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Opinion
The keyboard warrior of Twitter
In this guest post, NBN staffer Scott Rhodie writes an unofficial, personal view on his experience with a hostile Twitter critic.Last night I had a strange incident. While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated. I wrote a small note back explaining they were incorrect.
And their response? The lovely gentleman (whose Twitter profile says: ‘Father of 5 kids, Loving Grandfather of 10 Grandchildren,and 2 Great Granddaughters. love to give heaps to Pollies and Poofters’) said to me: “Go and lick Gillards C*** out U commie Prick”
What's in a name?
In this guest post, Moensie Rossier wonders about the power of names for brands and marketers.
Brands have been having a bit of fun with names lately, not to mention a fair bit of success. Interbrand just named a headhunting firm Cloak & Dagger. And ‘Share a Coke’ showed how much power there is in a name.
The Coke campaign effectively short-circuited the usual mechanics of communication. It undoubtedly stroked people’s egos. But, I believe, its success stems from the fact that it directly and automatically affected people’s behaviour, rather than doing so indirectly by shaping attitudes.
Best ads from Super Bowl 2012
The Super Bowl is all done and a team from North America won. But as well as some sort of sporting event, it’s the world’s biggest advertising showcase. See the best of them right here… and please tell us what you think.
How to debunk media myths
In this post, UWS’s Ullrich Ecker, John Cook and Stephen Lewandowsky argue that cognitive science can help PRs form strategies in managing media misreporting.
A growing cohort of commentators has bemoaned the descent of contemporary political “debate” into a largely fact-free zone.
How about simply focusing on what consumers want?
In this guest post, Peter Mountford argues that brands should think more about what is really going on for consumers
Who here is hoping their favourite brand of toilet paper is going to be organizing a flash mob on their way home from work today?
What the Optus web copyright victory means
In this analysis first published on The Conversation, RMIT’s Marita Shelly examines the implications of Telstra’s defeat over the online rights to the AFL broadcast deal
This week’s Federal Court ruling that Optus customers are able to view sporting matches minutes after they are streamed live without breaching copyright is a landmark decision that alters our understanding of copyright law, and has significant implications for the AFL’s broadcasting rights deal.
Does Gina Rinehart’s bite of a chunk of Fairfax make her an oligarch?
In an article that first appeared in The Conversation, Mark Rolfe wonders whether the mining magnate’s move could turn Fairfax into something resembling America’s Fox network.
Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has moved to increase her stake in Fairfax Media, owner of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and a number of radio stations. Rinehart has already shown her desire to play a role in public life, campaigning against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s aborted mining tax. She has also demonstrated a willingness to make media investments to ensure her pro-business worldview is promulgated.
What does this latest move by Rinehart mean?
Gillard's Australia Day crisis
PM Julia Gillard’s media adviser Tony Hodges has been forced to resign over the Australia Day tent embassy debacle.
It came after it emerged he had revealed opposition leader Tony Abbott’s whereabouts, leading to both politicians being rescued by police in ugly scenes.
Mumbrella editor Tim Burrowes and advertising practitioner Jane Caro debate the topic on Weekend Sunrise’s masters of Spin segment:
The biggest cock-up I made in business
In this guest post, Chris Savage urges agency staff to live the brand.I still shudder when I think about how incredibly stupid I was when I made the biggest stuff up of my career. And then, 18 years later, I did it again. Do not make this mistake with your clients. Ever.
Hey Groupon. Thanks for fucking up email
In this guest post, Daniel Monheit warns that group deal overload is devaluing email marketingEmail marketing used to be fabulous. Back in the heady days of 2010, brands would work hard to build up well qualified databases, upon which they’d bestow carefully crafted correspondence filled with information, offers and incentives. The recipients, of course would be delighted: “Oh look! An email! From one of my favourite brands! And it’s 40 cents off at Woolies this week!”.
The staggering sway of Harold Mitchell
The Power Index today names Aegis Media chairman Harold Mitchell as the most powerful person in Melbourne. Andrew Crook profiles him.
Harold Mitchell takes pride in dispensing with the niceties. When The Power Index visited his South Melbourne private office before Christmas, fresh remains were scattered all over the boardroom table.
Share a Coke with… the moronic masses
The most-read story on Mumbrella last year, with not far off 100,000 page views, was a fairly humdrum yarn about the launch of Coca-Cola’s name-on-a-bottle campaign.The headline, “Coca-Cola puts people’s names on bottles in ‘Share a Coke’ campaign”, though hated by any self-respecting sub-editor, was loved by Google. And in rushed what can be politely described as the public.
Assumptions kill creativity
In this guest post, Gual Barwell disagrees that the sales success of the Old Spice social media campaign was overstated.Yesterday’s post from Cathie McGinn suggested the Old Spice campaign failed to connect with consumers. Based on the facts and figures, I disagree.
What Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy has done and done phenomenally well is to create a franchise.
The SMH's readers (are wrong) editor
We are now about five months into the reign of Australia’s first readers’ editor. And I don’t think it is working.
It struck me at the time of Judy Prisk’s appointment to the Sydney Morning Herald that the fact that her boss was editor-in-chief Peter Fray was not going to be ideal if she was going to be the independent voice of the reader.
The emperor's new fragrance: Old Spice’s campaign failure
In this guest post, Cathie McGinn slays a sacred cow of 21st century marketing – the highly awarded Old Spice campaign.One of the biggest myths of recent times (by which I mean a story of great heroism and triumph we’d all like to believe but deep down know to be untrue) is the Old Spice social media campaign. It’s been much lauded and awarded as an example of outstanding content, a creative and collaborative way of connecting with consumers and driving a record increase in sales.
ABC News 24 hype reel unveiled
The ABC has unveiled a glossy promo trailer to promote the imminent launch of round-the-clock TV news station ABC News 24.
Although the national broadcaster has so far only said that it will launch the channel in mid-year, speculation has intensified that the initial date was pushed back because of technical issues exposed during the ABC’s covergae of the fast-moving story of the change of leadership from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard.
July 14 – next Wednesday – is among the dates currently being speculated about. A key deadline will be having it on air in time for the Federal election.
As well as on YouTube, the trailer is already playing on the ABC’s HD channel – where ABC News 24 will sit - in several parts of the country.
July 8th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
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Comments
8 Jul 10
1:55 pm
just like their news, the repetition of this promo is nauseating..
8 Jul 10
2:14 pm
ABC News is not nauseating….. But this promo certainly is……If they are attempting to damage the stattions image… they have succeeded. 2 words sum up this promo: repeditive s$^t
8 Jul 10
2:29 pm
Good god, if they can’t make a 3 minute hype tape interesting, what chance have they got 24/7.
8 Jul 10
2:38 pm
yes, yes… all very interesting… But do we really need to lose the ABC HD channel for it?
The current on-air promo says they are “moving ABC HD to make way” – does this mean ABC HD is still being broadcast but on a different channel, or is it being shelved so we can have pixelly, internet-ripped news footage shown in sparkling High Definition?
Can’t they just use one of their half-dozen SD children’s channels?
8 Jul 10
3:35 pm
Fantastic, its well time that we started taking a more serious approach to media generally and raising the bar that has traditionally been set very low in Australia. I truly hope this channel will deliver a broader and more international approach to the world, something that is lacking in Australian journalism and holds much of our media back from having international and export appeal. With the ABC’s current digital offering this can only push things forward.
Well done ABC, will be watching closely.
8 Jul 10
4:39 pm
I quite agree with Nathan, we have all been watching too much drivel on other channels. I watched, “A Current Affair” the other week (for once) and they had three segments. One was about the worst neighbours, the next was about womans bra sizes and the last was something todo with politics. Only one segment in their half hour had anything todo with news.
I congratulate ABC on bringing us this new channel.
8 Jul 10
6:50 pm
if the promo is any hint. Australia will finally have a superior news channel:)…move over sky news
8 Jul 10
11:36 pm
I am in W.A – This promo just keeps looping on abc1, sometimes for an entire hour during normal broadcasting. What’s going on ?!
9 Jul 10
10:47 am
I’m excited by the prospect and I certainly won’t be judging a new channel on a promo, I’ll be judging them on reputation and the ABC have a great reputation in NEWS far better than some others that focus on newstainment rather than stories that matter, not only from our state or (if your lucky) country but the world. I think they will be miles ahead of sky news who are the st vinnies store of News services recycling others bits and bobs and only knitting the odd thing together themselves. Bravo! ABC (no offence intended to Arena)…
9 Jul 10
3:50 pm
Hey guys, the news from within the ABC is that the launch date is now Thursday, July 22nd. Remember, you heard it first here. Mind you, whether or not that happens depends very much on a resolution of some of the embarrassing technical issues that have dogged the ABC in recent times. Mark Scott and his team are desperate to have News 24 up and running during the federal election campaign. If it’s not, there’ll be a lot of questions to answer at board level. Now that a date has been set, there’s still widespread skepticism within the organisation that ABC News can deliver. There’s a few seasoned presenters but maybe not enough for a 24 operation. One big worry is that senior producers working with some of the ingenues that have been hired are aghast at their lack of basic experience. Live television is fraught with pitfalls. So it’s a brave person indeed who’ll wager that the launch will be trouble free.
9 Jul 10
8:31 pm
cant wait
9 Jul 10
8:34 pm
while seven news and nine news talk about dogs stuck on treesfinally there will be a real news channel that delivers important news for once. i thought sbs will be the first ones to do this but abc has come first.
10 Jul 10
8:53 pm
It sounds like ABC News 24 is going to take over ABC HD. I might watch the news in the morning for 30mins & the evening news broadcast for 30mins, thats one hour & the rest of our favourite shows in standard definition TV. Isn’t that just great, why did I bother buying a HD TV??? Not to watch the News all day in HD. Surely the ABC will have ABC News 24 & ABC HD for all our favourite programs, I mean they couldn’t be that darft could they.
11 Jul 10
8:49 am
I too am disappointed at the discontinuation of the HD simulcast of the main ABC programming on ABC1.
However, I admit that I am NOT a “news junkie”. 30 minutes of ABC news (including the weather forecast) and 5 minute glance at the daily papers at the TAFE library is enough for me.
In time, the ratings will tell the story. SBS, Channel 7 and Go are already increasing their share of content that appeals to the traditional ABC viewer (eg Muthbusters, Top Gear, British comedies etc)
I personally would have launched the 24 hour news in SD, replacing one of the surfeit of children’s cartoon channels. As other commenters have said, I don’t need to “see the nostril hairs of our politicians in HD”.
So if the 24 hour news channel is a rating success, adjusted down for any loss of ratings in the now SD ABC1 channel, then well done Mark Scott. But if the ratings story is negative for the ABC, I will be one of the hundreds of thousands of long-term ABC viewers calling for Mark Scott’s resignation.
11 Jul 10
5:04 pm
I cant wait but as other people have said why are we losing HD or sorry we are not losing it it just goes to 24 hour news. I wrote to the ABC some time ago asking for a older viewer type of rage, some songs for the “baby boomers” and I thought it would be a perfect fit on ABC 3 after 9.30 pm.
They eventually replied “Sorry but that channel is reserved for childrens programmes.”
What about the older generation, how about a seniors channel ?
11 Jul 10
6:20 pm
I too am excited about the advent of ABC News 24 but regret the passing of drama etc. being broadcast in HD. I have been watching ABC HDTV for so long that I had forgotten that there is a very noticeable difference but have been reminded over the past four days.
11 Jul 10
6:25 pm
I want HD!
11 Jul 10
7:07 pm
well it about time, for starters who gives how crap or how repetitive the promo is! its changing Free TV as we all know it! you ppl complain! pfff, seriously to have as many Digital free channals as what we do from only 5 broadcasters nice dont ya think! Good on ya ABC, just to put it into comparison the BBC has 9 channels 6 of witch is 24/7 now think about it, a nation as big as the UK (thats England, Scotland, Northern Island and Wales) against the ABC’s now 4 channels 3 of which will be 24/7! ya see my point! and uk’s have to pay for a TV licence just to watch there TV.. Yes They Pay to watch Free tv! ???? do we? Nope! Quit ya winging ppls! god damn it! and for every one welcoming it well done! i join u!
DPG
11 Jul 10
8:13 pm
when will there be a 24/7 doco channel? come on SBS! and whats the go with 7 Two? what crap!
11 Jul 10
11:20 pm
launch date symbolically could be 24th of the 7th
12 Jul 10
6:30 am
Replying to Tim Kingston RE: They eventually replied “Sorry but that channel is reserved for childrens programmes.”
What about the older generation, how about a seniors channel ?
……………………..
We do have it its called 7two. just look at how many old shows are on that channel.
pffff, 7two is a dead set joke, they have not even tried! i doff my cap to the ABC and TEN. Go is still crap threw the day but make up for it in prime time.
12 Jul 10
8:02 am
Agree with the nauseating ad-infinitum repeat of the 3 minute promo. At least ONE’s promos were varied from hour to hour, and they have not disappointed me at all!
Ch 72… bah, nothing but repeats of tired old 7 sitcoms and dramas. Go is more like the Seinfeld and Fraser re-run channel, but they’re OK so far.
Going back to the ABC, I wish them well, but they need to really look at their charter of sitting DEAD CENTRE in their reporting. We’ve seen too much left-leaning bias in recent years.
12 Jul 10
12:47 pm
ABC HAD to drop the HD channel – unfortunately we started digital in an SD world and as a result a significant proportion of digital viewers can only view SD services. ABC can’t physically broadcast any more services, their terrestrial bandwidth is taken up by what they already have. They are required by legislation to have an HD service, so it makes sense if they can’t run ABC1 as an HD only channel (and run News24 in the space ABC1 currently consumes) to have the channel that is likely to draw the lowest ratings taking up the HD channel.
12 Jul 10
4:01 pm
I agree with Nick, ABC 1 in SD has a bit rate of around 5.5Mb/s with is a lot better than most SD programs including ABC2 and 3 and what Foxtel offers. There is not a lot of difference in quality between ABC1 HD and ABC1 SD most of the time as a lot of programming was up scaled SD. The ABC and other broadcasters are stuck with using Mpeg 2 with a 7Mhz channel bandwith, other countrys such a Europe and New Zealand use Mpeg 4 with 8Mhz wide channels so have far greater options for multichanneling
12 Jul 10
4:30 pm
they could’ve waited until Doctor Who was over to take down ABC 1 from HD sniff
13 Jul 10
3:52 pm
Can someone help me?
Has the ABC HD channel gone forever?
I am aware that the new ABC 24 news channel is to replace channel 20 but what about all the great shows currently shown in HD?
EG Griff Rhys-Jones Greatest Cities of the World.
Will we now have to watch these shows in SD?
If so, BAD CALL ABC!!!!
13 Jul 10
6:48 pm
Sky News will continue to do what it has done for the past 15 years – be Australia’s News Channel. These armatures at the ABC don’t have a hope.
14 Jul 10
2:01 pm
24 hour dedicated news channel=good idea! 24hour news channel on HD=they weren’t thinking, were they? A waste of technology a la musical birthday card….
16 Jul 10
10:30 pm
Sky as Australia’s news channel – is the poster a droid of Murdoch et al?
As to those condemming the use of HD for News24, hello, most viewers don’t have HD, so it can’t be used for the main channel, and leaves nothing else available while allowing for experimentation in that format. Let’s face it, animation won’t allow it.
Ultimately, disenfranchise a few or a lot? We can tell who is selfish here, can’t we?