the rather weird Sky employee, who’s almost like a better-lubricated version of Fresh Up’s ‘Thirst is Creepy’ characters, is being introduced to the nation in an effort to convince the 800,000 Sky TV subscribers who receive their bill in the post to move with the times and sign up to email billing.
Here in the expansive and luxurious StopPress towers, Instant Kiwi’s ‘It Pays to Push Your Luck’ campaigns ranks as one of the funniest of the year, which isn’t entirely surprising given the comedy-loving combination of NZ Lotteries, DDB, Jesse Griffin and The Sweet Shop’s Stuart McDonald, he of Summer Height’s High fame, was involved in its creation. And after the first instalment, which saw the Alibi spot make it into the good bit of the Fair Go Ad Awards, it’s followed up with some entertaining/violating instore luck pushing that could almost be likened to the advertising equivalent of Trigger Happy TV.
More than half of Kiwi households with televisions fork out for Sky, which is thought to be one of the highest per capita rates in the world. And, according to a recent PwC study, 40 percent of these subscribers have taken up MySky, an increase of 45 percent since last year. It’s where most of the growth is coming from for Sky, much to the chagrin of poor old father time, who, as a great new, almost Wes Anderson-esque 90 second spot by DDB and The Sweet Shop shows, has been rendered obsolete by the wonderous technology.
Westpac’s ode to asking and Barkers’ slow motion All Blacks earn their keep this week.
As the centrepiece of Westpac’s new ‘Start Asking’ campaign shows, New Zealanders can talk about almost everything these days, whether it be politics, religion, war, sex, existential issues and, of course, Rugby World Cup wins. But, as Westpac’s general manager of marketing and customer experience Martine Jager says, we’re still not comfortable talking about money. So can the bank actually change that?
As one brave man does the half-time mercy dash to the liquor store to replenish stocks for the group during a footy match, it seems there’s little that can distract him from his sport, not even a slew of hot women who just happen to be lining the liquor store route. And, whether you agree with the stereotype or not, Tui’s ‘Halftime Distractions’ campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi and The Sweet Shop’s Stuart McDonald certainly seems to have hit its mark, taking out Colmar Brunton’s Ad Impact Award for May.
NZTA, Clemenger BBDO and The Sweet Shop’s Legend campaign became something of a pop cultural phenomenon when it was released last year, with a couple of lines quickly becoming part of the Kiwi vernacular, t-shirts bearing images of Ghost Chips being worn around the country, and hundreds of parodies, spoof ads and TradeMe auctions referencing the original. And while all those involved in its creation are still smarting a little after the most talked about ad of 2011 went home without any gold at the AXIS awards, it appears there is some justice in the world, because it quite rightly received 11 percent of the vote to win the StopPress/ThinkTV TVC of the Year.
DDB New Zealand was among the few to win Gold at this year’s Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (ADFEST 2012) Lotus Awards. The agency won Best in Show in the Promo Lotus category for Steinlager ‘Believe’. And the team also took home a Gold at the Film Lotus awards, one of only eight handed out for Sky TV ’60 things in 60 seconds’ and a Silver Press Lotus for Campaign for Best of Social Engagements for Coastguard New Zealand’s Mayday Appeal.
Who’s it for: Good Books by String Theory and Buck
Why we like it: It’s a brilliant, extremely well written tribute to the late great Hunter S. Thompson, it’s for a great cause, and the animation is stupendous.
Who’s it for: Dulux …
Special Group has managed to get itself a spot alongside BMF and The Monkeys as a finalist for Creative magazine’s coveted Hotshop Awards, while Finch and Curious got the Hotshop nod in the production categories. And in the AWARD nominations, DDB Group picked up the most finalists with seven, followed by Colenso BBDO and The Sweet Shop with six each. In the craft categories, Finch received seven finalist nominations, Thick as Thieves three and Curious Film also received a nod for its poignant Helena’s story, made for the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation.
The ’80s were a wonderous time. Big hair, big lunches, big phones. But back in 1987, wine was in and beer was out, so it was also a time of pain and suffering for many bemulleted, beer-loving Kiwi males. And the latest historical campaign celebrating DB Export Dry’s 25th anniversary aims to bring the brown stuff back into fashion by poking fun at wine.
Once again, CAANZ and The Sweet Shop are set to send two young Kiwi creatives off to Thailand as part of its sponsorship of the Adfest Lotus Award. And another two Kiwis who have already shown their creative chops, the hot-to-trot directing collective Special Problems, have just signed up with The Sweet Shop for commercial and branded content work worldwide.
It was a 21 gun salute for Kiwi agencies at Spikes Asia, and Colenso BBDO was the sharpest shooter, taking the Digital Grand Prix for its Pedigree adoption drive, two golds, a silver and two bronzes.
ASB had Goldstein. ANZ has The Mentalist. The National Bank has a Black Stallion. And now, thanks to Special Group and The Sweet Shop, TSB Bank has an old alien.
…as Sweet Shop director Sam Holst tastes gold at Cannes, Alt Group continues to win things, shifting PRs, MediaWorks signs up a new Breeze host, ASB’s tech guy is acknowledged for customer service innovations and 2degrees adds a couple of newbies.
The Soundtrack category honours original music or arrangement as well as exisiting music, and Speights ‘Man Like Natural’ campaign, with its ‘we can grow beards if we want to’ hook, earned The Sweet Shop a silver. Liquidstudios was the only other winner, picking up a bronze in the category for its sonic touch on the ‘Telecom Brand 2010’ campaign.
In the Editing category, Capital City Films took a silver for Frucor’s ‘Ladders’, Robber’s Dog took bronze for DDB and Volkswagen’s ‘Milk Run’, while Curious came away with two bronzes, one for Liam Finn’s Guide to New Zealand for Tourism New Zealand and the other for Nike’s ‘The Tomic Incident’; in Visual Craft, Capital City Films and Sky took gold for ‘Leafblower’ and silver for Frucor’s Ladders, while Flying Fish picked up a bronze for Vodafone’s ‘In With the New’; and in the Direction section, Capital City Films took another gold with ‘Leafblower’ and three other bronzes were handed out, one for Capital City Films and Frucor’s ‘Ladders’, one for The Sweet Shop and Lotto’s ‘Lucky Dog’ and one for Film Construction’s ‘ALAC Sam’.
The first round of finalists for AWARD have been announced, with Special Group, DDB, DraftFCB, Colenso, M&C Saatchi, Clemenger BBDO, AIM Proximity, Flying Fish, The Sweet Shop, Film Construction, YukFoo and Curious Film among those that made the cut in the Direct Marketing, Craft in Film and Craft in Print categories. More category finalists will be announced soon and the awards will be dished out on 25 February.
Colenso BBDO’s award-winning work for the New Zealand Book Council has been shortlisted in the Film and Film Craft categories at the 2010 Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. Clearly not content to rest on their laurels, or indeed these other laurels here, Colenso has been shortlisted in the Sound Design and Animation sections of the Film Craft Category, whilst also making the cut in the Public Awareness Messages section of the Film Category.