Opinion | Features

• Innovation is the remedy for the ailing magazine industry

  With magazine circulations plummeting, FHM closing and rumours rife on future ownership of ACP Magazines, Paul Merrill says the only way forward is launching new titles.

  Eight years ago in the UK, nearly a quarter of all magazine sales came from magazines that were less than four years old. In Australia, the figure was slightly lower, but still significant. Today, the situation is very different. For a start there are so few new magazines. Yes, Masterchef briefly flared, and Top Gear made an initial impact. But Grazia and Alpha fizzled, and now ACP has shelved their plans to launch Elle.

• More than a game: broadcasting the Olympics

  The 2012 London Olympics will be the biggest televised sporting event of our time. Brooke Hemphill discovers the logistical challenges and technical requirements of producing the event.

  From July 27 to August 12, the Australian media will go sport crazy as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, aka the 2012 London Summer Olympics, unfold. The games will be the most televised sporting event of our time as broadcasters look to master every manner of technology at their disposal.

• The Voice - Australia's best example yet of social TV

  In this guest post, Sputnik’s Rodd Messent has a theory on why audiences have taken to The Voice .
  I am an addict of Channel Nine’s hit show The Voice. Such is the extent of my addiction I seriously think my housemate might kick me out of our apartment for the semi-frenzied yelling and tweeting that ensues in our lounge room each time the show airs.
  It’s the first time in almost three years that such disagreement has resulted in less than civil behaviour towards one another, and it’s made me think it might be a microcosm of the large volume of online debate about the show and, correspondingly, an explanation for its success as a social TV experience.   

• Why brands are the US Army - and culture jammers are the Viet Cong

  In this guest posting, Dave Burgess, who painted ‘No War’ on the Sydney Opera House, claims that ‘amoral’ advertisers have copied his idea.

  Culture jamming is a 28-year-old term coined by the San Francisco-based band Negativland, who declared that the ‘Studio for the cultural jammer is the world at large’.

• Branded content is dead. Long live branded content

  In this guest posting, Anthony Freedman argues why branded content is making a comeback.
  

  A few short years ago, probably concurrent with the advent of the PVR, a new term emerged within the marketing communications industry; branded content. This was really synonymous with advertiser funded TV shows where programming was created by brands and deals struck with networks to broadcast them.

  There were varying degrees of success with this model.

• Shock advertising: 30 ads that would give Australia's ad watchdog a coronary

  Is shock an underused weapon in Australian advertising, asks Robin Hicks

  Today, Sydney agency The Cabana Boys used an image of a mouth sewn together to shock people with the idea that problem gamblers lie to conceal their habit. Is it the most disturbing image ever? No. Will it get banned by the Advertising Standards Bureau? No. But it did make me wonder why shock is not used more often in Australia – and not just by charities and government bodies. (WARNING: NSFW)

• The making of ratings blockbuster The Voice

  Jason Mountney goes on the set of Channel Nine’s talent search series, The Voice, to see how the format, based on an international franchise, has come together. What ingredients have gone into making this certified hit that’s rated more than two million viewers on three consecutive nights?

  Mike Goldman has one of the toughest jobs on the set of the Nine network’s new talent show, The Voice. He not only has to narrate the show, but also keep the audience from losing their enthusiasm as they realise shooting TV programs takes a lot longer than the one-hour bursts they see in their lounge rooms. A lot longer. 

• Nine problems stopping The Global Mail from getting an audience

  While it’s a shame The Global Mail has failed to make an impact on the media landscape, the signs have been there for some time.

  I love the concept of a well resourced, philanthropically-funded independent news site. Anywhere in the world, that’s a rare and wonderful thing. In Australia even more so. So I hope that Grame Wood gets to see his investment make a difference.

  And I have no inside info on whether Monica Attard’s sudden departure is linked to the site’s failure to find an audience so far.

  Regardless, here are nine areas they can easily start to address:

• Journalism’s new model?

  Does the launch of philanthropically funded news site The Global Mail signal a new era for journalism or is the model destined to be a passing fad, asks Cathie McGinn in this article first published in Encore magazine.

  With little fanfare, philanthropically funded news site The Global Mail launched in February this year.

  The online-only title received a generous five-year funding commitment from businessman Graeme Wood, founder of accommodation website wotif.com, who donated $15million.

• Five things that make a great suit

  In this guest posting, Gareth Collins argues that the role of a great account manager is to make the work better

  I’m surprised at how many suits I meet who don’t know their role in the advertising business. The question ‘what does an advertising account manager or director do?’ is frequently met with answers such as project manager, relationship manager, plate spinner or go between … and those are the nice ones.

  Success is judged on the ability to manage a process, be strong administratively and get stuff done. And while a good suit needs to do all of these things brilliantly, if these are the traits that define a great suit, then I’m in the wrong job.

• What the hell is transmedia?

  From advertising campaigns to online video series, the term ‘transmedia’ gets quite the work out. But what does it actually mean? Cathie McGinn trawls the media landscape for a definitive definition. 

  Transmedia, all media and multiplatform are terms often used interchangeably when referencing modern storytelling techniques. Yet, depending who you speak to, there are distinct differences between them.

• The top seven...most patronising pieces of communication

  Sometimes brands have big ideas. Sometimes marketers get so caught up with a grandiose idea that instead of finding engaging ways to sell breakfast cereal, they start to believe their own rhetoric. And sometimes it’s just lazy marketing. Here are my top seven inadvertently patronising pieces of communication…

  1) Last night thousands of women gathered in Sydney’s Centennial Park to take part in She Runs the Night, an event created by Nike.

• TV audience measurement – why big isn’t always beautiful

  In this guest post, Chris Walton argues that the media industry needs to take a new approach to TV trading

  There has been a significant amount of coverage recently about how successful The Voice has been. Indeed, audience figures of 2.6m+ people are very impressive these days. Based on reports, this is apparently double the size of audience that Nine was hoping for in the lead up to the programme launching.   

• How do you solve a problem like Blunty?

  So if you were the proposed News Standards Body, how would you regulate Blunty?

  The News Standards Body, in case you didn’t notice, is the new organisation proposed by the Convergence Review this week to regulate news and commentary, regardless of platform.

  Blunty, in case you didn’t notice, is the video blogger who this week went viral after he filmed a guerrilla marketing demo outside Apple’s Sydney store apparently as a coincidental bystander, but later admitted he’d been put up to it by BlackBerry.   

• 40 ads where music made the difference - and why agencies should think of music first, not last

  Music can make an average ad great. So why, Robin Hicks asks, is music the last thing a creative thinks about when writing an ad?

  My favourite TV ad of the year so far is the Let Yourself Go spot for Kangaroo Island.

  When it didn’t win Mumbrella’s Ad of the Month for March (it came third) I felt aggrieved for the agency that made it. But less so a week later when it emerged that the agency had paid celebrities to tweet nice things about its work.

  Let Yourself Go is a stunning spot with lots of pretty images. But it would probably have had a similar effect on me if I’d watched a blank screen for 60 seconds.