Outdoor advertising revenue for the first nine months of 2017 has reached just over $85 million – 24% ahead of the same period last year. September stood out, reaching $11.3 million – the second highest month on record.

The finalists of the 2017 Deloitte Top 200 Awards have been announced. The awards, which celebrate excellence in business, will be held on Thursday 23 November at Spark Arena in Auckland.

Gamer Sensei – the esports coaching startup based in the US, but founded in NZ – has launched a Hearthstone pro team. And in the squad’s first ever competitive event, Dreamhack Denver, Team Gamer Sensei took home both 1st and 3rd place.

The 60th New York Festivals International Advertising Awards is now accepting entries for its 2018 competition – one of the world’s top creative shows.

TVNZ creative work beat out fierce Transtasman competition to win two major categories at this year’s PromaxBDA ANZ Awards. The grunt behind the win came from TVNZ Blacksand, Shortland Street producer South Pacific Pictures, Mercury Energy and its agency FCB Media.

Despite widespread support for diversity and inclusiveness in the advertising & comms industry, there is a gap when it comes to formal policies and programmes, according to groundbreaking research undertaken by the NZ Commercial Communications Council.

Keep an eye on this space – because the Axis Awards 2018 entry call goes live next week. And the Comms Council’s Katie Ward suggests you “might want to get a head-start on those entries this side of Christmas, before the busy summer season starts”.

NZ programmatic trader Acquire Online has been awarded the Best Use of Performance medal at the Drum Digital Trading Awards APAC 2017 for their work with a client in the finance sector.

Fairfax Media has acquired 100% per cent ownership of New Zealand-based website business Neighbourly.co.nz. Fairfax has progressively increased its share after first investing in the startup in December 2014. Since then, the site has grown eight-fold from 62,000 members to more than 500,000 members, and is now one of the most visited websites in New Zealand.

LONDON, Today: D&AD has launched its call for entries to the 56th annual awards – and unveiled its 2018 global jury presidents.