“Amo, ergo compro”
NZ’s leading ad-man, Kevin Roberts, interviewed in Italy’s L’espresso. “He dresses completely in black and looks like a bar room bouncer just back from Armani. But Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, is…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Last action hero
“In the age of digitized battle, is there still such thing as a war correspondent?” According to New York Metro, NZ-born Peter Arnett is the last, and greatest, of a dying breed: “He is…
Scene-stealing scenery
“New Zealanders watching the latest batch of car advertisements on Australian television could be excused for thinking they were back at home.” Rugged and diverse, NZ terrain is the showcase of choice for the…
“That’s the way it is:” broadcast legend bows out
Brian “Hendo” Henderson, Channel 9 Australia’s “stalwart newsreader” for the last 46 years, has announced his retirement. Born and bred in Southland, NZ, Henderson started out on Dunedin radio. Moving to Sydney in the…
The Resurrection
“If the internet could express emotions, a collective groan of despair would have filtered through a quarter of a million modems with the sudden closure of a site called Arts & Letters Daily.”…
Fine print
Kiwi publications took out several top spots at the 2002 Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association awards in Adelaide, with The Gisborne Herald named “Newspaper of the Year.” Other high achievers were the Christchurch Star,…
Creative Edge Export
A sharp demonstration of the New Zealand Edge: Financial Time’s article ‘Time is on their side’ trumpets the on-island advantage and new world export success of Christchurch creative agency TimeZoneOne. Boosted by the value…
First to Drive Everest
The latest US advertising campaign for the Toyota 4Runner sport utility centres on scaling the rugged heights of Mt Everest. The Saatchi & Saatchi production uses NZ icon Sir Ed Hillary in its bid…
A Believer in the Green Light
“Without a doubt one of the most brilliant journalists and columnists of his generation.” Neal Travis, the “brash, swashbuckling New Zealand import”, legendary editor of The New York Post’s in/famous Page Six gossip column, as well as…
A toast to Elvis
Not content with gracing the billboards of Wellington, NZ toast artist Maurice Bennet is going global. Bennet’s Elvis tribute was noted in Ananova’s quest for the world’s weirdest news: “on his website…
Club Edge
Saatchi & Saatchi’s London office went on a Euro junket to win Agency of the Year at the industry’s top awards at Cannes. Their infamous inuendo-laden and intricately art-directed campaign for Club 18-30 won…
Substance Wins
And this web award actually means something: the Webby’s are the internet Oscars. All the more glory to Christchurch-based Arts and Letters Daily which was awarded the People’s Voice award for best…
Kiwi Sites in Webby Race
Two Christchurch based websites are in the running for Webbies – the internet version of the Oscars. They are University of Canterbury Philosophy of Art Professor Denis Dutton’s brain-tickling Arts and Letters Daily…
Bugger. New Zealand creatives doing it better
Australian advertising, left in the mud by a Cannes Gold Lion winning Toyata Hilux ute, barks enviously about creative NZ: “many an advertising executive here would give a black BMW to get approval from…
The most feared woman on the internet?
NZer Rebecca Wilson (“director of leaves and petals” at the experimental Dutch Arts’ Foundation Studio for Electro-instrumental Music) postulated as as a real identity behind Net legend Netochka Nezvanova. Nezyanova has a…
Internet Oscars
Wellington web firm Click Suite scoops the internet equivalent of an Oscar at the European Multimedia Awards. The company won the business training award for its ‘Find the Lady’ CD-Rom, designed to inspire…
Wgtn Saatchis in world top-10
In a volume compiled by editors of graphic design bible Graphis Saatchi & Saatchi’s Wellington office, originator of the award winning Toyota bugger and Adidas All Black haka campaigns (left), makes the world top-10…
Cyberreads
Denis Dutton’s “admirable venture,” Cybereditions, allows publications to be constantly updated, exploiting the interactivity and flexibility of the net to deliver superior content.
Birth blocked
New Zealand website Calendargirls’ planned broadcast of a live birth on Christmas day was stymied by a high court ruling.
AL&D ‘indispensable’
“Arts and Letters Daily triumphantly confirms its founder’s original hypothesis – that there is a cornucopia of wonderful writing out there on the web…but its success is mainly due to the way it met…
Go Native?
A beer ad showing beach babes “going native”, (doing a haka), has been withdrawn from British TV after being branded insensitive and racist.
Chiat/Day Edge
New Zealand “tough guy” David Fong gets Toronto ad agency into shape: “We have to be world class.”
PM Groucho re TV
“I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set I go and read a book.” Helen Clark is in perfect agreement with Groucho Marx’s thoughts on the box.
£40m free mag
TNT and Southern Cross, Britain’s free mags for antipodean expats, have been sold for £40m. The buyer, Trader Media Group, plans to launch a complementary website.
A&LD rave
“Ever find yourself overwhelmed by the mass of information the net makes available?” Make like those in the know and head to New Zealand (and the web’s) hottest site, Arts and Letters Daily.
Connection made
New Zealand is on one end of the Southern Cross cable, the longest and largest fibre optic cable ever. The cable provides 120X the capacity of the 1992 vintage PacRim, but is expected to…
Dr. Johnson of the Web
Arts and Letters Daily and Cybereditions, the Guardian‘s top two brain sites on the web are the work of Canterbury NZ academic Denis Dutton. “Over dinner with him, trying to keep…
Godless Digest
“The Digest, however, has been less than honest. In a December 1999 story by Raffaele about the Chatham Islands in New Zealand, a fisherman picked up a lobster trap and exclaimed, “Gifts from Maru…
Direct Success
Saatchi & Saatchi’s Access 50/50 campaign for Telecom scooped a Gold International Echo award from the Direct Marketing Association. Auckland’s Aim Direct also won gold, making a tally of two New Zealand firms among…
Stunts at 25mph in six inches of water help to demonstrate the Audi Quattro A6
The ad took nine days to film at Bethell’s Beach on the west coast of New Zealand.
Kiwi President of Iconoclastic Toronto Advertising Agency
New Zealander David Fong was earlier this year appointed President of Toronto advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day and along with Creative Director Jamie Way has turned the agencies flagging fortunes around with the attraction of some…
Newzedge Footnote: “I Link Therefore I Am”
Paying tribute to the emblematic (and Kiwi conceived) Arts and Letters Daily, Jenny Lynn Bader writes, “There are entire publications on the Web that are just indexes of other publications … an imaginatively hyperlinked…
Lovebug the Secret to On-line Advertising
Internet advertising that works has become the advertising industry’s holy grail. Futurist Kevin Roberts says that solution remains the same as always: good web advertising will play on emotional connections. Roberts cites examples that…
New Zealand weaned spin-king appointed to Buckingham Palace
We are amused – a colonial has been given the job of putting spin on the damming corgi stories (head of public relations for HM the Q). Currently head of communications for British Airways,…
Breath of fresh air from ideas company wins Cannes award
Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland won a Golden Lion at the renowned Cannes Advertising Festival for its innovative solution for the Auckland Regional Council Anti-Pollution campaign. The campaign involved local artists decorating stormwater grates to…
Phil Keoghan Spot on as Adventure Crazy Host
Remembered in New Zealand as host of Spot On, 3.45pm Live, Phil Keoghan has made a name for himself in the US as host and executive producer of Phil Keoghan’s Adventure Crazy, a popular…
Whatever you do don’t go in the water
More bloody innovation saw Colenso pick up a Golden Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival. The campaign to promote the opening of the movie Scream, unlike another Kiwi winner at Cannes, involved a little…
Serendipity the Secret to Cyber-Success
“Human beings, by and large don’t know what they’re interested in,’ says Denis Dutton, a professor in New Zealand who started and edits the highly accliamed Arts and Letters Daily, perhaps the most eclectic,…
Wall Street Gets Emotional Rescue from the Edge
Kevin Roberts says there is a challenge for the ‘anti-social medium’ of the web, traditional advertising and product design in general. That is, to get emotional and to create mystery and sensuality in order to re-connect…
Emotional rescue:
Kevin Roberts demonstrates the sharpness of his edge at Conference in San Francisco “Shielded all in black, wielding his New Zealand accent as a sword, the Saatchi & Saatchi CEO launched a tirade on…
Kiwi Dennis Dutton’s Arts and Letters Daily makes Brill’s Content ‘Best of the Web’
“Arts & Letters Daily” combines a Renaissance thirst for intriguing writing with the online imperative of speed – a sensibility evident in the site’s duelling mottoes: “Bookmark This Page” and “Veritas odit moras,” Seneca’s…
Kiwi Editor of Chicago-Sun Times Leaves to Pursue ‘Private Goals’
New Zealand born Nigel Wade, 54, former foreign correspondent with the Daily Telegraph in London, said that he was taking a “new direction” in his life after 37 years in journalism. He has been…
Bugger
A Cultural phenomenon has reached Asia, and it has bugger-all to do with Bulgarians or heretics, but something to do with a car advertisement, a racehorse and climbing Mt. Everest.
When Substance Puts Style in its Place
There’s more to the web than pornography, semi-literate navel-gazing and slick shopping sites, but finding quality information can be difficult … a site that makes it easy.
The Rumours began about a year ago…
Comix 2000 New Zealanders Dylan Horrocks (whose extraordinarily moving comic novel Hicksville was 1998’s breakout alternative hit) and Chris Knox each contribute wonderful strips.
Who are you? What the Audi ad says about you
The wakeboarder depicted is a chap called Gavin Broadbent, who is New Zealand’s wakeboarding champion. The ad was filmed in the Tasman Sea off the west coast of NZ.
Youth TV Prepares for the Digital Challenge
Interview: Brent Hansen: MTV Europe’s president has seen the network flourish in his 13 years there.
