KEY POINTS:
New Zealand has a small corporate community and there are bound to be the occasional clashes of roles with people in positions for more than one company.
But we were surprised a while ago to learn that the chief executive of state broadcaster TVNZ, Rick Ellis, is also a director of Renaissance Group, the publicly listed company that distributes Apple computer products.
Changes to the media sector and the increasing role products such as iPods are playing in broadcasting - TVNZ has recently started promoting its video podcasts - made us wonder if there was any special bond between the Crown enterprise and the company.
Ellis was rather unhappy about us asking the question and emphasised that there was no conflict of interest, although we did not suggest there was.
A spokesman said that Ellis - a former New Zealand head of computer giant EDS - regarded the outside directorship as a positive business discipline.
He held the Renaissance post in his previous role and was given approval to resume it. Ellis was also a director of Gullivers Travel, but that company had been bought out and delisted.
A TVNZ spokesman said there was no special relationship between Apple and the broadcaster. But Ellis had ensured that as part of his employment contract he was allowed to be on the boards of two outside companies so he could keep in touch with business.
Supercouncil for superbrands?
Beauty parades of top brands have become de rigueur in the business world and recently Hawkhurst Media Services won the contract to determine winners for the first Superbrands book in this country.
The book "pays tribute to the nation's leading commercial and cultural brands". But who will decide which of the 700 nominees is chosen?
There's a strong academic choice in Rod Brodie, professor of marketing studies at Auckland University and Tony White.
There are a couple of journos - Marketing Magazine's managing editor Graham Metcalf and business writer Jenni McManus.
Surprisingly the Superbrands council does not include any of the big wheels from corporate advertising or marketing, though that might be wise given their companies are less likely to have been nominated.
Ferrit 'goes a bit silly'
Marketers are throwing subtle suggestion out the window as they cajole journalists with samples of their fine products in the run-up to Christmas.
It is the season for giving, but this columnist has been taken aback by some of the brash courting for positive editorial coverage.
Such as? Well how about the approach of Telecom's online shopping mall ferrit.co.nz and its public relations agency Botica Butler Raudon Partners.
It is offering journalists a 20 per cent discount on all things they buy on Ferrit.
According to an invitation all they have to do is turn up at a do at a High St location tomorrow, write down their work email and check out ferrit.co.nz while having a cup of coffee.
The coffee is free.
But more to the point, the 20 per cent refund is valid up to $1000 over and above any price cuts offered by the actual retailers. A figure of $1000 is more than product sampling and takes this promotion into a whole new sphere.
Who is eligible? Nearly everybody in the media and their hangers-on, it seems.
"If you write, report, present, subedit, proof, design, photograph, illustrate, animate or publish or are otherwise involved in the media you are invited. If you're a freelancer or columnist you are in.
"If you sell advertising and can find a journalist you are also on. Bring a business card so we know you are kosher."
Why it is making this offer "Because we have gone a bit silly," it says, uncomfortably close to the truth.
A journos' free lunch
Media organisations typically have policies about how staff deal with these offers.
But since Pead PR coaxed fashion and lifestyle media to use the word "starkish" promoting a DB alcopop brand with the promise of being in the draw for a trip to New York, some marketers seem to have taken incentives into the realm of hard news reporting .
The Business Herald covered an initiative linking petrol companies and supermarkets and received two $10 petrol vouchers with the press release.
The vouchers from Gull were not redeemed.
Two weeks ago the Business Herald wrote a small story about a new prepay "Subcard" for fast-food company Subway. The next day couriers delivered a bottle of vodka and a prepaid Subcard with a message thanking the journalist for coverage.
The journalist couriered it straight back, but according to public relations consultant Cathy Campbell that was the first time such a gift had been returned to her.
Veteran PR woman and Auckland University of Technology lecturer Aline Sandilands said the danger with gifts was that they could have a negative effect because media people felt compromised and avoided saying something positive when they otherwise might have.
Deborah Pead of Pead PR said Ferrit's 20 per cent discount was too high. It was important to treat news separately from other media. Ferrit could have offered a smaller amount with purchases donated to charity, she said.
Whatever happened to ...
Chris Taylor, the former chief executive of Prime Television, who transferred to the Nine Network station in Queensland in February when Nine dropped its option to buy 50 per cent of Prime?
Family man Taylor found himself in the celebrity whirl in New Zealand with friends such as actor Oliver Driver, Mikey Havoc and New Zealand Idol judge Paul Ellis.
He hired music industry celebrity Ellis to be communications boss for Nine.
Amidst upheavals at Nine about four months ago, Chris and his father Lynton Taylor resigned.
Ellis remains communications manager for Nine but Chris Taylor moved back to hometown Sydney where Ellis says he has set up a consultancy business.
Leaving Nine would be a wrench for Taylor whose father was a close friend of Kerry Packer and helped him to create one-day cricket as a TV spectacular.
Taylor will be remembered by many as the man who TVNZ news boss Bill Ralston invited to douse himself in petrol and jump off a tall building because of poor ratings.
