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Opinion
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.
How reliable are radio ratings?
In this guest posting, Jason ‘Jabba’ Davis wonders how accurate radio ratings can be, since the data is collated from handwritten diaries.
So, the radio ratings season gets underway tomorrow. After a well-earned break, Australia’s commercial radio stations will renew their obsession with figures to see how many of us are listening. Are they winning or losing the ratings war?
The much feared radio survey is the only way to measure the success or failure of a station’s playlist, talent, promotions or even good old Black Thunder crosses. With six-figure salaries riding on the make-or-break nature of ratings, just how accurate are Australia’s radio survey results?
One-eyed Willy’s rich stuff: brands as movie heroes
I have just spent an entire day on a plane. I can’t sleep on flights, even after heavy sedation. So I watched seven films, back to back. Most of the new ones were truly awful and I couldn’t finish them. So I watched an old favourite, The Goonies. I have probably watched this film more than 200 times since I was a kid. But this time, with work in the back of my mind, one thing stuck out – how much brands were the stars of the film.The gospel of participation is making brands forget about mass reach
In this guest post, Simon Lawson argues that brands are becoming obsessed with getting consumers to participate, rather than remembering to deliver mass exposure.I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of brands are wasting significant amounts of time and money on ineffective marketing. Large sums are being put behind tactics which end up being too small to have much chance of influencing total brand preference.
Bondi beach stunt fell flat for me
Sometimes I’m glad I read my trade press – because otherwise I’d have no idea what the enormous great campaign laid out on Bondi Beach this weekend was all about.
It smacks of one of those ideas that looks good on paper but nobody tries out beforehand.
If you’re not aware, take a peek at this footage knocked off from my cameraphone.
That was taken from pretty much the best possible vantage point (apart from a helicopter). From beach level it was even less easy to tell what it was. The person I was with failed to guess until I explained.
In fact, each towel was meant to look like a crime scene-style outline of a body, to symbolise the dangers of skin cancer. If I’d not read about it in B&T last week (and seen the hammy Channel Ten ad), I’d have had no idea.
November 15th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
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Comments
16 Nov 09
9:50 am
This was covered last night on the network news services…often some of the highest rating programmes of the week so the overall reach of this was far greater than you and your friend and whoever else was at Bondi yesterday. The news story was accompanied by some compelling first person accounts of their experiences with skin cancer. There were great aerial as well as ground shots
Tim, I know this section is called ‘Opinion’ and you’re entitled to it, but too often I think you jump to conclusions e.g. “”smacks of one of those ideas that looks good on paper but nobody tries out beforehand”. Surely it wouldn’t have been too difficult to call the Cancer Council and ask them what their objectives were and were they achieved?
I think you’d find their objective was to generate a newsworthy ‘event’ to draw attention to the dangers of tanning. Thats what I took out of the news story.
16 Nov 09
11:28 am
With Rachael here. Although there may have been some residual benefit for punters at Bondi, I’d suggest the main aim here was to provide some interesting visuals for news media, not as a stunt, viral etc. Certainly seems to have achieved it’s aim there as it was all over TV on the weekend.
Good job Cancer Council.
16 Nov 09
2:16 pm
Come on Tim…you’re showing your ad-centricity. I have to agree with Scott and Rachael – this was a clever, creative PR idea that got major mass media coverage on TV and again in the early general news section of the SMH this morning. That even a couple of thousand people on the beach that day might not have understood it is no big deal – especially when the curiosity of one was piqued enough to write about it on his blog! How many more went away and discussed it with their friends, family etc? I would wager hundreds. The word of mouth effect was probably better than if the stunt had been obvious, come to think of it…this is an excellent example of integrated communications, in that respect…creative experiential idea executed at low cost with massive amplification through free press and word of mouth…
16 Nov 09
2:38 pm
.. I saw this on Weather Channel last night. They used it for background footage while reporting the forecast for Sydney’s hot weather to come. Though you couldn’t see the outlines on the towels, I surmised it was a marketing stunt of some kind and wondered how old it might be and if this was stock footage? Not that the avg punter would necessarily have followed the same thought process…
Agree with all the comments above.. any resulting mass media coverage is generally enough to take a modest experiential “stunt” into positive ROI, which it most certainly would have done in this case and therefore achieved its objective. More often than not, these are one small part of a much larger campaign too Tim. The point is that you DID see the TVC, you did understand the point of the stunt, you were able to explain it to somebody and this is the point of integrated communications plans.. when planned and implemented well, they combine in a symbiotic relationship to generate greater awareness and WOM.
Nice idea, well done guys.
16 Nov 09
2:54 pm
I think it was a fantastic promotion but maybe it would have been wise to have had tv, newspaper, radio coverage the day before rather than after.
16 Nov 09
2:56 pm
how do you get PR coverage the day prior to the stunt, when the event itself is the whole reason for the coverage?
16 Nov 09
3:09 pm
Are you serious Darren?! Of course you could get coverage the day before. It’s not about “the stunt”, it’s about the number of deaths from skin cancer. Maybe secure some strong stats for coverage or ask Sydneysiders and the friends and families of those with and have passed from skin cancer to be involved on the day to commemorate those who have died from skin cancer. There are many, many ways that you could secure pre-coverage and if anyone doesn’t think that’s possible than they shouldn’t be in the industry.
16 Nov 09
3:11 pm
I was in Bondi at the weekend; I thought it was a bunch of Poms making a politically incorrect joke about ze Germans….
16 Nov 09
3:31 pm
Agree with Rachael and Scott’s comments. The campaign has met its objectives of raising awareness. We were at Bondi yesterday morning and saw the towels and the signage. We discussed the issue of skin cancer at length with a number of fellow Nipper parents!
17 Nov 09
11:13 am
I watched two news programs on the day of the Cancer Council stunt and saw the coverage on two networks (ABC and one other – I think it was Seven?) and thought it worked really well.
I also thought the body outlines were ghoulish and they certainly have stuck in my mind -and this morning I was extra careful to apply my 30+ liberally.
17 Nov 09
12:52 pm
Rachael makes a very good point.
If the intention of the installation was about driving PR rather than engaging with those on the ground, then it may well have been a success on that basis.
It almost doesn’t matter if it makes sense to the punters who were there, if the overall coverage was good enough.
I didn’t see the original PR release, so I’ve no idea if the main goal was one of PR or experiential or a bit of both.
But I’d still argue that to make both work together would be a better result.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
17 Nov 09
3:45 pm
Ummmm….. Wasn’t this (the footage of the towels at Bondi Beach) simply the filming of the Cancer Council TVC, rather than a publicity stunt? I think its a terrific campaign.
17 Nov 09
5:35 pm
Hi Jules,
No, I shot that myself on Sunday morning. The towels were there for a good couple of days I think.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
17 Nov 09
10:23 pm
Agree with Rachael, Scott’s and Claudia. The Cancer Council conducted what seemed to be a very successful skin cancer awareness campaign laying 1700 towels on Bondi Beach to symbolise skin cancer related deaths that occur in Australia annually. Raising the public’s awareness of the dangers of tanning using the iconic Bondi Beach resulted in a worthy message for the Australian public. The campaign readily met its objectives of raising awareness for at least the 340 Bondi Nippers and their parents / carers while they conducted their activities adjacent to the Cancer Council’s towels.
18 Nov 09
12:53 pm
Anyone know if there was an agency involved with this, or was it all done in house? Either way, kudos deserved.
19 Nov 09
4:13 pm
Euro RSSCG Sydney did it. Well done Lex.