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Opinion | Features
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Banning booze ads will just make marketers more creative
As the calls for stricter regulation of alcohol advertising to protect children heat up Mike O'Rourke argues changes to advertising will do nothing without changing behaviour at home.
Hi, my name is Mike O’Rourke and I ask my kids to pass me beers. I drink alcoholic beverages at home, and yes, I have also been guilty of asking my kids to go to the fridge for me. And when we have guests I angst about what wine we’ll serve as much what food we’ll eat. And the rhetorical discussions with my son over whether I should get 2 bags of ice or just the one (the answer’s always two).
Like most Australian families, alcohol plays a large part in my home life. -
Why stupid is normal – when smart people make dumb choices
Ashton Bishop and Gary Wilkinson argue how the actions of former BP chief Tony Hayward during the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis should be a wake up call to stressed marketers and those that work with them.
In 2010 after over 455 million litres of oil had already poured into the Gulf off the Louisiana coast and millions of litres more continued to escape every day, Tony Hayward, the CEO of oil giant BP, and the public face of the environmental disaster, decided to take part in an exclusive yacht race off the Isle of Wight. There was outrage. Social media, already heavily critical of BP’s poor response to the catastrophe, got worse. -
What is the most effective method for charity fundraising?
Recent pieces on Mumbrella around charity street fundraisers have stirred debate about the pros and cons of the practice. Here Angela Brooks looks at what the statistics show is the best way of fundraising.
Following Mumbrella’s recent stories on the pro’s and con’s of ‘chuggers’, I thought it may be of value to reveal what the statistics show is the best fundraising strategy for charities and how to secure more out of the Australian hip pocket. The results will surprise many. -
Answering Adam: Why advertising spin does harm consumers
In response to Adam Ferrier's article on whether advertising spin is actually OK, TV luminary Nick Murray argues it is not.
As Adam Ferrier correctly points out in his wonderfully provocative article the ABC's consumer affairs show The Checkout takes aim at brands which charge more for products marketed by preying on desires and fears in nearly every episode. I make TV shows including The Checkout, so I thought I'd give a non marketer's perspective.
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Analysis: Where has it gone wrong for Ten?
After starting the year with improved ratings and an air of optimism audience shares have declined severely for Network Ten. Megan Reynolds spoke to industry insiders to find out where it went wrong.
Secrets and Lies was one of the most anticipated dramas of the year, which has already been picked up by production companies in the US and UK, launched to 403,000 metro viewers on Channel Ten last night. While those numbers may be disappointing for executives in the Pyrmont offices, they are higher than it has been getting for established reality show The Biggest Loser and the revived So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD).
In the week after the Winter Olympics Ten's total network audience share dropped from 18.8 per cent, to 14.4 per cent. This included the main channel's worst-ever rating night, where it took just 6.4 per cent of the audience.
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Answers for Adam: Is advertising spin actually good?
In his regular column Adam Ferrier poses a question to the industry. Today he asks is advertising spin as bad as it is made out to be?
Advertising is bad right? We coerce people into buying stuff they don’t need. Further, as TV show The Checkout points out (most weeks) we sometimes just put a descriptive word like ‘Baby’, or ‘Premium’ on a certain product, and then charge more for exactly the same thing. For example, all shampoos are basically made of the same stuff – so why are some priced at $3.00 a bottle whilst ‘Premium Salon Quality’ alternatives (at product parity) cost $30 (or more)? -
Mumbrella360 - how you can be involved
The industry is once again being asked to get involved in this year's Mumbrella360. Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes explains how
This is the fourth time we've done this. It's the moment to fire the starting pistol on Mumbrella360.
In the next few days we'll be announcing at least one big new thing for Mumbrella360. But the most important thing remains the same - once again we're inviting the industry to join us in curating the conference. You're reading that invitation right now. -
Why the new DrinkWise campaign is a fail
A new campaign by DrinkWise aimed at encouraging people to drink responsibly actually does the opposite, argues Joel Egan.
Clemenger BBDO Melbourne's new campaign, ‘Drinking - do it properly’, is stylish, cool and well executed which ticks all the boxes for them. But I can’t help thinking that DrinkWise could be left picking up the pieces. -
Reinventing the news model in the digital era
On Friday night Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull launched Morry Schwartz's The Saturday Paper at a function in Sydney. This is an abridged version of his speech. Just a few years ago in 2008 the president of France Nicholas Sarkosy said: "democracy can not function with a press permanently on the edge of an economic precipice." -
Can Big Data predict the Best Picture Oscar winner?
With many struggling to provide insights from Big Data Bryan Melmed puts his money where his mouth is by using it to predict the winner of the Best Picture Oscar.
Can big data insights predict the winner of Best Picture at Sunday’s Oscars? We think it can and we are betting the farm on 12 Years a Slave. And this is how we figured it out. -
Building Chinese relations with kids TV
A new co-produced children's TV show between the ABC and Chinese state TV may show where the future of co-production lies.
Filmed over six months across freezing winter and the heat of summer on a set the size of a football field, located outside the city of Zhou Zhou two hours south of Beijing Hoopla Doopla posed a number of challenges for the Australian and Chinese production teams working on it, not least the language barrier.
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Personality differences: Trolls and cyberstalkers aren't the same
In this cross posting from The Conversation Troy McEwan looks at what motivates bad online behaviour, and the best ways to handle it. The recent death of television personality Charlotte Dawson and the possible role that online abuse played in her struggles with depression shows how damaging this behaviour can be. -
The challenges of reporting on Myanmar
In this interview with Mumbrella Asia editor Robin Hicks, Melbourne-born journalist Jessica Mudditt talks about the challenges of reporting on a country that is – in fits and starts – loosening its grip on press freedom after decades of oppression. What’s the hardest thing about reporting on Myanmar?For me, it’s the lack of data available. Previous military regimes appear to have had zero interest in obtaining information about the people of Myanmar (other than for intelligence purposes!). A census hasn’t been conducted in more than 30 years, so even something as straightforward as the total population of Myanmar is merely an estimate, and the estimates vary quite a lot from organisation to organisation. And because Myanmar was a closed country for so long, the research that would normally have been amassed by civil society groups such as INGOs simply didn’t exist until recently. -
Charlotte Dawson: A media death but a normal illness
The death of Charlotte Dawson says a bit about the media spotlight but more about the realities of mental illness, argues Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes. It was a strange, sickening feeling this afternoon watching Charlotte Dawson on video. I hadn't seen it since we published the interview just over a year ago. -
Howcroft: Beautiful athletes and lack of brand hoardings makes Olympics spectacular
Great casting and a lack of intrusive branding at the sports venues makes the Olympics more of a visual feast than other sports, argues Russel Howcroft.
Casting....it's pretty important in the television game, which is why it was interesting to read a tweet by Virginia Trioli regarding how good looking Winter Olympians are. They do make for some very attractive television.
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ABC’s Juliar slip
Rarely does the ABC get accused of right-wing bias, but Dr Mumbo can’t help but wonder about this story…
(Hat-tip: @DigitalMediaBoy)
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Comments
29 Jan 13
11:21 am
Probably a Freudian Slip, but worthy of an apology, no doubt…
29 Jan 13
11:45 am
This is disgraceful! There are no other words to describe it. It is very offensive and the ABC must apologise to our PM Julia Gillard.
29 Jan 13
12:36 pm
People on blogs and Twitter have been noticing and complaining about the ABC’s right wing bias for a number of years now. Follow the hashtag #TheirABC for example, plus check the tweets that are sent to the managing director @ABCMarkScott every day.
29 Jan 13
1:23 pm
Bit sus – second one I’ve seen in a week. Someone is playing with photoshop or whatever it is they’re using these days.
29 Jan 13
1:27 pm
Nope, recently they have been bias sadly. I went off at the New Years address, since when does the LOTO do one as well? Given equal air time, friends overseas thought it was a joke and we looked stupid. Would never happen in any other country and Rudd didn’t do it when he was in opposition, so someone at the ABC had to ask Mr Abbott to do it?
Worse, the ABC didn’t even have the courtesy to put Ms Gillard’s name first on the video, nor address her correctly as Prime Minister Gillard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrWXGEX3z6k “Abbott, Gillard deliver new year message “.
29 Jan 13
1:30 pm
Hi Paul,
We took that screenshot ourselves – no Photoshop.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
29 Jan 13
1:32 pm
Settle down Patricia and Bernard. You’re actually calling what could be a simple typo “disgraceful!”? And “no other words to describe it”? It happens frequently amongst all media. I don’t see how this could be considered “very offensive”. Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill.
29 Jan 13
2:05 pm
Michael, a freudian slip is an error prompted by a repressed thought or desire. Are you implying that ABC News subconsciously and collectively think that our Prime Minister does not tell the truth. If so, and judging buy their treatment of her to date, I’d have to agree with you [although definitely not with them]..
29 Jan 13
2:17 pm
I’ve noticed that the ABC reports the polls showing the Coalition leading, but the two Morgan polls in November and December that showed the ALP leading were apparently not newsworthy enough. Can anyone from the ABC please elucidate?
29 Jan 13
3:13 pm
Imagine if something like that happened to Abbott. The lashings from News Ltd. against Gillard would have been horrendous
29 Jan 13
4:14 pm
Thankfully the Guardian is coming.
Otherwise this nation’s major media will be a great big Miners’ bottom wipe.
29 Jan 13
9:14 pm
Yes the lashings against our PM have been horrific by the media. I doubt the Juliar term would be a Freudian slip. It takes a liar to peddle a lie to help win elections.
30 Jan 13
2:23 pm
But It’s true… She Lied about the Carbon Tax.
30 Jan 13
11:24 pm
There most definitely is NO right wing bias at the ABC. In fact the suggestion is laughable. What leftists see as right wing leanings is ABC Journos that are no longer able to shrug off the incompetences of this hung parliament without looking stupid themselves. If lefty viewers are feeling unloved they should tune into Q and A or the Drum for a nice left wing fix.
31 Jan 13
8:30 am
This blog follows ABC bias issues:
http://www.abcgonetohell.net/
31 Jan 13
12:42 pm
Wow Miles – so she is the ONLY politician to tell a lie. Ignoramus.
And reliable sources also tell me that there is no right-wing bias in the Murdoch press or on the AM talk stations. As a matter of fact management need to look at the pinko socialists writing their feature articles and filling their airwaves.
31 Jan 13
5:18 pm
I get the impression the PM is a liar or not so, and the ABC is leftist or rightist.
All I can say is that Balley Hoo (My fathers expression for WWII officers of that name) must be a big bloke.
1 Feb 13
11:51 am
Instead of arguing about who promised what re the Carbon Tax- take a look at the pictures of Beijing today! Would you want your children / grandchildren growing up in those conditions in Australia.
2 Feb 13
12:37 pm
Hilarious!
Or should that be: hiLIARious…..?
3 Feb 13
12:08 pm
Miles Sims – isn’t it time to take our responsibilities as members of a democracy seriously and check the facts? Gillard did not lie, and it’s time people stopped peddling this nonsense. She said plainly that she intended to put a price on carbon. The delivery date was advanced by the needs to deal with the priorities of her coalition partners. And to forestall the inevitable troll response of ‘minority/illegitimate government’, remember that for much of its national life, Australia has been governed by a coalition, not by a party that won office in its own right; and that many successful democracies operate in precisely that manner.
4 Feb 13
3:28 pm
Storm in a tea cup. These days, alas, titles are thought of as pomposity and almost everyone talks about VIPs as if they were drinking buddies or casual acquaintances.
Remember Prime Minister Rudd as he tried his best to appear internationally important, by running around the globe and crashing photo ops with the president of the US and other republican leaders? He acted as if he himself were actually a president, ie “Head of State” and not simply the first among equals in a Westminster style government.
He had the audacity to say to the Australian press “It would be great if Obama visited Australia, especially if he brings Michelle and the kids” I would expect that President Obama, the first Lady and their children would have shown more dignity, but Rudd obviously thought it made him sound more important, you know, I know a great man, therefore I am a great man.
A typo? could be, but with journalism at the level it has sunk to today, perhaps it wasn’t.
16 Feb 13
5:16 pm
So Jennifer Blanc, you don’t consider “there will be no carbon tax under my government” to be a committment not to deliver a Carbon Tax?
17 Feb 13
2:20 pm
Let’s just say it was a “non-core promise” and call it
quits.