The CAANZ Beacons Awards (formerly the Media Awards) holds an entry writing workshop on Thursday 29 January at the Media Design School, 92 Albert St, Auckland from 9am-10:30am, facilitated by Andrew Reinholds (OMD) and Rufus Chuter (FCB Media).

This is the first 2015 edition of the M+AD daily newsletter. We at M+AD are back from our short summer hibernation – but with the golden weather rolling on, we’re still very much in holiday mode.

Marketer Jenny Stiles joins Nielsen on January 19 after a six-month stint at Fairfax Media (where she had been northern region marketing manager in the publisher’s new-look national management team). Prior to Fairfax, she’d been executive director at News Works, the newspaper industry’s promotional cooperative.

Just before Xmas the experiential industry held its final meeting for the year, bringing together the teams from 20 agency members of the Experiential Marketing Association of NZ to hear the latest news on industry initiatives from the EMANZ executive committee.

Leading NZ media exponent Fleur Revell has launched a training blog to help business owners and managers prepare for media interviews. The major players in the field for years have been Brian Edwards &Judy Callingham – but Revell’s venture is the first to work online.

New Zealand was the eighth-ranked creative country in the world, according to Australia’s Bestads rankings out of Campaign Brief (the rankings are based on global awards wins).