The Marketing Association has unveiled its finalists for the TVNZ Marketing Awards. With the first round of judging complete, 151 entries (70 unique marketing initiatives) make up the 2016 finalists.

Glowing reviews have greeted the publication of Richard Loseby’s latest book, A Boy of China – in Search of Mao’s Lost Son, the fruits of the writer’s detective work retracing (in reverse) the route of the 13,000km Long March.

“Brits are often like sheep: Downtrodden, dull, staid, lethargic, complacent, apathetic, predictable and, yes, boring,” writes former TVNZ head of entertainment Peter Grattan – himself a Brit – in a letter to the Listener imploring his ex-countrymen “to discover there’s more to life than warm beer and Yorkshire pud”.

WPP ceo Sir Martin Sorrell has voiced what many industry people are starting to feel about the Cannes Lions Festival – that it has become too big and unwieldy and that the expense involved may no longer justify attendance.

Rainger & Rolfe client the Child Cancer Foundation has won $100,000 worth of outdoor advertising, heading off four other charity finalists in APN Outdoor’s Pixel361° Final Charity competition.

Colenso BBDO/Proximity has been named Creative Agency of the Year at the 2016 John Caples Awards in New York. (The Caples celebrates the work of “the most courageous practitioners” in direct marketing.)

Cannes Titanium & Intergrated Lions jury member Ted Lim, the chief creative officer for Dentsu Asia-Pacific, has singled out Colenso’s DB Export Brewtroleum work as one of the three standouts at Cannes.