M+AD ed David Gapes had his own close encounter of the worst kind with the Auld Mug – now heading back to Godzone – when it was last in town.

The NZ Commercial Comms Council has today issued its call for entries for the 2017 Effie Awards (held in association with TVNZ). Entries close Tuesday 15 August, for a show scheduled at the Langham Auckland – soon to be relaunched with a new name* – on Thursday 19 October.

Chinese internet giant Alibaba sees “significant opportunities” for ethnic communities in New Zealand to sell to middle-class Chinese consumers who are already well disposed to the country’s clean and green image, reports Warc from the UK.

AA Directions continues to dominate New Zealand magazine readership statistics, hitting No 1 this week in the toplines of the Nielsen survey of the field in play.

QMS NZ has unveiled a significant update to its award-winning Datalab suite of products. Datalab now includes mobile data and delivers smarter audience centric insights and multiformat planning capability for advertisers.

Cadbury has saved its evil best for last. Not only has it spanked every good Cadbury chocolate-lovin’ Kiwi by closing its iconic Dunedin factory and taking production offshore – but now it’s handed its ‘local’ ANZ full-service agency account to Ogilvy Melbourne.

Clemenger BBDO Melbourne’s Meet Graham didn’t win everything at the Cannes Lions Festival last week – the Integrated and Titanium juries dismissed the work because it reminded them too much of 1985’s First Natural Born Smoker.

Sky TV and Vodafone dropped their $3.44 billion merger bid and Commerce Commission appeal because of the estimated cost of at least $1 million each and an estimated one-year timeframe, Sky ceo John Fellet has told NBR’s Chris Keall.