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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 While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated.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.
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?
Big M makes giant headphones from 40,000 drink cartons
Lion brand Big M has made a giant pair of headphones from 40,000 cartons of the milk chocolate drink.
The Mphones installation, which took six weeks to make, is timed for this weekend’s St Kilda Festival. The headphones are fully functional and will be pumping out summer tracks while the festival is on.
Durex uses giant cock to target gay community
Durex is launching its biggest ever campaign targeting the gay community in the run-up to Sydney Mardi Gras.
Coles to air new ‘Down, down and still’ ad tonight
Coles is continuing to drill home its ‘Down, down and still down” message in a new ad to air on TV tonight, Mumbrella can reveal.
BWM Melbourne looks to UK direct agency for new MD
After a six month search, BWM Melbourne has replaced managing director Hugh Nairn, who left in August last year to join Big Red, with the boss of a digital and direct agency in the UK.
Carl Ratcliff, who was executive planning director at Elvis Communications, a direct and digital agency owned by the Cossette Group, joins the Photon-owned agency on April 16.
Before Elvis, he held senior planning roles at Lowe and TBWA London. Clients he has worked with include Waitrose, Sky, Sony Playstation and Cadbury Schweppes.
Aegis Media merges Visual Jazz and Isobar
Stephenson and Silva
In another key early development at Aegis Media this year, digital agency Visual Jazz has been merged with Isobar to form one of Australia’s largest digital agencies.
The combined operation, branded Visual Jazz Isobar, has a national presence of 180 staff – 15 from Isobar and 165 from Visual Jazz – with offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
Konrad Spilva, a founder and current MD of Visual Jazz, will be MD of Visual Jazz Isobar, reporting to David Stephenson, MD of Aegis Media Pacific’s digital creative division.
The Sydney office of Visual Jazz Isobar, which now will have a team of over 30 people, will be led by Grant Henderson as GM and Verity Tuck as senior account director.
Mumbrella to run social media risk management masterclass
Mumbrella is to run a half day masterclass on managing risk in social media.
The event will take place on Thursday March 1 at Darling Harbour in Sydney.
Speakers will look at the risks associated with social media marketing – and how to mitigate them.
Pearson
von muenster
Cornwell McKean
The speakers include a legal perspective from lawyer Stephen von Muenster, the journalism perspective from Prof Mark Pearson and a regulatory perspective from the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s Julia Cornwell. The session will also examine case studies of brands that have found themselves in social media firestorms – and how they got through the crisis.
Kim McKay, boss of digitally-led PR agency Klick Communications will moderate the event.
At last week’s Mumbrella marketing summit, managing risk in social media emerged as a key issue for those involved in marketing.
The event is aimed at members of marketing teams whose brands use social media as a promotion tool, marketers whose brands might be discussed on social media; agency staffers likely to be responsible for assisting brands on social media strategies; agency staffers – whether from PR, media , digital or creative agencies – responsible for developing and overseeing social media strategies.
Speaker details:
- Stephen von Muenster is an attorney who has specialised in advertising, communications, marketing, promotions and media law for more than 15 years. He is a regular advisor to the Communications Council, the Media Federation of Australia and Social Media Club Sydney.
- Mark Pearson’s latest book, Blogging and Tweeting Without Getting Sued, is due to be published next month. He is a former section editor of The Australian and has written three editions of The Journalist’s Guide to Media Law. He is Professor of Journalism at Bond University in Queensland, Australia.
- Julia Cornwell McKean has been manager of the anti-spam team at ACMA for the last three years. her focus includes issues where digital marketing interacts with spam legislation.
Tickets are priced at $299. Details of how to book are available here. (pdf)
Host bags first win of the year – Patak’s
After a three-way pitch, Host and The Glue Society have been awarded creative duties for Patak’s.
The Indian cooking brand, which is owned by AB World Foods Australasia, is Host’s third win since its acquisition by Havas in July last year. The agency has also won Rentokill and Coke Zero.
Brett Ogle is back for Drummond Golf
Drummond Golf brand ambassador Brett Ogle is harangued by his mother in a new ad to promote the golf store’s wares.
The agency behind the campaign was Wilson Everard.
Open Colleges: Now you can
Fledgling media agency Bohemia is behind a new campaign for its founding client Open Colleges to promote its online courses.
Leggo’s sends Valentine’s Day love songs in Facebook campaign
Leggo’s is sending personalised love songs on behalf of fans of its Facebook page as part of a Valentine’s Day push.
This is the first digital campaign from HardHat digital and BWM since the agencies won the business at the end of last year.
My Kitchen Rules peaks at 2m, Excess Baggage bombs with under 500,000
Seven’s My Kitchen Rules drew its largest audience of the year last night.
The cooking show took 1.66m, peaking with 2m, across the five city metro for total individuals, according to preliminary reports from OzTam.
MKR has won every night it has aired so far this year.
The show was well ahead of Seven News in second place, which rated 1.144m and Nine News which rated 1.1m.
The Biggest Loser was Ten’s top rating show, with 696,000 and placing tenth overall. It beat Nine’s Excess Baggage, which rated with a disappointing 474,000 – Nine is to move the show to digital channel GO! and replace it with Big Bang Theory in the 7pm timeslot, it emerged yesterday.
The weight is over for Excess Baggage
Nine is scrambling to update ads promoting weight loss show Excess Baggage, after the broadcaster took the decision to bump the program to digital channel GO! last night.
Nine has been heavily marketing the show with the slogan ‘The weight is over’ on buses and billboards all over Australia.
But the show has rated poorly since going head to head to The Biggest Loser on Ten in the 7pm timeslot.
Last night, Excess Baggage rated with 474,000 – well behind The Biggest Loser’s audience of 696,000.
A Nine spokesman told Mumbrella: “Marketing will start to come down this week. By next week suppliers will endeavour to remove as much collateral pointing to 7pm weeknights as possible.”
Caged zombies in Martin Place
New subscription TV channel FX, which launches at the end of this month, today staged a stunt at Martin Place in Sydney featuring caged zombies. A key show on the new channel is US zombie drama The Walking Dead.
Peugeot lets the outside world in
Peugeot has launched a new print and outdoor campaign for the Peugeot 308 Touring.
The campaign, created by Arnold Furnace, aims to highlight the vehicle’s panoramic glass roof.
Titled Hitchhikers, the campaign carries the strapline “Let the Outside World In” and shows different outdoor elements trying to hitch a ride in the car.
Kerri-Anne stars in ad for women’s cancer charity
Kerri-Anne Kennerley features in a new ad for Look Good…Feel Better, a charity for women with cancer. It was created by DDB Remedy, the healthcare arm of DDB, on a pro bono basis.
Louie the Fly creator Bryce Courtenay to feature on Family Confidential
The man who created Mortein brand mascot Louie the Fly is to appear on ABC1′s Family Confidential tomorrow night.
Bryce Courtenay, an author and adman of 34 years who worked as a creative director at McCann Erickson, JWT and George Patterson Advertising (now GPY&R), created Louie the Fly in 1957 – it was the third commercial he had written.
STVDIO rebrands to Studio to help viewers understand how to pronounce it
SBS-owned arts channel Studio is to drop the “TV” from the centre of its logo because of difficulties in how to pronounce its name.
The channel turned to Ink Project to redesign the original logo, which was created by Frost Design just two years ago.
The rebrand – to make the logo more “accessible” – comes into effect on March 1, when a new website will also be introduced.
SBS spelt the original name with a ‘v’ to bring out the word ‘TV’, but this made the word difficult to pronounce.
Unilever relaunches Impulse body spray
Unilever is re-launching women’s body spray Impulse around the idea of a love story.
Starting with an instore and promotional push that begins on Friday, the campaign positions the Impulse range of fragrances for girls ‘so irresistible they will do the flirting for you’.
Interactive digital billboards in Westfield shopping malls with enable girls to share love notes via their smart phones. Promo staff driving ‘Love story’ branded Minis will be visiting beaches, cinemas and shopping malls around Sydney.
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