AA Directions continues to dominate New Zealand magazine readership statistics, hitting No 1 this week in the toplines of the Nielsen survey of the field in play.

QMS NZ has unveiled a significant update to its award-winning Datalab suite of products. Datalab now includes mobile data and delivers smarter audience centric insights and multiformat planning capability for advertisers.

Cadbury has saved its evil best for last. Not only has it spanked every good Cadbury chocolate-lovin’ Kiwi by closing its iconic Dunedin factory and taking production offshore – but now it’s handed its ‘local’ ANZ full-service agency account to Ogilvy Melbourne.

Clemenger BBDO Melbourne’s Meet Graham didn’t win everything at the Cannes Lions Festival last week – the Integrated and Titanium juries dismissed the work because it reminded them too much of 1985’s First Natural Born Smoker.

Sky TV and Vodafone dropped their $3.44 billion merger bid and Commerce Commission appeal because of the estimated cost of at least $1 million each and an estimated one-year timeframe, Sky ceo John Fellet has told NBR’s Chris Keall.

Eden Park has signed a new five-year partnership with Samsung Electronics – and announced the news bang in the middle of two Lions Tests being fought out at the national stadium.

Cannes, June 22: The only global creative awards judged by journalists officially has launched its 31st year at the Cannes Lions Festival, revealing the ceremony venue, new categories, conference speakers, additional jury members and the jury president.

In Cannes, the second-guessing has begun as the Lions Advertising Festival organisers form a committee in response to Publicis’ move to pull out of global create awards next year. There’s even talk that WPP may follow, with ceo Sir Martin Sorrell telling Variety that the Lions’ focus has become too diffuse — and too sprawling.