Around 70 creatives, strategists and marketers braved a steamy mid-summer Auckland night last week to hear celebrated US adman Faris Yakob speak at OMD’s industry update event, Tea & Toast. The venue was the upmarket new Seafarer Members Club restaurant/bar in the Britomart, started in November last year by Shine creatives Lucien Law and Simon Curran.

“Here’s a dozen Red ones,” reads the Valentines Card attached to a carton of M+AD’s favourite beverage, left on Ed’s doorstep yesterday.

ANZ has launched its new Student Banking campaign, Fortune Favours the Brave, with some serious fanfare thanks to the help of globally renowned choreographer Parris Goebel and Whybin\TBWA NZ.

Partnering with Goebel, ANZ and Whybin turned a first-year student’s original song into a music video “fit for the likes of J-Lo and Justin Bieber”.

Sugar&Partners has won the Hubbards advertising business. There appears not to have been a formal pitch, but Hubbards marketing director Rebecca Bergs told M+AD this morning that they did “look at other agencies”.

NZ was the 11th most awarded country in the 2015 Gunn Report for Media, published overnight in London. The top three were the US, UK and India; Australia was #4.

Facebook has introduced new features for video ads, including automated captioning for sound-off videos and other video updates.

Indian students make a significant contribution to the NZ economy, says Media Design School ceo Darryn Melrose – who was ceo of M&C Saatchi and Aim Proximity Auckland in 2009-2012 – writing in a guest column in yesterday’s NZ Herald.