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Finalists for the 2007 NZ Marketing Magazine Marketing Awards in partnership with the Marketing Association have been announced. The finalists are:

* TNS Marketer of the Year: Olivia Blaylock - Child Cancer Foundation; Matthew Cody - AMI Insurance; Mike Heath - Rabobank New Zealand; Jude Mannion

* M&C Saatchi Rookie Marketer of the Year: Chau Huynh - Pilkington (NZ); Daniel McCallum - Vodafone New Zealand; Thomas Stokell - The Health Sponsorship Council; John Williams - Sentrix Group.

* Bizambrands Not-For-Profit Marketing Award: Child Cancer Foundation - 'Help fight the monster'; Health Sponsorship Council - 'Bike Wise Week'; Ministry of Health - 'National Depression Initiative'; Yachting New Zealand - 'Sailing... Have a Go'.

* University of Otago Emerging Business Award: RaboPlus - 'Online Savings Bank'; Zuji.co.nz - 'Internet Based Travel Agency'.

* Smartsource Marketing Award for Fast Moving Consumer Goods: Brandworld - 'Meadow Fresh Yoghurt'; Cadbury Confectionery - 'Cadbury Moro Gold'; Griffins Foods - 'ETA Uppercuts'; Griffins Foods - 'MallowPuffs'.

* Ubiquity New Media Marketing Award: Marketing Impact - 'Online Marketing System'; The Hyperfactory - 'Tui Mobile Internet WAP Site'; The Hyperfactory - 'KFC Interactive Mobile Marketing Test'.

* Colmar Brunton Consumer Services Award: AMI Insurance - 'Re-branding Campaign'; Interislander - 'Domestic Passenger Business'; New Zealand Blood Service - 'Save Lives Give Blood'; RaboPlus - 'Online Savings Bank'.

* NZ Marketing Magazine Consumer Durables Award: Environmental Air Care - 'RoboCan'; Honda NZ - 'Honda NZ'.

* Morton Estate Wines Retail Award: KFC New Zealand - 'KFC New Zealand'; Whitcoulls - 'Whitcoulls Books'.

* Malcove Innovative Research Award: Looksy.org - 'The Voice of Generation C'.

The winner of the Fairfax New Zealand Supreme Award will be selected from the winners of the various category awards. All winners will be announced at a gala awards ceremony to be held at the Langham hotel on Thursday 26 July 2007.

New Zealand data mining organisation Datamine has developed a computer program that will examine a business' database or address list and provide the user with a SendRight SOA, called AddressWorks Powered by Datamine. The company is providing this software, via its website, free of charge to potential customers, on the proviso that if the customer does not meet the SOA requirements, they will then use Datamine to clean their database and correct their data. This offer comes as a result of New Zealand Post changing the way it offers its discounted bulk mailing service to bulk mailing users who meet the requirements of their new SendRight Address Accuracy Programme, from July 2008. The discounts being offered to bulk mail users are envisaged to be around 10 to 12 cents per envelope (20 to 25 percent off the regular cost), so for bulk mailers the potential cost savings are huge. To qualify for the discount, bulk mail users must prove, on a 12 monthly basis, that over 85 percent of the addresses they send mail to are correct to NZ Post standards by obtaining a Statement of Accuracy (SOA). At the moment, no organisation or business in the country that sends bulk mail has been able to obtain an SOA, so this software will be of interest.

Recent criticism of unethical practices by real estate agents and a growing public distrust of members of the real estate industry, has led to the launch of a new independent website - TopAgents.co.nz. This new site, which is now live, will help home buyers and sellers make an informed decision when selecting an agent, based on public feedback posted on the site. TopAgents.co.nz will allow the public to find and select New Zealand real estate agents that have proven to provide excellent service and have been recommended by the public. Real estate agents can be added to the site by either the public, or by the agents themselves.

Prime presenter Alison Mau will join the Prime news team two nights a week while Prime News - First At 5.30 anchor Suzy Clarkson is on maternity leave. Mau will present Prime News - First at 5.30 and the Sky News NZ Evening News bulletin at 7pm, every Friday and Saturday, starting 20 July through to 20 October. Eric Young and Kelly Swanson-Roe will continue on as news and sports anchors.

Heritage Hotels has appointed Robbi Shearer as the new general manager of Heritage Hanmer Springs. She replaces Carey Norton who has been appointed to the role of general manager of Heritage Queenstown. Robbi has most recently worked for Outrigger Hotels and Resorts based in Christchurch.

Robert Moore, managing director, Agility Fairs and Events, was voted in as president, Exhibition & Event Association of Australasia (EEAA) at the Annual General Meeting on 31 May in Sydney.

Twenty Limited has appointed Marco Lau as senior analyst, re-uniting an award-winning analytics partnership with Mark Wilson. The pair worked together extensively while at Proximity iD, during which time they helped the company win Nexus Gold awards for data mining and strategic vision.

Chris Lamers, widely credited with helping transform Wellington into one of New Zealand's top international and domestic visitor destinations, has been appointed head of marketing for the Fly Buys programme.

Braincell Creative has appointed Angela Beatson to the new role of senior account manager. With over nine years in the advertising and creative media sector, Angela has partnered with national and multinational companies such as Colenso 99, Ogilvy and Saatchi & Saatchi. In her new role she is responsible for business development and management of senior accounts across Braincell divisions which provide creative services to broadcasters, corporates and ad agencies.

Blackwood King Adpartners has merged with Robbins Brandt Richter to become Blackwood Communications. BKA CEO and executive creative director James Blackwood will retain the same titles and functions at Blackwood Communications. RBR director Mary Robbins will be leaving shortly, once her current contract expires.

Harvey Cameron Advertising's art director Jeremy Presland (31) passed away unexpectedly at the beginning of June.

Nestle FoodServices is set to officially take over the selling and distribution for the Uncle Tobys brand in the food service and industrial channel in New Zealand from 1 July. Within the food service sector, Nestle FoodServices will take over the distribution of Bran Flakes, Thistle Oatmeal, Flemings Rolled Oats, Flemings Milk Oaties, Thistle Oatmeal, Flemings Oat Bran, Flemings Flaked Pearl Barley, Flemings Vita Crunch, and Flemings Flour Barley. These products until now have been handled by Goodman Fielder New Zealand under an agreement that was in place prior to the purchase by Nestle. The purchase of Uncle Tobys comes at a time when Nestle is celebrating a number of key milestones in the Pacific region. In 2005, Nestle celebrated its 120th anniversary in New Zealand and the company is set to mark its Australian centenary in 2008.

New Zealand chief executives predicting tougher times ahead in the next 12 months increased by 25 percent according to the latest quarterly business confidence survey of Australasian chief executives by The Executive Connection (TEC). However there was encouraging news for employees with 62 percent of New Zealand CEOs stating they have increased their spend on employee training in the past two years. This is in line with Australia where 63 percent said they have done the same.

Bikini clad beauties, drummers, and venison burgers - the Big Day Out? Nup, the 39th National Agricultural Fieldays at Mystery Creek. As farmers piled into Waikato's Mystery Creek to check out the latest gadgets, the scene was more like a rock'n'roll festival than a showcase of one of the country's oldest and most valued industries.

The fourth annual New Zealand Coffee Festival www.coffeefestival.co.nz gets underway at the Alinghi Base on the Viaduct Harbour from August 17-19 with the biggest battles of the baristas the country has ever seen. Baristas from throughout the country will be seeking to become the inaugural winner of the Equal New Zealand Latte Art Championships, plus take away a prize of $2000. Plus the Australian barista team, The Baristaroos, will be back to take on The Black Cups in the Da Vinci Trans Tasman Barista Challenge with a $4000 prize to the winning three-person team. Coffee lovers will be able to enjoy three days of coffee tasting at many of the nearly 50 stands set up at the Alinghi Base featuring New Zealand coffee roasters and coffee companies. There is also food, wine, music, and the latest coffee machines and coffee-related products for sale.

Sky Television has added a new movie channel to its Digital line up. As of Sunday 1 July, Sky Movies Greats is playing alongside Sky Movies and Sky Movies 2 and will play 24 hours a day, seven days a week on channels 20, 21 and 22 respectively.

Fairfax Media has created a dedicated rugby website with the launch of RugbyHeaven.co.nz. The website covers all aspects of the game, from in-depth game analysis through to opinion editorial, and gives diehard rugby fans and enthusiasts the chance to participate in a full multimedia experience. It covers every aspect of the game in New Zealand. In addition it plans to keep fans abreast of results internationally, as well as putting a New Zealand perspective on developments and happenings. Fairfax Media has appointed leading rugby journalists Marc Hinton and Duncan Johnstone as co-editors of RugbyHeaven.co.nz. They are also now writing columns for the Sports section of the Sunday Star-Times. Hinton and Johnstone have covered All Blacks rugby since the early 1990s and have between them been involved in reporting on four of the five previous Rugby World Cups. Hinton is a former Qantas Award winner and has been twice named the New Zealand Sports Journalist of the Year. Johnstone authored Sean Fitzpatrick's best-selling biography Turning Point and is a host of the Press Box programme on Sky's Rugby Channel. Both have worked for the Sunday Star-Times previously, Johnstone as sports editor and Hinton as the paper's senior rugby writer. They have successfully transferred their skills to the internet medium over the past four years running the NZRU's official website, allblacks.com, and both currently write for YahooXtra.

A marketing campaign promoting innovative anti spam service SpamDunk has prompted public criticism and resulted in a series of radio advertisements previously aired on stations within The Radio Network being withdrawn. Tapping into reports that suggest approximately 80 percent of New Zealand businesses have a spam problem (expected to rise throughout 2007 to more than 90 percent of all email traffic), the radio advertisements featured references to Nigerian conmen, Russian brides and Viagra salesmen. As anyone who uses email knows, these scenarios are almost an everyday reality and that most spam stems from offshore. Comical and lighthearted, they ended by offering listeners the opportunity to prevent 99 percent of all spam, coupled with a 15 day free trial, by phoning 0800 SPAMDUNK. However, the irreverent tone of the radio advertisements was too much for a vocal minority and The Radio Network received several calls from irate listeners, forcing the ads to be pulled.

The Television Commercial Approvals Bureau (TVCAB) recently ruled that the Burger King advertisement for the BK Chicken BLT, a light-hearted spoof featuring women in bikinis riding horseback on the beach, in an office and a laboratory, then riding horseback to a Burger King, was using sexual appeal simply to draw attention to an unrelated product. The majority of the board concluded that the depiction of women dressed in bikinis together in a number of scenes in this advertisement was likely to cause serious or widespread offence. The majority also found the advertisement had not been prepared with a due sense of social responsibility to consumers and society. Further, the stereotypes used were outdated and likely to cause offence and that sexual appeal was used to sell an unrelated product. The complaints from eight people were upheld despite research from approximately 700 consumers supporting the assertion that this material has caused neither serious nor widespread offence.

Now Kiwis can get answers to all their everyday questions online through a local version of the world's most popular online Q&A forum, now open to New Zealanders at Yahoo!Xtra. Yahoo!Xtra Answers is a unique way for Kiwis to share their knowledge, personal experiences and opinions with the world, tap into others' experiences wherever they may come from, and resolve everyday questions not easily addressed by the typical web search. And because questions and answers are archived and categorised by topic, Yahoo!Xtra visitors will be able to tap into the existing collection of rich knowledge from the community.

The Estee Lauder Companies group in New Zealand has awarded its advertising business to Sugar.

'Labels for wine' is a user-friendly product that is revolutionising wine label production. Using an integrated workflow and online template solution, labels for wine can dramatically cut the time it takes to produce wine labels. More about the labels for wine system from Dunken Francis dunkenf@mhnz.co.nz

Marketers and communicators need to wake up and smell the virtual coffee says Auckland business consultant Duncan Shand, who contributed to the newly published American book Email Marketing by the Numbers. Shand, from InsideOut, an Auckland-based strategy, marketing and online consultancy, says email and websites have grown into a mainstream marketing channel but marketers and communicators are behind the eight ball, not putting anywhere near enough time and expertise into managing this medium. This and other themes are developed in Email Marketing by the Numbers by the lead author, United States-based email marketing consultant Chris Baggott, himself and other contributors. Shand says New Zealand businesses need to have a very clear focus on how they are going to compete and develop great relationships with their customers. Email and online marketing can certainly help with this. However it's critical to have a big vision and clear strategy to succeed.