KEY POINTS:
Here we go again. The Lotteries Commission is reviewing its advertising after just three years with agency Lowe.
But the commission promises the review will not turn into an expensive and long-running fiasco like the last time.
Head of marketing Wendy Rayner acknowledged industry ill-feeling about the elaborate process when a dozen agencies were initially asked to submit ideas.
Some spent tens of thousands of dollars on their pitch.
This time agencies including Lowe, Saatchi & Saatchi, DDB, Colenso BBDO and Y & R Advertising and Publicis Mojo have been approached for the creative part of the account, thought to worth around $8 million.
The media spend part of the lotteries business will stay with buying agency Spark.
Rayner says Lotto will pick a short-list of three before requiring agencies to make a costly pitch.
She acknowledged past grumbles and met the ad industry body Caanz to ease tensions.
But some in the ad industry are still gobsmacked the commission is putting the Lotto brand through another disruptive marketing review after just three years.
It was understandable last time because Saatchi & Saatchi had held the business for 17 years.
The quality of the work had slipped on occasion and the commission had a new chief executive, Trevor Hall, who had a good rapport with a former Lowe managing director Chris Knox. After turning around profits, Hall has left the commission.
Initially the campaign went pear-shaped and the commission had to scrap television commercials that featured investment guru Bob Kingsman. But even critics acknowledge that since that foul-up Lowe's work for Lotto has been rather good.
Lowe Down
These are challenging times for Lowe which is being revamped. Stephen Pearson will spend part of his time in Sydney, where he will be chief executive for both Australia and New Zealand.
Auckland executive Judi Lewis will head Draft, the direct marketing part of the company, and the New Zealand operation is now being run by general manager Cameron Harland.
Lowe's other big account, Vodafone, also seems a little restless. Spokesman Paul Brislen declined to comment about speculation of an imminent review. It is understood that before Christmas the telco was knocking on ad agency doors to assess interest in the business.
Out There Ads
Ad folk are a little stunned by the television commercial for Burger King that features women in bikinis riding horseback down a beach while munching hamburgers. We'll go out on a limb and say this is the most blatant example of using sex to sell burgers and fries in the 21st century. As one longtime ad man said: "It is out there."
The Burger King account is held by Y & R Advertising. It would be easy to read into this the influence of Y & R's new creative director Paul Catmur. But Y & R chief executive Jon Ramage said Catmur had not started yet and was not involved.
He said the ads, which survived two complaints to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board last year, had been successful with a target group that just happens to include teenage males.
More Gloss For NBR?
National Business Review is playing down ad industry rumours that it is developing a glossy magazine linked to the weekly business newspaper. Managing editor Brett Thompson confirmed that NBR had been looking at ideas at the end of last year and there was a place in the market, but said nothing was imminent. Fairfax owned rival the Independent Financial Review provides the Australian Financial Review and Boss magazines. But agency folk suggested NBR would be looking at something that was a little more Kiwi, and no doubt a little cheaper to produce. Wonder if they looked at buying Unlimited magazine when it was up for grabs last year ...
Changing Times
The New Zealand general manager for the PBL-owned jobs website Seek.co.nz, Ken Leeming, has changed tack from his old role as sales manager for the New Zealand Herald.
Back then he would wax lyrical about the value of newspaper ads. Seek last week produced a ye olde newspaper-style promotion called Stuck In The Times which lampooned newspapers for being slow in meeting the needs of the job market.
Leeming said the promotion was just a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun. Last week a promotional team dressed in period costume handed out 10,000 copies in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Not Quite A Shaw Thing
Andrew Shaw is tipped to return to Television New Zealand now that commissioning boss Tony Holden is moving on.
TVNZ is revamping the commissioning job with its extraordinary power to decide what programmes are made and by whom. But there would be widespread relief if the job went to Shaw who started out in the kids show Here's Andy.
Shaw has a cutting wit and had a good rapport with TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis in his first tour of duty in the late 1990s when Shaw was head of content.
He left with numerous other executives during the controversial era of chairman Ross Armstrong and political meddling at state TV.
Currently he is making a series for TV One called How The Other Half Lives in which Marc Ellis spends time with minority groups.
Shaw said he had not applied for any job and expected it would be advertised.
But we hear it is almost a fait accompli, and if he wants the job he will get it.
Holden Backs Off From TVNZ
Last week this column predicted Holden's departure and a new role as executive producer for Dancing With The Stars.
Nobody will be surprised that Holden resigned from TVNZ after four years in the commissioning job, especially after a dinner for the TV producers body Spada two months ago.
Sources say he gave a spirited and unrequested appraisal of the abilities of producers - people who rely on TVNZ for their survival. Senior TVNZ executives were on hand.
Appointed by Ian Fraser, Holden, operated with a large measure of autonomy. Some believe that Holden was a talented commissioning editor and that his tenure coincided with a creative flourish in commissioning at TVNZ.
Others believe that during this period the department was able to develop with little oversight.
What's the point?
Holden has been the driving force behind the new TV One soap opera The Point which is being funded with around $12 million of taxpayers' money.
And it is unclear who will champion the series now that he has moved on.
The production sector is looking askance at the decision to give the show loads of public funding for a show set in West Auckland that will screen on TV One daily at 5.30pm.
Rick Ellis may be the biggest advocate for the show, which involves quite substantial risks.
It is understood that a team of eight people from TVNZ and New Zealand On Air are about to compare proposals and that a decision is weeks away.
TVNZ is keeping intellectual property rights to the series but hiring a local producer to make it. It is down to a shortlist of three companies.
