Six agency bands have signed up for the Flying Fish/CAANZ 2015 Battle of the Ad Bands, now just a fortnight away. Barnes Catmur & Friends’ Friends Electric are back again, so is OMD’s The Chased. New entrants are Colenso BBDO’s Pegasus and the Job Numbers, Clemenger BBDO/Proximity’s Fatal Death, Fish’s Goth Darnitt & The Self Flagilation Foundation, and last year’s winner Whybin\TBWA’s The Dooyahs.

Plunket is on the look-out for a new partnership with a creative agency to help re-engage New Zealanders in its cause.

Parnell based strategic marketing communications agency The Business worked with Constellation Brands to develop the VNO brand from scratch back in 2012. Created specifically to target Millennials, it has enjoyed strong commercial success. Now they’ve launched a thermo label that literally tells you when VNO has hit the correct temperature for drinking.

Campaign Asia-Pacific has launched its 2015 Agency|Marketer Partnership Award which aims to recognise the region’s most effective client-agency relationships. The magazine has specifically asked M+AD to invite entries from NZ.

Since their original McWhopper proposal, Y&R NZ client Burger King has received offers from other burger brands to collaborate. The original targets of the Y&R McWhopper proposal, McDonald’s, predictably muddied the waters, but the agency has pressed on anyway – and their offer has been picked up by Denny’s, Wayback Burgers, Krystal, and Giraffas.

Colenso BBDO planning director Neville Doyle is a keynote speaker – in a joint presentation with Oliver Downs from Mars Pedigree – at the one-day Direct Marketing Conference at the Pullman Auckland this coming Tuesday (September 8). His topic is Dogs, Data, Digital and Direct.

New Zealand Optics, the monthly industry publication for New Zealand’s ophthalmic community, is under new ownership. Former owners Maryanne Dransfield and her daughter-in-law Anita Dransfield have sold the publication to business journalist and corporate PR professional Lesley Springall.

The New Zealand business landscape has long acted as a testing ground for new ventures. Its small size and knowledgeable consumer base creates a desirable environment to test ideas before scaling up overseas. A local marketing firm has done just this; using New Zealand’s startup ecosystem, the company have honed its offering and now plans to expand into Australia.

AUT Adschool CD Jane Berney writes: “In early July, we received a Just Water Filters International flyer from ceo Tony Falkenstein with a competition for ‘a creative genius to come up with a short word or picture concept that will create the need for customers’ to purchase Just Water filters.