TVC!

Recently we have been working on a brief for Alfa One Rice Bran Oil which ended up in a TVC and series of print ads! It was a real bonus being able to go on our first TVC shoot and we learnt a lot about the process - and how painstakingly long even the simplest things can take! While we think that the idea is perhaps better in print... it was cool to make a TVC too. After coming up with the initial idea, our creative director took the lead on most of the decisions about the details voice over and music - so some things we would have done differently, but all and all we are stoked to have had the opportunity to get a good idea of what a TVC involves.

AdMedia 'Make An Ad' Competition

We've just received the latest issue of AdMedia and found out that we won ourselves a 2 year subscription with one of our entries in the 'Make An Ad' Competition. Yeah~! So thrilled!

We had a fun time making the entries, and to win a subscription to our favorite magazine is really awesome. The mag keeps us up to date with the latest ads & local industry trends and the weekly Fastline is great for job hunters like us. Thanks for choosing our work, AdMedia's judges & Dave Gapes!

DIY DNA

You've probably seen these new ads for Mitre 10 made by DraftFCB but they are fantastic so we thought we'd put them on the blog! Such a cool insight, and just so darn cute.

[Updated] Just found out from AdMedia that Michael's AXIS classmate Iain MacMillan & Antony Wilson are part of the creative team who did this Mitre 10 campaign. Well done Iain & Ant~! :)

Out of tune radio

Our first brief at Blackwood was for the NZBus iPod promotion. Luckily we came up with the goods on our second day and got to make a radio ad! It was really interesting going to the recording, choosing the talent and stressing about getting the rights to the song (which changed about 5 times!). Our idea was also expanded into an ambient stunt with singers giving out flyers on buses. Enjoy :D

Click below to listen to the radio ad.

Our first team placement - Blackwood!

Hi everyone, we'd like to share some job hunting news. For the last 4 weeks we've been doing our first placement at Blackwood Communication Group (BCG)!

We've been thrown into the deep end from day one and are glad that we cracked a radio brief in our first week, which eventually expanded into an ambient idea as well. It was really cool when the ad was aired 3 weeks ago (we'll post it on the blog here soon).

Not wanting to be a one-trick-pony, we have pressed on to have more ideas through in the last few weeks. Contributing to a big pitch was stressful but we really enjoyed it. Overall we think we've learnt a lot and are glad about how well we work together in a real agency environment, considering we're a newly formed team. In fact, we feel like we've been here a whole lot longer than 4 weeks! 

Anyway, before we end this post and get back to work, we'd like to say a big thank you to all the CDs and lovely people we've met in the last few months who have been helping us and offering us advice & encouraging words. In particularly, a big big big cheers to Paul Catmur, Paul Nagy, Tim Hall & Scott Henderson, David Gapes, Jeremy Southern, Vaughn Davis  & David Bell and last but not least our ECD James Blackwood. Thanks guys~!

That's how interactive ideas should be!

(Just click on the image to experience...)

My brother Joseph is a bit of a hardcore gamer and yesterday he sent me this link & said, "You gotta see this ad, it's so cool!". So off I went and clicked on the link and watched...hmmm I thought...nothing really special...it's not even an ad...oops hold on...my God~!

Hahaha...I think I've given away the idea quite a bit now. Best see it yourself. We reckon that's what every interactive idea should aim to do - engage the audience (and wow them!). Enjoy!

NAB Newspaper Ad of the Year Award

On the 27th of August the NAB Newspaper ad of the year awards took place in Auckland. We invited ourselves along to the evening in the hope of seeing some good work, meeting some cool people and - hey it's advertising so of course we wanted to go! While there, we had a good chat to the awesome team from M&C Saatchi in Wellington. Marianne and Jeremy helped me out last summer with some briefs to help build a good portfolio and gave me and Katy lots of great advice. It was great to catch up with them and also see them win and take home that $10,000!

I'm looking at the student work. Some good, some not so good!

Jeremy Southern, Marianne Harvey and Mark Anstis receiving their award for their fabulous ad.

Since we've teamed up, Michael has talked alot about the CDs he met in Wellington. So I'm glad that I finally got to meet Tim Hall (CD of Saatchi Wellington) and Paul Nagy (CD of Clemenger) who flew up to attend this event. I enjoyed the chat with Paul particularly, who's warm and energetic! We also caught up with Vaughn Davis (Y&R) who contributed some very nice feedback to our blog after we first met him as a team at Ignite.

The winning student team receiving their award from NAB's Lexie Ribot. Well done guys!

To announce the winner, all of the work was lit up with individual spot lights which gradually turned off as each piece was eliminated. When it came down to the final three, everyone was looking in all directions to see which ad was left standing. It was a nice way to show the final winning piece!

Before the night ends, we had a good chat with David Gapes (Editor of AdMedia) and thanked him personally for promoting our blog post of Ignite in his weekly ad newsletter Fastline. It really helped our job hunting and we can't express our gratitute enough. Anyway, it was a fun evening - and they even had these cute mini cheeseburgers which were delicious!