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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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Car in lake ad banned by ad watchdog
An ad featuring two women who drive their car into a lake because they’re distracted has been banned by the Advertising Standards Board.
The ad features the women ignoring their GPS while they chat, stopping to talk to a jogger and then driving into the dam.
The ad promotes free breakdown recovery for people who use Ultratune.
A complaint to the ASB stated:
“Our family lost 5 members in a accident which they drowned. They were driving a silver ford falcon. As you can understand this is upsetting to us and other people as well who have suffered this kind of tragedy.”
“The Board noted the complainant’s concern that the advertisement portrays an example of poor driving behavior and makes light of a serious matter.
“The Board noted that the intention of the advertisement is to set a scene that is realistic and familiar to drivers across Australia. The Board considered however that the behaviour of the girls trivializes the fact that they are not paying attention to the road and one of the girls is heard to say “not again!” This adds strength to the argument that the girls have possibly been involved in a similar incident and have not learnt or changed their behavior as a consequence of their actions.
“The Board considered that there is a very serious and genuine community concern regarding road safety and issues surrounding negligent driving and that the behavior of the woman driving was contrary to community standards on safe driving.”
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Comments
27 Jun 12
12:14 pm
Once again, people take things literally.
The Idea is Simple: If you get into trouble, Ultra Tune is there to help you.
Sure the execution is a bit eccentric, and the use of girls being distracted by a ‘cute’ guy can be seen as sexist even, it is just an example of a situation…
If we continue to dissect every single detail, and base all forms of advertising based on our personal experiences (-ve or +ve), we’ll always restrict ourselves.
The term “not again” need not necessarily be related to the exact situation. It is subjective. One could take it as “not again”, as in we’re in trouble (different situation), or “not again”, letting another cute guy get the better of ‘us’.
Help the industry. Allow creatives freedom that emphasizes the intended message.
After all, if it’s an advertisement it’s a form of ‘play’, just like movies…
Cheers,
Daniel-Jacob Santhou
27 Jun 12
12:33 pm
Are we seriously living in a world where every ad created has to take into consideration every single individual’s personal experiences in life? Whilst I am in no way making light of the complainants experience, I do find it distressing that it is this what prompted the ad to be reviewed, rather than its questionable sexist undertones. Even with that in mind, I would say the ad does not breach any standards.
People in this country are wowsers.
27 Jun 12
12:33 pm
Oh dear God…..well done Nanny State!
Let’s ban everything because one person complains, then we’ll have to ban everything. So someone lost relatives in a car crash – sorry to hear that, but tough. That doesn’t give them the right to determine television content for Australia on the basis of their own emotional state.
I’m sure someone lost a relative to a chicken burger too, or a peanut product – do we ban ads for those too?
Does “the Board” ban anything that it deems as not good behaviour?
And by whose standards?
Who authorised them to have such power? We, the people, did not.
So this bunch of unelected simpletons known as the ASB have appointed themselves as the arbiters of comedy, the arbiters of safety, the arbiters of taste – in effect, the censors over of Australian television culture.
For Christ’s sake, it’s time we let the market decide, and stopped permitting authorities to behave like it’s East Germany in the 1970′s.
If the ad offends everyone, then Ultratune will change their tune. It doesn’t
You can lay bets that the key complainants were set up by competitors to censor what is a good, entertaining and effective bit of TV advertising.
27 Jun 12
12:43 pm
Banned why?
talk about a Nanny state.
I think the Advertising Standards Board are getting a bit too precious.
27 Jun 12
1:09 pm
If they’ve banned that due to the above complaints why have they not pulled Greys Anatomy off air??
27 Jun 12
1:28 pm
Nanny state, wowsers, all true althoguh I am sympathetic to the family who’s family members drowned in a silver falcon. However, Blind Freddy could see the potential to have it pulled coming (but good to see both agency and client accept the risk, if indeed they recognised it). Frankly, I am surprised it lasted as long as it did. The fact is, they could have done it differently and better. Now they have to.
27 Jun 12
1:30 pm
“The Board considered that there is a very serious and genuine community concern regarding road safety and issues surrounding negligent driving” – ummmm of course there is, and this is the type of driving that people should be aware they commit! pffft
27 Jun 12
1:31 pm
Mike, really , how about a sense of perspective on your Outrage? As regular readers would know the ASB gets plenty of complaints (of varying degrees of lunacy) and generally rules on them with a level head.
I personally think this ad is borderline at best. If the point is, as the earlier commenter said, ‘If you get into trouble, Ultra Tune is there to help you’, surely there’s a better way to illustrate that than implying that dumb girls don’t really need to worry about watching the road even though they’ve had previous accidents. If not actively encouraging unsafe driving, it’s certainly dismissing it as unimportant.
Lastly, how about presenting an argument rather than a catchphrase? Anyone shouting ‘nanny state’ automatically loses any debate in my book and quite aside from that should get back in their time capsule and return to 1996 along with Political Correctness Gone Mad.
27 Jun 12
1:33 pm
It makes light of the situation.. so, if both girls went through the window decapitated they might allow it.
27 Jun 12
2:40 pm
I do have to agree with Red Bean.
By stating the obvious, we too get involved in the situation of name-calling or degrading others comments or opinions.
Unfortunately, the ASB was set up for a reason. I’ve read through their guidelines to justify their actions. We live in a people-centric world made up of ‘consumers’.
I think the context of Advertising needs to be clear. There are no bad Ads. Only bad people
Cheers,
Daniel-Jacob Santhou
28 Jun 12
1:20 pm
They should have banned it – Because it’s a terrible ad.
29 Jun 12
9:06 am
This is an age old problem for watch dogs. Supposed to allow pink blobs, but exclude green ones, the watch dog will naturally allow pink blobs with some green and even green blobs, if they show a lot of pink.
The problem occurs after years of allowing such blobs, without ever seeing a blob with too much green or a not enough pink. The watch dog begins to feel more like a door attendant than a watch dog, boredom sets in, and worse than this, a feeling of impotence.
Pretty soon, the watchdog begins to look for too much green by disallowing anything it may consider pinkish green or greenish pink . In what seems like no time at all, the watchdog bans an inoffensive blob for its lack of pink.
29 Jun 12
10:31 am
The agency who this ad would have known being banned was on the cards. Dangerous driving is never allowed in Australian advertising. They’ve wasted their client’s money. They must be punished.
29 Jun 12
10:35 am
Could Richard Moss please include a link to an illustration of his pinkish-greenish theory — i”m fuckin confused!
29 Jun 12
10:43 pm
@Peter Rush.
You should never fuck confused, it leads to PE and Impotency.
30 Jun 12
11:23 am
If one has to get crap ads removed from TV by claiming that 5 relatives drowned in a silver Ford Falcon, then so be it.
I doubt the claim of the complainant, as much as I smell the oily rag of PR “controversy” for an otherwise forgettable campaign.