Supermarket giant Countdown has chosen to support a Women’s Refuge initiative – created their agency Saatchi & Saatchi late last year – that allows visitors to its website to access The Shielded Site, a portal enabling victims of family violence to safely seek help and access critical information without fear of detection.

The Public Relations Institute holds an unusual event later this month – a two-hour tutorial for PR people about PR people. How to run a PR firm, to be precise. Or, as PRINZ puts it, “The ruthless application of common sense”.

Midas – founded in 2001 by the New York Festival organisation – has a new leader this year, after NYF appointed Scott Rose to the role of Midas executive director.

Building on from Haier’s 2015 and 2016 partnership with The Block NZ, Haier’s PR agency were asked to come up with a new campaign concept to extend Haier’s partnership with The Block NZ off the screen and involve local communities.

There’s just one spot left for an agency band to sign up for Botab 2017’s Battle of the Decades . “This,” points out the Comms Council’s Katy Ward, “will be your chance to perform on the Kings Arms stage one last time before it’s demolished.”

The immersive interactivity of oOh!media’s digital Excite retail panels not only builds deep connection with those engaging with them, but with an additional four to seven times more shoppers who stop to watch the interaction, the company claims.

The Comms Council’s Effies steering committee has announced the appointment of Chris Baker, founder at Bacon Strategy & Research London, will be this year’s international judge for the 2017 Effie Awards (held in association with TVNZ).

The sudden drain of Aussie & Kiwi creative talent from glamour shop Droga5 New York is starting to look like a flood. Yesterday, Lisa Fedyszyn & Jonathan McMahon announced they were returning Auckland to join Ogilvy. Later, they were joined by senior creative Rory Mckechnie, who is returning to DDB NZ as CD.

Ogilvy is set to bolster its creative firepower with the hiring of multi award-winning Aussie/Kiwi expats Lisa Fedyszyn and Jonathan McMahon, who have left Droga5 New York.