AUCKLAND, Today: A pig’s backside, chocolate squid ice cream, an AI bot that fights email scammers, mini Lord of the Rings action figures, dice to decide your downtime activities and an app to help victims of domestic violence.

AUCKLAND, Today: A long-established, well-regarded Queen Street digital agency, Aamplify Partners, yesterday closed its doors, making as many as 25 people redundant.

With 69 entries across 15 categories, 37 finalists have been named for the 2018 IABNZ Awards, with winners set to be recognised across Digital Media Sales Excellence, Ad-Operations Excellence, Digital Product of the Year and Creative Facing categories.

Stuff senior comms exec Alex Maplesden writes: “We’ve just received the July Unique Audience results from Nielsen and thought you may be interested in some of the findings, particularly the YOY growth in Unique Audience from Stuff vs the decline from the New Zealand Herald.

The Comms Council has appointed London-based “recovering account planner” Mark Earls as the international judge at October’s NZ Effie Awards.

Women in Indonesia are the focus for a new Pantene shampoo campaign by Grey that includes a full-length pop song by one of the country’s most famous singers (and single mothers), Anggun.

AUCKLAND, Today: Business lender Spotcap has launched its first ever brand campaign in New Zealand – it began running across MediaWorks stations The Breeze and The Sound yesterday.