Opinion

• A decade of unembarrassedly folksy breakfast telly

  It’s easy to take the mickey out of breakfast TV, which is by its very nature, lowest common denominator television.

  But that doesn’t mean that making it is easy.   

• We Are Bonds shows the fine line between failure and success in digital

  Yesterday, it seemed a big ask: the Bonds Birthday Project set itself a target of finding an Australian for every day of the 97 years Bonds have been in business; 35,301 people in total.

  Within 24 hours of the site launching, over 20,000 people had submitted their photograph to claim their birthdays. As a campaign idea, it’s brilliant.

  But as with the Share a Coke campaign, there are some shortcomings in terms of its execution that lead me to ask whether creative agencies are best placed to lead the digital element of this sort of campaign.

• Why Bonds' Birthday Project will be the campaign of 2012

  Once or twice a year, a campaign breaks that gets me really excited about the Australian marketing industry.

  Back in 2010, it was Tontine’s date stamped pillows. I knew it was category redefining the moment I saw it.

  In 2011, it was NAB’s Breakup.

  Now I’m calling the campaign for 2012.

  It’s for Bonds, and The Birthday Project breaks today.

• Aerogard's 'paedo' in Speedos; and Jeep's crossdressing dog

  If ever you needed reminding of the tough job the Ad Standards Board faces, it’s nicely encapsulated in this demented complaint about the “Summer Lovin’” ad for Aerogard.

  While this Euro RSCG work for Reckitt Benckiser deserves condemnation for crimes against music, the following is perhaps a tad less deserved.

• No - advertising has not beaten culture jamming at its own game

  In this guest post, an anonymous activist argues why advertising has not subverted culture jamming - and why Australia would be a better place without ‘visual pollution’

  At a photography exhibition now on the Sydney Museum last week, a question was put to a panel of experts. Would our cities be better without any advertising. The answer was a resounding “yes”.

  This didn’t really come as much of a surprise. After all, the panel were culture jammers – activists who subvert mainstream media, altering the message of an ad to tell a story of their own.

• Think popular, not premium: Why the Henry & Aaron 'It's a snap' video went viral

  In this guest posting, YouTube’s Karen Stocks says why she thinks CIT’s gory-funny ‘It’s a snap’ ad was a hit.

  One of this week’s viral hits on YouTube is a science fiction-themed ad for the Central Institute of Technology in Perth. The skit-style video commercial features CIT grads-turned-YouTube stars Henry & Aaron, who magically jump from one CIT department to the next with a snap of Aaron’s fingers. The comedy takes a distinctly darker turn when Aaron’s teleporting skills start going horribly wrong – with gruesome results.

  The video holds a couple of lessons for marketers.

• Mumbrella360 - call for curated sessions

  I must confess that I didn’t enjoy Mumbrella360 last year.

  Having staked our credibility and indeed (although I didn’t like to think about it at the time) the company, on Mumbrella360 being a success, the main thing I actually experienced over the two days was a growing sense of relief that it wasn’t shit.  

• The Woolworths virtual store is not the future of retail. But it is a good PR stunt

  So last night I dropped by my local neighbourhood Virtual Woolworths.

  It’s located at Sydney Town Hall station – conveniently enough, almost directly underneath my local neighborhood Real Woolworths.

  As you’ll see from the wobbly iPhone video I shot, it was a relatively lonely experience. But it was Sunday night.

• How not to use Twitter: lessons from Qantas and Westpac

  The likes of Qantas have a long way to go before getting to grips with social media, argues Axel Bruns.

  For major brands, the road to social media infamy is paved with what seemed like good ideas at the time.

  Just this week, Qantas succeeded in having Twitter suspend the well-known spoof account, @QantasPR, claiming users would mistake it for the real thing.  

• Is Big W the beginning of the bounceback for Saatchis?

  Google may prove me wrong, but in the entire time Mumbrella has existed, and very possibly for my entire editorship of B&T before that, I can’t remember ever writing the headline “Saatchi & Saatchi wins…”

  So today’s appointment by Big W is a big deal.  

• Traditional agencies are driving away their digital superstars with their old ways

  In this guest post, Daniel Monheit argues that Australia’s creative agencies will never be able to hang on to digital talent

  In 2010 Steve Jobs was invited by James Murdoch to speak at the annual News Corp management retreat. Jobs issued a blunt, critical assessment of what newspapers were trying to do in technology: “You’re going to find it hard to get things right, because you’re in New York and anyone who’s any good at tech works in Silicon Valley”.

  And that’s when it hit me. The reason why Australia’s best traditional agencies, working with the most prolific clients and the biggest budgets cant manage to put out anything remotely passable as decent digital work.

  Anyone who’s any good at digital works at an agency that actually believes in it.

• What does Fairfax's Media's data dump actually mean? And what's going on at ACP Magazines?

  Although I rather like stats, there are a few days a year where they become a little overwhelming.

  Radio ratings releases offer eight such days annually. Over the space of a couple of hours, the data drops for the five main metro markets. Generally the phone starts ringing within 10 minutes, from station bosses aiming to give their interpretation of those numbers. It becomes a game of keeping them on the line long enough to sift through the data to try to discover the real story you need to ask them about. Within minutes a blizzard of press releases follow too.

  In truth, the press releases mostly get ignored in the race to write the story. Then they’re mostly ignored because the story is already written.

  And twice a year, a similar exercise surrounds the release of the monthly magazine sales figures,

• When the powerful buy into the media, can the media still scrutinise the powerful?

  Economist Richard Denniss of Australian National University argues in a post that first appeared on The Conversation that the public needs to decide if it cares who owns the media.

  The mining industry is used to having its voice heard in Australian public debates, so it should come as no surprise that mining billionaires such as Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer would consider buying up a bigger slice of the Australian media.

  While the estimated $20m spent by the mining industry on television advertisements opposing the introduction of a mining tax was the most visible example of the industry’s determination to influence the public it is, in fact, just the tip of the iceberg.  

• 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.