PATTAYA, THAILAND, Today: New Zealand judges have been overlooked by the organisers of Adfest 2023 – which has just announced the panel for this year’s Lotus Awards competition.

AUCKLAND, Friday: NZME – which has already committed $1 million of advertising for businesses impacted Cyclone Gabrielle – has now announced its backing for the New Zealand Red Cross Disaster Fund’s support for those impacted, and prepare for future emergencies. ,./

AUCKLAND, Thursday: Rental car agency Avis New Zealand is to sponsor the Royal New Zealand Ballet to support innovation and excellence in the arts. Boyd PR NZ advises there’s no ad agencies involved – yet.

WELLINGTON, Today: Whittaker’s has organised an integrated advertising campaign with MBM for its new “limited edition” Blondie and Biscuit 250g block.

SYDNEY, Wednesday: BigAds, an Australian-based creative intelligence & optimisation ad tech company with a strong presence in NZ has conducted primary research with leading independent, attention score optimisation providers Lumen Research & Attentv (purchased by Amplified Intelligence) to “demonstrate the uplift in rich media campaign results”.

AUCKLAND, Today: NZ’s fast-growing Niche online stock footage libraryphoto specialist nzstockfootage is investing further “to focus on providing a better service and larger offering of footage specifically designed for the AU/NZ market”.

LONDON & AUCKLAND, Today: UK marketing effectiveness outfit WARC and online learning programme Master of Advertising Effectiveness have joined forces to take the effective marketing learning programme global – with Kiwi agency chief James Hurman at the helm.

SYDNEY, Tuesday: B&T’s UK-based tech editor Tom Fogden summarises the Super Bowl: “Reportedly, there was an American football game on over the weekend.