The how of delivering wow
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Our spiderbots are coming
Robots, social media, spray cans and three of the world’s leading design creatives come together in Auckland this month to create what’s believed to be the world’s first art painted by Twitter-controlled bots.
Taking place at design conference Semi-Permanent, Orcon Spider Art sees the live creation of three artworks by specially designed robots controlled remotely by the Twitter community.
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A great night at the Caples Awards
So I’m recently back from the John Caples Awards in New York. And it was an immensely enjoyable few days. If you’re going to hold an award show, holding it in an amazing old bank in Nolita is a pretty good way to start.
It was a great night for us Kiwis. I didn’t do a proper tally but I saw the boys from Republik and Brett Hoskin from Aim on stage repeatedly. I was there to pick up the Irving Wunderman Award, a gong given to one individual for a strong body of creative work for 10 years or more.
Dave honoured with lifetime achievement award
Dave King, our Executive Creative Director and Partner, New Zealand, has been awarded the prestigious Irving Wunderman award at the John Caples International Awards Gala on 22nd March in New York.
The lifetime achievement award honours professionals with more than a decade of experience who have developed their talent, imagination, curiosity and passion into a compelling body of creative work.
Dave has won over a dozen Cannes Lions, 30 Caples gongs as well as countless other local and international awards. He has been awarded a number of One Show Pencils, plus the coveted D&DA pencil.
He has recently been announced as a judge at this year’s Cannes Lions where he will be Continue reading
What is more powerful than death?
Last night saw the launch of our latest campaign for the New Zealand Fire Service to promote smoke alarms.
Tragically, New Zealanders die every year in situations where a working smoke alarm could have saved them. More often than not, it’s children who are the victims.
As lives are at stake, we had increased the levels of emotional drama in our previous campaigns. An insight subsequently presented by Research International was that there are more powerful elements to communicate than death. What could be more powerful than death?
Could games become our next Export industry?
Our economy is dependent on primary agriculture, making us vulnerable to international commodity prices and economic slowdowns. To continue to have a prosperous nation, we will need to have a greater range of export industries in the future. Could games become one?
This is not as far fetched as you might think. Platforms such as iTunes and Android mean that any company with a great product can distribute globally at limited cost.
From an initial development cost of EUR $100,000, Rovio managed just that. Their Angry Birds application has now achieved over 500 million downloads worldwide. The revenues are significant, and that is without including revenue from merchandise, movies and a soon to be developed theme park.
Rovio’s base is not in Silicon Valley or a technology park somewhere in Asia. They are Continue reading
A sign of the times
We are really proud of our new global website which has just launched. It is reflective of how greater broadband speeds now allow for richer content, with videos and larger images.
Also a sign of the times, it is now much easier to be access from mobile phones. With smartphone use growing rapidly, this has become an important factor for websites.
You can access the site here.
Senior appointment in Wellington
We are delighted to announce that Jonathan Hales will be joining M&C Saatchi as Business Director, based out of Wellington.
Jonathan joins us from Clemenger BBDO, where he worked for the past thirteen years. During that time he set up their successful design company and led a number of key accounts, such as ACC, New Zealand Post, RWC 2011 and the RNZAF amongst many others. Continue reading
Same distance, different race?
When American sprinter Michael Johnson broke the 400m world record in 1999 with a time of 43.18 seconds he did it by himself. When Usain Bolt and his three Jamaican buddies broke the 4x100m world record at the 2011 Athletics World Champs, they stormed home in 37.04 seconds – around 15% quicker than Johnson, but of course, enjoying a different race format.
The 400m run is one of the toughest track race formats. It needs the brute force of a sprinter and the staying power of a middle-distance runner over a track long enough to burn you out, but short enough to demand absolutely everything in the tank.
Arguably, ‘campaigns’ are the 400m format of advertising. Campaigns, like the 400m run, Continue reading
How are you feeling today?
We believe that digital strategies can be at their most impactful when they can be brought to life in the non-digital, physical world.
That’s why we really like this Fühlometer (Feel-o-meter) idea, which was an art installation created in Germany. In short, this smiley face became happy, indifferent or sad depending on the city’s mood in real time, based on the sentiment of tweets made by users. You can read more about it here.
We believe digital has evolved to the point where is should no longer be looked at as an isolated medium. Retail needs to be multichannel, brands need to be social, and NZ agencies need to eliminate internal silos based on mediums. Continue reading