August already and businesses have been told to start thinking about their marketing plans for Christmas. The Marketing Association and AdRoll have combined resources for a short Xmas workshop this month in Auckland.

Millions have viewed Samsung’s Olympic anthem since The Games opened over the weekend. “The Anthem” is a co-creation of Leo Burnett Sydney and Chicago to promote Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge mobile phone. In a mash-up of national anthems, New Zealand is one of the chosen few in what’s been called a song of international unity.

Digital strategy agency, Touchcast plans to take New Zealand’s newest brand of honey to the world. It’s teamed with newly-launched truehoney.co.nz to home deliver authenic, premium manuka honey to kiwis before launching overseas.

QMS Media NZ is backing next year’s World Masters Games as the official outdoor media partner. For the first time since they began in 1985, the Games are to be held in New Zealand with the world’s largest multi-sport event taking place across 48 venues throughout Auckland and Waikato. 

You could walk away from this year’s Semi-Permanent a lot smarter. The Pond, in collaboration with Crane Brothers and Kate Sylvester, are giving away two $1500 fashion vouchers at the event. That’s one for the guys and one for the girls. So make sure you enter while you’re there. 

Auckland service provider Able are offering captioning for free-to-air TV coverage of the Rio Olympic Games. Able says the first time captioning on Prime TV will make the Games accessible for Kiwis who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. 

Mumbrella warns there are less than two weeks before entries close to this year’s annual BEfest Awards – billed as the only programme recognising the best branded entertainment work created here and in Australia.

Fairfax has announced plans to enter the broadband market. Under the banner “Stuff Fibre” the media giant will be launching an internet provider to go up against Spark and Vodafone.