mUmBRELLA

Here are some comments you haven’t read on Mumbrella in the last month:

“This guy is a douche”

“Xxxxx is a prick.”

“I think we all know what she really needs.”

“Boring work.”

“Smug little suit…a nasty performance from the pommy bastard. Self-satisfaction is the order of the day!”

“Same old shit from the Xxxxxx team.”

“He was useless in his last job. He’ll be useless in this one.”

“Moron”

“He really is a sad, abusive, supercilious twat.”

“He seems like a little worm” Read more »

The character of News Limited is about to change.

The opening words used by John Hartigan when he gave the Andrew Olle Media Lecture in 2007 give the clue why:

“My name is John Kenneth Hartigan. Occupation: journalist. A journalist is what I am, who I am, and what I will always be. When you wanted to be a journalist as fervently as I did, took as long to become one as I did, and love it as much as I do – you are never anything else.”

It used to be that a key point of difference between Australia’s two behemoths was that News Limited was run by a journo and Fairfax by a suit. In almost exactly a year that has reversed.   Read more »

If you didn’t have time to to get along to NineMSN’s digital marketing summit today, one of the sessions you missed was from Shubu Mitra, The Coca Cola Company’s director of connections planning, effectiveness and productivity.

Instead, I recommend investing seven minutes in watching this video from the brand – as good an articulation as any of how marketers make the most of the new media landscape.    Read more »

In this guest post, James Welch wonders whether ad agencies should make ads about themselves.

In 2006 I was on a project at Patts Y&R Melbourne. The now-famous Russel Howcroft had just been appointed as MD. The receptionist asked me what project I was working on. I explained that I was working for Russel, helping them articulate today’s stories for the agency and to find ways to package them up for prospective clients. The receptionist’s summary was succinct: “You’re advertising the advertising agency!”

Read more »

In this guest post, James Wright questions whether marketers buy consumer research for the right reasons.

Eighty-five per cent of all research is made up on the spot, or so goes the old joke. Pick up any newspaper or visit any news website and you will find some sort of frothy research insight into attitudes and behaviour. Recently there have been a number of investigations into how accurate consumer research is. ABC’s Media Watch recently devoted a program to looking at the behaviour of McCrindle Research and the most recent piece appeared yesterday in the Sunday Telegraph looking at research company Canstar Blue. The underlying question being, can we trust research?

Read more »

In this guest post, Melinda Tankard Reist calls on advertisers to stop sexualising kids and objectifying women

The ad industry has the nasty habit of using self-regulation to its commercial advantage, exploiting women’s bodies in the process. Corporate social responsibility is sacrificed on an altar of sexism.

Inadequacies in the system include a weak code of ethics, no pre-vetting of ads, the Ad Standards Bureau’s powerlessness to order the removal of ads, inadequate monitoring and no meaningful penalties.

Many people don’t know how to make a complaint. Self regulation means the industry gets to do what it wants – and pretty much get away with it.

Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Whybin\TBWA\Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.

Whybin\TBWA\Sydney is the third most highly-ranked agency from a multinational network, after Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and Host, and is described by one panellist as “one of the most exciting shops in Sydney”.

Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Whybin\TBWA\Melbourne has fared over the last 12 months.

Whybin\TBWA\Melbourne was something of a quiet achiever for much of the last 12 months, even with regional chairman and creative figurehead Scott Whybin still a regular presence in the office. Until the agency landed the biggest, if not the most prestigious, new business catch of 2011.

Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how The Monkeys has fared over the last 12 months.

Triple-digit revenue and profit growth on the back of new business including Ikea, Google, Diageo and Sydney Opera House. One of the best pieces of branded content of the year in The Ship Song Project. It is probably fair that The Monkeys – formerly The Three Drunk Monkeys – tops our survey in the most exciting category: momentum.

Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how The Campaign Palace Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.

With Panasonic the only really visible client left, and the memories of the halcyon days of the ‘80s and ‘90s growing ever fainter, it is a sad sight to the see The Campaign Palace Sydney at the bottom of our survey with the lowest score overall.

The Palace was by some distance the poorest rated agency by our panel, with its highest rank being for creativity. They were not kind in their appraisal, one calling The Palace “an agency racing headlong into oblivion,” adding, “I can only imagine it made the top 30 on past reputation.”

Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.

It is fair to say that Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney has not had the happiest of years. Lion Nathan and David Jones were two massive client losses. And a sizeable dent was put its highly-prized Toyota account by Droga5, an agency heavily staffed by ex-Saatchi’s people, notably former Saatchi’s creative boss David Nobay. ECD Steve Back was another key departure. More bad news emerged months later as Saatchi’s failed in its attempt to acquire The Monkeys, another agency run by former employees. As news of the rebuff broke, Saatchi’s went to ground, which has been fairly typical of the agency’s approach to managing its profile.

Read more »

Having rated 1.3m, last night, The Celebrity Apprentice had a very solid start for Nine.

But at the gym this morning, quite literally over the water cooler, I overheard two people talking about last night’s show.   Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Publicis Mojo Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.

The loss of Micah Walker, Publicis Mojo Sydney’s ECD, casts a shadow over an otherwise decent year for the agency, which has been a familiar presence on the podium at awards shows. Last year, the ‘Pure Waters’ campaign for Lion Nathan’s James Boag beer won handsomely, and was recently named one of the best beer ads of all time by The One Club. So did ‘Ride’ for Coca-Cola’s energy drink Burn, which was one of the few Australian film winners at Cannes. This year should see Publicis Mojo’s Knight Rider-themed ad for Hahn Super Dry, which was named Mumbrella’s ad of the month for July 2011, win a fair few trophies.

Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Publicis Mojo Melbourne has fared over the last 12 months.

If there is an agency that has fallen as far from past glories as The Campaign Palace, it is the Melbourne office of Publicis Mojo. Once a tour de force and a genuinely world class agency brand, Mojo Melbourne has shrunk beyond all recognition in recent years. So much so, it is easy to forget the agency exists, tucked away with the equally low-key Zenith Optimedia in Publicis Groupe’s tower on the Southbank.

Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Ogilvy Melbourne has fared over the last 12 months.

With 330 staff, Ogilvy is the largest agency in Melbourne with an enviable client list that includes AAMI, Australia Post, BMW, Fosters and McCain. It has performed solidly if uninspiringly, seeing off challenges for its Myer and BMW accounts and winning new ones such as Bank of Melbourne and Puma. The agency ranks highest in our survey for commercial success and client stability.

Read more »

In this guest post, David Thomason argues why,  from a client’s perspective, social media has been overvalued

Of all the eulogies to Steve Jobs last week, the one that most caught my attention was the one in Advertising Age, headlined Digital Maverick but Marketing Traditionalist. That such a visionary who transformed the way the world communicates still favoured traditional media to get Apple’s messages out should encourage us all to take a cold bath before blindly following the lemmings into the social media abyss.

Read more »

The great thing about doing Mumbrella is that when I want to be a journalist, I’m a journalist. And when I want to be a blogger, I’m a blogger.

Last night I was at News Limited’s blogger  briefing on its plans for The Australian’s paywall.   Read more »

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Oddfellows has fared over the last 12 months.

It has been suggested that Oddfellows is a curious choice for our top 30. Described by one panelist as “not the most exciting agency in town”, Oddfellows is known almost exclusively for its trusty Toyota relationship. Little is ever heard from the agency, which seems happy with its reputation as a no-nonsense grafter that keeps its head down.

Read more »