The Year in Review: Friday O’Flaherty and Andy Mitchell
2011 was another good year for the indies, which are often playing in the same sandpit as the big boys and occasionally stealing their spades and buckets. And, with a range of experienced big agency campaigners now plying their trade outside the walls of the multinationals, this trend looks set to continue. Running With Scissors’ two main brains Friday O’Flaherty and Andy Mitchell get their freak on.
Favourite campaign that isn’t yours: 
Clemenger BBDO’s “Legend” for the NZTA. It mainlined straight into the heart of New Zealand culture and is a positive force for change. Although, if another person says “I’m internalising a really complicated situation in my head”, we’re going to have to remind them keep their internal dialogue internal.
Favourite campaign that is yours: 
The Green Party, For a Richer New Zealand. We helped the Green Party set the platform for their campaign and they ran with it. They achieved a historic high with 11 percent of the party vote and 14 seats, a 55 percent improvement on their impressive campaign at the last election.
Least favourite campaign: All those campaigns that are similar to last year but still expect a different result.
Best brand: 
Air New Zealand [which was recently awarded Air Transport World's Airline of the Year Award for the second time in three years]. It has the customer at the heart of its business, inspires its staff, takes risks and is prepared to make a few mistakes along the way.
Best stoush: Steinlager and NZ Pure verse Heineken. A slightly hoppy and two-sided ménage-à-trois.
Heroes: Kieren Cooney. Someone leaked the “abstain” campaign, plenty of people criticised it and everyone distanced themselves from it. Everyone that is, except Kieren Cooney. He was brave enough to do something different, saw campaign derailed before it was due to be released (we’ll never know if it could have flown) and when the hordes amassed at his door, he took full responsibility and shot the beast. It’s a shame he’s gone to Australia, we could do with more people like him.
Villains: Anonymous and pseudonym. You are negative cowards.
Most memorable marketing moment: The Rugby World Cup. From start to finish it was an amazing event. Most of it was memorable for the right reasons (an amazing opening ceremony, the carnival atmosphere throughout, white beer cans and an epic final), some of it was memorable for the wrong reasons (abstain, Adidas jerseys, transport for the first game and some idiots taking our trans-Tasman rivalry too seriously). But for the most part, it’s something New Zealand can be proud of.
What do you think?