SYDNEY, Friday: The New Zealand Herald won Daily News Brand of the Year at the 2018 News Media Awards, which combine the former Panpa Newspaper Awards and Australia’s Advertising & Marketing Awards.

Former DDB GAD Kevin Bowler – better known these days as the ceo of My Food Bag – was Friday inducted into the NZ Marketing Hall of Fame.

To coincide with Conservation Week, M Theory (the AR and VR arm of Auckland creative agency Method), working with NZ social enterprise Squawk Squad, has created an interactive VR experience aimed at getting rangatahi excited about saving New Zealand’s native birds.

SYDNEY, Friday: The FireFlies Antipodes is calling for riders for its third tour, taking place from Sunday 17 February to Saturday 23 February 2019. The ride covers approximately 1000km from Christchurch to Queenstown. Riders are dedicated to eliminating global blood cancers and leukaemia.

Following yesterday’s M+AD story about Australia’s Catalogue Awards (headlined No agency – but Kathmandu wins in Oz), Dentsu Aegis Network Melbourne has updated us with the news they had just been appointed, although this was never announced in NZ.

HAMILTON, Today: The Radio Broadcasters Association and GfK announced today that fieldwork and data analysis for the Waikato market will not resume until S1 2019 – at the – earliest.

AUCKLAND, last night: The NZ Automobile Association and AA Insurance have taken out the Supreme Award at this year’s TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards for their AA Home Response marketing initiative. The two also won the Consumer Products & Services, Best Brand Extension/Innovation and Best Collaboration award categories.

OMD, one of NZ’s largest media shops, has won the Skycity media account following a competitive pitch. Work commences immediately. The incumbent was Zenith NZ.

AUCKLAND, Thursday: First Five Dates, the networking event for millennials in advertising and communication, run by Comms Council industry support group First Five Rungs earlier in the week, was declared “a hit!” by most attendees.

AUCKLAND, Today: NZME’s Charlotte Startin won the Grand Prix at the IABNZ Awards, held a fortnight ago at Motat Auckland. An IAB representative told M+AD this morning that the two-week delay in announcing the winners was due to “work overload” (unsurprising, given significant management changes at the IAB – scroll down to read more).