Google’s Giles Tuck and Tui’s William Papesch kept an invited audience of 150 agency executives well entertained & illuminated at this morning’s CAANZ PREScom Champion Speaker series at Kensington Swan in Auckland’s Viaduct precinct.

APN NZ has unveiled its new integrated advertising planning & sales function which aims to provide national and agency clients with a seamless group-wide solution across its media assets, including TRN and GrabOne. The company has appointed Nina Bialostocki to develop the function.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau is looking for a part-time chief executive following the resignation of Alisa Higgins, who in July will become an industry consultant providing marketing and strategic advice to publishers, agencies and marketers.

The Magazine Publishers Association has issued its call for entries for the 2014 Magazine Awards.

South Pacific Pictures and its parent company, UK- based All3Media, have been bought by Discovery Communications and Liberty Global in deal worth £550 million (NZ$1.1 billion), according to a report today in National Business Review.

Whybin\TBWA is about to launch a new poster and press campaign with a focus on Nissan NZ’s mechanics.

The radio industry holds its annual celebration of creativity, the Grande ORCAs, at the Nathan Club in Galway St, Auckland, on Thursday (May 15). The prize is a trip for two to the Cannes Lions.

Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe have announced their US $35 billion global merger will not proceed because of “difficulties in completing the transaction within a reasonable time frame”.