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Opinion | Features
Woz not great
In this guest post Tony Prysten argues that the thousand dollar price of seeing out-of-touch Apple co-founder Steve Wozniack on his Australian tour was a waste of money.
This week, for the cost of two iPads (yep, two) I went to the Woz Live conference in Melbourne. I was not impressed.
What the hell is transmedia?
From advertising campaigns to online video series, the term ‘transmedia’ gets quite the work out. But what does it actually mean? Cathie McGinn trawls the media landscape for a definitive definition.
Transmedia, all media and multiplatform are terms often used interchangeably when referencing modern storytelling techniques. Yet, depending who you speak to, there are distinct differences between them.
According to industry experts Encore spoke to, the key elements that define transmedia can be summarised as follows: platform, time, audience, adaptation, and creative collaboration.
Innovation is the remedy for the ailing magazine industry
With magazine circulations plummeting, FHM closing and rumours rife on future ownership of ACP Magazines, Paul Merrill says the only way forward is launching new titles.Eight years ago in the UK, nearly a quarter of all magazine sales came from magazines that were less than four years old. In Australia, the figure was slightly lower, but still significant. Today, the situation is very different. For a start there are so few new magazines. Yes, Masterchef briefly flared, and Top Gear made an initial impact. But Grazia and Alpha fizzled, and now ACP has shelved their plans to launch Elle.
More than a game: broadcasting the Olympics
The 2012 London Olympics will be the biggest televised sporting event of our time. Brooke Hemphill discovers the logistical challenges and technical requirements of producing the event.
From July 27 to August 12, the Australian media will go sport crazy as the Games of the XXX Olympiad, aka the 2012 London Summer Olympics, unfold. The games will be the most televised sporting event of our time as broadcasters look to master every manner of technology at their disposal.
The Voice - Australia's best example yet of social TV
In this guest post, Sputnik’s Rodd Messent has a theory on why audiences have taken to The Voice .I am an addict of Channel Nine’s hit show The Voice. Such is the extent of my addiction I seriously think my housemate might kick me out of our apartment for the semi-frenzied yelling and tweeting that ensues in our lounge room each time the show airs.It’s the first time in almost three years that such disagreement has resulted in less than civil behaviour towards one another, and it’s made me think it might be a microcosm of the large volume of online debate about the show and, correspondingly, an explanation for its success as a social TV experience.Why brands are the US Army - and culture jammers are the Viet Cong
In this guest posting, Dave Burgess, who painted ‘No War’ on the Sydney Opera House, claims that ‘amoral’ advertisers have copied his idea.
Culture jamming is a 28-year-old term coined by the San Francisco-based band Negativland, who declared that the ‘Studio for the cultural jammer is the world at large’.
Branded content is dead. Long live branded content
In this guest posting, Anthony Freedman argues why branded content is making a comeback.
A few short years ago, probably concurrent with the advent of the PVR, a new term emerged within the marketing communications industry; branded content. This was really synonymous with advertiser funded TV shows where programming was created by brands and deals struck with networks to broadcast them.
There were varying degrees of success with this model.
Shock advertising: 30 ads that would give Australia's ad watchdog a coronary
Is shock an underused weapon in Australian advertising, asks Robin HicksToday, Sydney agency The Cabana Boys used an image of a mouth sewn together to shock people with the idea that problem gamblers lie to conceal their habit. Is it the most disturbing image ever? No. Will it get banned by the Advertising Standards Bureau? No. But it did make me wonder why shock is not used more often in Australia – and not just by charities and government bodies. (WARNING: NSFW)
The making of ratings blockbuster The Voice
Jason Mountney goes on the set of Channel Nine’s talent search series, The Voice, to see how the format, based on an international franchise, has come together. What ingredients have gone into making this certified hit that’s rated more than two million viewers on three consecutive nights?
Mike Goldman has one of the toughest jobs on the set of the Nine network’s new talent show, The Voice. He not only has to narrate the show, but also keep the audience from losing their enthusiasm as they realise shooting TV programs takes a lot longer than the one-hour bursts they see in their lounge rooms. A lot longer.
Nine problems stopping The Global Mail from getting an audience
While it’s a shame The Global Mail has failed to make an impact on the media landscape, the signs have been there for some time.I love the concept of a well resourced, philanthropically-funded independent news site. Anywhere in the world, that’s a rare and wonderful thing. In Australia even more so. So I hope that Grame Wood gets to see his investment make a difference.
And I have no inside info on whether Monica Attard’s sudden departure is linked to the site’s failure to find an audience so far.
Regardless, here are nine areas they can easily start to address:
Journalism’s new model?
Does the launch of philanthropically funded news site The Global Mail signal a new era for journalism or is the model destined to be a passing fad, asks Cathie McGinn in this article first published in Encore magazine.With little fanfare, philanthropically funded news site The Global Mail launched in February this year.
The online-only title received a generous five-year funding commitment from businessman Graeme Wood, founder of accommodation website wotif.com, who donated $15million.
Five things that make a great suit
In this guest posting, Gareth Collins argues that the role of a great account manager is to make the work betterI’m surprised at how many suits I meet who don’t know their role in the advertising business. The question ‘what does an advertising account manager or director do?’ is frequently met with answers such as project manager, relationship manager, plate spinner or go between … and those are the nice ones.
Success is judged on the ability to manage a process, be strong administratively and get stuff done. And while a good suit needs to do all of these things brilliantly, if these are the traits that define a great suit, then I’m in the wrong job.
What the hell is transmedia?
From advertising campaigns to online video series, the term ‘transmedia’ gets quite the work out. But what does it actually mean? Cathie McGinn trawls the media landscape for a definitive definition.
Transmedia, all media and multiplatform are terms often used interchangeably when referencing modern storytelling techniques. Yet, depending who you speak to, there are distinct differences between them.
The top seven...most patronising pieces of communication
Sometimes brands have big ideas. Sometimes marketers get so caught up with a grandiose idea that instead of finding engaging ways to sell breakfast cereal, they start to believe their own rhetoric. And sometimes it’s just lazy marketing. Here are my top seven inadvertently patronising pieces of communication…
1) Last night thousands of women gathered in Sydney’s Centennial Park to take part in She Runs the Night, an event created by Nike.
TV audience measurement – why big isn’t always beautiful
In this guest post, Chris Walton argues that the media industry needs to take a new approach to TV tradingThere has been a significant amount of coverage recently about how successful The Voice has been. Indeed, audience figures of 2.6m+ people are very impressive these days. Based on reports, this is apparently double the size of audience that Nine was hoping for in the lead up to the programme launching.
Andrew White rejoins The Australian after five-year stint at AFR
Australian Financial Review business writer Andrew White is returning to rival newspaper The Australian, the title he was poached from by the AFR almost five years ago.
He returns to The Australian to boost its coverage of national and international business as associate editor, the paper is reporting.
White joined the AFR from The Oz, where he was business editor, in July 2007 to edit its Rear Window gossip column. He was also companies editor during his time at the Fairfax newspaper.
Australian Directors’ Guild Awards: Julia Leigh wins for Sleeping Beauty, Sydney Dogs and Cats Home is best directed TV ad
Sleeping Beauty: won best direction in a feature
This evening’s Australian Directors’ Guild Awards saw Julia Leigh claim the best direction in a feature film gong for Sleeping Beauty.
Matthew Saville won two awards – for best direction in a TV mini series for Cloudstreet and best direction in a TV drama series for The Slap.
SBS series Go Back To Where You Came From, which has just won international acclaim at the Rose d’Or Festival in Switzerland, took the best direction of a documentary series award for Ivan O’Mahoney.
Best direction of a TV ad went to Damien Toogood for Sydney Dogs and Cats Home.
Go Back To Where You Came From wins at Rose d’Or Festival
An Australian series has won two awards at an international TV festival over night.
The Rose d’Or Festival in Lucerne Switzerland awarded Go Back To Where You Came From in the Best Factual Entertainment category followed by the coveted Golden Rose for best of 2012 across all platforms and categories.
Aussie film sales company takes 25 film-maker project to Cannes
An Australian film sales and distribution company will represent a new film, written, directed and produced by 25 film-makers from all over the world.
The Australian-based ScreenLaunch has teamed up with CollabFeature to represent the film The Owner at the 2012 Cannes Film market, Marche du Film.
Calling it a world first, The Owner was made by 25 film-makers from 13 countries on five continents, never officially meeting in person.
The film is set to make the Guinness Book of Records for the most key film-makers to work on a film.
Domestos: Phill is strong, lucky this toilet cleaner is even stronger
Droga5 has released a commercial for Unilever toilet cleaning brand Domestos.
The ad, which first aired around Australia’s Got Talent on Wednesday night, was put on YouTube, and has amassed more than 180,000 views. It features Phill Pace, a contender for the Mr Australia bodybuilder title.
Caroline Gregory, brand manager at Unilever, said: Read more »
Star power ranking to be unveiled at Mumbrella360
The results of one of the most detailed pieces of research conducted on how the public feels about a range of more than 700 Australian celebrities and sports stars will be unveiled at Mumbrella360.
The Encore Score conducted research into public attitudes to 738 personalities, charting how widely recognised they are, and how positively or negatively they are perceived.
The project is similar to the Q Score research which takes place in the US and was previously conducted in Australia, although the methodology for calculating the score takes a different approach.
A total of 2,650 respondents completed the survey. Read more »
Australian film-maker banned from talking to Screen Australia
An Australian film-maker who has been conducting a one man crusade against the management of government funding body Screen Australia says the organisation has now banned him from talking to it.
James Ricketson has been conducting a lengthy campaign complaining that the organisation has unfairly declined to fund his documentary project Chanti’s World. Screen Australia rejects this claim. Read more »
LAFHA chaos as overseas staff excluded from transition period
Clarification on when workers will lose their entitlement to the Living Away From Home Allowance will be issued “relatively soon”, the Treasury has told Mumbrella. However it now appears certain that most overseas agency staff will lose out.
The move follows two days of confusion on the questions of whether overseas staff already receiving LAFHA will be entitled to a two year transition period.
The issue is a key one for the media and marketing industry, which employs a disproportionately large number of staff from overseas, particularly from the UK. LAFHA offers a tax perk towards living costs.
Tuesday’s budget announcement confirmed that LAFHA will end for most people. Guidance published on Tuesday appeared to suggest that anyone with LAFHA arrangements in place would be allowed a two year transition period.
However, this now appears to be incorrect. Read more »
Ten says sorry for airing film showing close-up of man defecating
Network Ten has apologised to viewers after broadcasting a film on its digital channel that showed close up images of a man, not an actor, defecating.
The gross-out film Jackass Number Two, based on the MTV reality series, aired on Eleven from 9.30pm to 11.30pm.
The network has so far received five complaints from viewers.
In an email to Mumbrella, one viewer wrote: “The faeces are shown coming out of his backside and there are close-ups of the faeces. The man in the segment is apparently known for being able to defecate ‘on command’. Is this acceptable on Australian FTA TV? Did the network make a mistake in failing to remove this scene? Is it a breach of the TV networks’ Code of Practise?”
A clip of the scene has been removed by YouTube.
Ten sent the following statement to Mumbrella: Read more »
Aussie ‘niche’ film Dead Europe set for limited release
A new Australian film, announced on Wednesday in Competition at the Sydney Film Festival, will see a modest, art house release.
Liz Watts, producer for Dead Europe told Encore: “I think Dead Europe is a niche film. It’s not going to be a wide release,” adding that it would receive targeted marketing support.
Watts added: Read more »
Today beats Sunrise in three days out of four, but Seven claims ratings victory for the week
In the battle for Australia’s early morning viewer, Today beat Sunrise in the ratings yesterday – the third day out of four this week.
This is the first time the Nine breakfast show has beaten its Seven rival so frequently in the week since last year, when Today won on a Monday, Tuesday and Thursday on week beginning 24 October.
Today pipped Sunrise narrowly by 6,000 viewers yesterday, rating with 345,000 compared to 339,000 nationally, even though Sunrise’s audience was bigger in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, according to overnight OzTam ratings.
The Karl Stevanovic and Lisa Wilkinson-fronted show also won Monday by 20,000 viewers and Tuesday by 4,000, only being outdone in Wednesday’s ratings when Sunrise won convincingly by 68,000.
However, Sunrise claims victory for total viewers overall for the week.
A Seven spokesperson told Mumbrella: Read more »
Mumbrellacast
The Mumbrellacast will be live at 12.30 EST today. Join the Mumbrella team and PHD strategy director Chris Stephenson for a live chat about the week’s events including:
- The plummeting newspaper print circulations – is the audience really migrating to digital?
- Zoo Magazine’s 30% fall – is there any future for men’s mags?
- Has DMG finally cracked it with the smoothfm format?
- What the hell is happening with LAFHA?
- What’s gone wrong at the Global Mail?
To join the first ever live Mumbrellacast – click here. The broadcast is sponsored by Citrix GoToWebinar.
To join the conversation, post questions via the Citrix platform on or Twitter with the #Mumbrellacast hashtag.
Kyle Sandilands misses show for hospital health scare
Today Network star Kyle Sandilands missed his show this morning after being taken to hospital with what the network is describing as “a health scare”.
The controversial co-presenter of Sydney’s number one FM show Kyle & Jackie O’s Breakfast with the Stars, had been due to take part in a charity event near the company’s headquarters in World Square.
But station owner Southern Cross Austereo’s GM Jeremy Simpson issued a statement saying “Unfortunately Kyle is in hospital due to a health scare therefore we have had to postpone this morning’s kissing booth at World Square.”
Listeners were told that Sandilands was “doing fine” in hospital.
South Australian Film Corporation invests in Emile Sherman’s Tracks
The producers of two of Australia’s top two films of last year have received funding for a new joint production.
Emile Sherman and Iain Canning, producers of The King’s Speech, and Julie Ryan, producer of Red Dog, have received funding from the South Australian Film Corporation for new film Tracks.
Directed by John Curran, the film is the true story of Robyn Davidson’s journey through the Australian desert.
The SAFC’s investment, which also includes three other projects, totalled $0.61m.
ABCs: Fairfax print decline accelerates as first audited digital numbers are released
Fairfax Media’s metro newspapers have seen some of the biggest percentage circulation slides since audits began with falls of more than 10% for its flagships The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald along with its Sunday titles The Sunday Age and the Sun-Herald.
The company claims the fall is part of a deliberate strategy to move away from unprofitable print copies to digital subscribers.
NSW – print:
In Sydney, Monday to Friday circulation of the SMH fell by 13.6% to 180,960, according to quarterly data for January to the end of March released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The fall marks an acceleration of the title’s 11.94% fall in the last set of numbers.
Rival title The Daily Telegraph, published by News Limited, decreased its Monday to Friday circulation by 1.4% to 336,348.
The SMH’s Saturday circulation fell by 13.8% to 293,234 – the first time it has been below 300,000.
The Saturday edition of The Tele increased its circulation by 0.8% to 327,447.
By contrast, a year ago the SMH led the Tele by 15,367 copies on a Saturday. Now The Tele has moved ahead by 34,213 copies. Read more »
ABCs: Zoo’s fall continues
The decline of men’s magazine Zoo Weekly has gathered pace, the latest set of Audit Bureau of Circulations data suggests.
The ACP Magazines title fared worst of all of the audit weekly titles, with a decline in the first three months of the year of 29.1% to 65,632,
The fall reflects the poor state of the men’s magazines sector. ACP closed FHM in March, a month after it posted a 50% sales drop. News Limited axed Alpha magazine last year and ACP closed Ralph. Read more »
McDonald’s gets grilled about McDonald’s Gets Grilled at Mumbrella360
The team behind the much talked about McDonald’s Gets Grilled documentary will discuss the unusual process of how the show came to be commissioned in a session at Mumbrella360.
The programme was broadcast on the Seven Network and featured a group of six Australian consumers who went behind the scenes to address myths around the provenance of McDonald’s food.
Unusually, the show – which was made by independent production house WTFN – was funded by McDonald’s. However, it did not have editorial control.
The process is one of the most high profile examples yet of brand funded content airing on free to air television in Australia.
Mark Lollback, chief marketing officer for McDonald’s, Mat Baxter, CEO of media agency UM which was behind the idea and Daryl Talbot, managing director WTFN and the show’s executive producer will share the case study. They will be joined by Alistair Henderson national strategy director at media agency OMD, which does media planning and buying for McDonald’s. Read more »
South Australia in need of rebrand, says Premier, ‘people confuse us with South Africa and think Melbourne is our capital”
South Australia: A brilliant blend of what?
South Australia is suffering from an “unclear image” overseas, and is in need of a rebrand, the state’s Premier has said.
Premier Jay Weatherill said in an interview with the ABC that the state is often confused with South Africa, and it is believed that its capital is Melbourne.
Weatherill was recently introduced at a ‘G’Day USA’ conference as the Premier of New South Wales.
In the interview, Weatherill said: “We’re not cutting through with existing efforts, so we’re wanting to ask question, can we do the branding excercise better?”
The state will be looking to British creative Bill Muirhead, the founding director of M&C Saatchi London, and architect of the 100% Pure New Zealand campaign, to reposition the state.
“The basic principal of marketing anything is that first you need to have awareness before you get preference,” Weatherill said.
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