Tiki tacky

Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.

Tiki tacky

Visitors like to bring back home something to remember the place they visited, a simple fact that arguably makes the souvenir industry one of the world’s oldest.

What will they remember from their trip to New Zealand? Amanda Cropp takes a gander at the tiki trade, which is estimated at just under three-quarters of a billion dollars and is coming under the same price pressures as every other manufacturing sector. Could it become yet another victim to mass-produced, imported soullessness? In some areas, it already is—even the greenstone and paua may come from offshore—but there’s another market looking for something truly authentic. Amanda’s story is on our website.

Nike’s New Zealand Free connection

In New Zealand, “it’s a small world, isn’t it?” experiences seem more common than elsewhere, for obvious reasons.

It should be no surprise then that the great running coach Arthur Lydiard, the man who pushed New Zealand and Finnish athletes to remarkable feats, played a part in creating the Nike brand.

As it happens, the very successful University of Oregon coach Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, spent some time in New Zealand with his friend Lydiard in the early sixties.

Out of that encounter, jogging was born and also, Nike shoes. The company now rakes in US$19 billion a year in revenue and is a true global brand.

But did Bowerman learn the right things from Lydiard? He seems to have got the running idea right, but ironically, the entire shoe concept wrong. A paper for the British Journal of Sports Medicine written by Dr Craig Richards at the University of Newcastle, Australia, says there are no studies with evidence that running shoes reduce injuries for athletes.

Cushioned soles, electronics, torsion bars and other gadgets may instead cause more of the injuries that runners are all too familiar with, like knee pain and foot problems. Lydiard and his athletes ran in canvas shoes without injuries.

The more expensive and fancy your running shoes are, the more likely they are to hurt you, Richards’ research suggests.

So what did Nike do? Pack up and exit the running shoe market? You don’t grow into a huge global company by giving up, so Nike’s researchers came up with a simple idea: Run Barefoot.

The product range that resulted from the Run Barefoot concept is the Nike Free shoes, which really are like anti-running shoes. They don’t cradle and support your foot like usual running shoes; they feel flimsy like old-fashioned plimsolls. Nike’s commercials for the Free shoes show athletes training barefoot, to emphasise this is a very different type of shoe.

I’m on my second pair of Nike Frees and for me, they work. I run naturally and with less effort (this is relative of course, because running is still hard work for me) and don’t bang my heel into the ground as with normal running shoes. While I’m still in two minds about the concept and wonder if I shouldn’t just get some el cheapo thin leather shoes, Nike’s creative effort behind the Free concept deserves recognition. The company picked up a difficult problem that threatened to undermine its existence, and ran with it. That’s some real innovation to learn from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9_XsvJABs

Choice

Unfortunately, Kiwi startup Carbonscape didn’t win the Financial Times Climate Challenge Competition this month; the judges thought they were the most deserving but as the title is awarded to the projects that receive the most votes, there’s plenty of scope for, uh, finding yourself a lot of votes quickly. That’s too bad, but congrats for getting Judges’ Choice anyway—it’s a very worthwhile recognition of Carbonscape’s ideas and efforts.

They still look like zombie brains

Cadbury’s Crème Egg Gooeys Film Festival Winners have been announced. David Gifford’s stop-motion masterpiece, Tinfoil Face, took the Grand Gooey, worth $5,000. Isaac Westenra landed the People’s Choice win with an entirely more lovable entry—at first, anyway—Mummy, Where Do Creme Eggs Come From?.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2i8PlR1f1M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Oig7EKbmQ

More entries can be found here.

Job of the Week

Account Director (P0498)

Boutique Agency • Key focus on Brand • Wellington

Our client is a Wellington-based strategic branding agency, with an excellent reputation. Lead by a Director who has a wealth of experience and knowledge and is happy to share this.

They are seeking a great Account Director with agency and or client side experience, who also has a strong knowledge of the local market.

This is a great opportunity and perfect time to join this agency, where you will help to grow and develop the client list. In doing so, you will be well rewarded and become an integral part of this specialist team.

If you feel this is the right next step for you, please send your details to Louise Lawton at Portfolio Recruitment on 09 379-9303, or apply on our website.

In the time of HIV

Our friends Dean Easterbrook and Quijing Wong of Borderless Productions have a film for you. It’s about two grandmothers in Kenya, a country where HIV and AIDS is wiping out entire generations. The grandmothers are left to care for their orphaned grandchildren under reduced and very difficult circumstances.

Easterbrook and Wong’s film has already raised $73,000 for African grandmothers, but with 13 million orphans there, more is needed. You can help by buying a DVD on the website.

Very special surprise

Luke Buda of The Phoenix Foundation, who are touring New Zealand as we write, has copped an mention for his site at the annual Favourite Website Awards.

Buda’s site has been included in the Top 50 FWA sites of 2008, so well done that man. The site, created by Resn, is also a finalist in the One Show Interactive Awards in New York, so touch wood, it’ll go on winning even more. The competition is tough though, with brands like Nike, Diesel, Nokia, Burger King and Nintendo squaring up to fight over the prize.

Totally tumeke

Vote for your favourite Kiwi Musik Klip over at The Film Archive during April and you may win a mystery prize next month. ‘Maxine’ (Sharon O’Neill), ‘The Way I Feel’ (Jan Hellriegel), Tangaroa (Tiki Taane), ‘O’Baby’ (Charlie Ash) and ‘AFFCO’ (The Skeptics) are currently the top five—a perfect example of the diversity of Kiwi music.

May, the musicest month

April wasn’t particularly cruel this year, but we’re looking forward to May, the Music Month. KiwiFM is doing its 31 Bands In A Box this year too, starting with the Charlie Ash on May 1 at 9.10 in the morning. That’ll be a first for the Charlies.

The Wammonator tells me that this time KiwiFM intends to stream live video of the musos playing at KiwiTV as well.

While we wait for this year’s bands, singers and chanteuses to go up on the KiwiFM site, here’s last year’s crowd, in full sound and video glory.

Quote of the week

“To be blunt, I don’t want Chinese stuff in our shop. I don’t want to be selling Chinese [made] back to Chinese [tourists]. I want to be selling Maori culture to the rest of the world.”

—Maori Arts & Crafts Institute chief executive Te Taru White wants some meaning in his merchandise.

More at Idealog online

Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, creative directory, Idealog TV, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.

  Juha Saarinen
  Ideologue, Weekly