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Opinion
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.
Share a Coke with… the moronic masses
The most-read story on Mumbrella last year, with not far off 100,000 page views, was a fairly humdrum yarn about the launch of Coca-Cola’s name-on-a-bottle campaign.The headline, “Coca-Cola puts people’s names on bottles in ‘Share a Coke’ campaign”, though hated by any self-respecting sub-editor, was loved by Google. And in rushed what can be politely described as the public.
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?
One-eyed Willy’s rich stuff: brands as movie heroes
I have just spent an entire day on a plane. I can’t sleep on flights, even after heavy sedation. So I watched seven films, back to back. Most of the new ones were truly awful and I couldn’t finish them. So I watched an old favourite, The Goonies. I have probably watched this film more than 200 times since I was a kid. But this time, with work in the back of my mind, one thing stuck out – how much brands were the stars of the film.The gospel of participation is making brands forget about mass reach
In this guest post, Simon Lawson argues that brands are becoming obsessed with getting consumers to participate, rather than remembering to deliver mass exposure.I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of brands are wasting significant amounts of time and money on ineffective marketing. Large sums are being put behind tactics which end up being too small to have much chance of influencing total brand preference.
Devine retribution
Twitter can sometimes offer an intriguing insight into journo-PR relations that would otherwise fly under the radar.
Take today’s exchange between Ogilvy PR’s Nathalie Swainston and strident Fairfax columnist Miranda Devine.
Swainston started the ball rolling with a tweet declaring her hatred of Devine, possibly forgetting that Devine is herself on Twitter and in fact (although Dr Mumbo has always considered her to be a satirical creation) a real person who might see it.
Devine sternly responded: “You need to seek professional help. Hating someone because they express an opinion you don’t like is not healthy.”
At which Swainston caved, responding: “You’re right, I don’t hate you, sorry. Bad choice of words. I just strongly disagree with your opinions. Very strongly.”
And with that, she deleted her original tweet…
A narrow points victory for the passive aggressive climate change sceptic, Dr Mumbo thinks.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
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Comments
28 Jan 10
4:54 pm
Are we so sure she’s a real person and not just a bot running an RSS feed from http://passiveaggressivetweets.com/?
I’m not angry at Devine, I’m just disappointed…
28 Jan 10
4:59 pm
Seh hits me because she loves me…
28 Jan 10
6:16 pm
I’d love to engage Miranda on Twitter. But sadly she blocked me. Was it something I said…?
Meanwhile, I’m a proud member of the Facebook group ‘There’s nothing divine about Miranda Devine’. Feel free to join!
28 Jan 10
7:00 pm
I’m angry at Devine. And I hate the persona she has created for herself in the newspaper. A cold, seething, complete hatred. If she got the sack tomorrow, then I would throw a party. Why? For someone who isn’t entirely stupid every single line of argument I have read her develop in her column attempts to reduce people’s thinking about a topic. Her columns are normally a cascade of assumptions based on someone else’s assumptions.
BOT, Devine is a hypocrite; valorising climate skeptics and then having the audacity to suggest someone else is doing something that isn’t ‘healthy’. She is the one denying that the planet is currently being poisoned and that we don’t need to do anything to try to make it healthier. It is such nonsense that it is almost comedic.
Shame, Miranda. Shame. Shame. Shame.
28 Jan 10
7:44 pm
Without the odd skirmish, Twitter would be a boring place!
That aside, I find it sad that in order to keep a place in Australian journalism, Devine has had to rely on sullen biggotry rather than the skill of fair and balanced reporting.
Instead of making this a ‘PR vs (idiot) Journalist’ debate, perhaps it can be boiled down to the fact that one thing Twitter does have going for it is that it’s a forum for the exchange of free speach and ideas..and inevitably conflicting ideas ignite heated discussions – just ask A.A Gil what he thinks about bloggers.
‘Hate’ is a passion word. Perhaps a little strongly used here, but in my opinion, it’s definitely better to feel passionately against Devine’s idiotic drivel, rather than agree with it.
29 Jan 10
11:09 am
Just PR pros creating more publicity (& hopefully followers) via drama.
29 Jan 10
11:23 am
This example of Miranda’s bullying is indicative of what makes her column so problematic, her power to spread negative discourse, to use her power for bad.
Why someone of her following felt challenged by this tweet is interesting. Why did she feel the need to respond? Was it purely image maintenance, or stemming from something else that unnerved? To me it demonstrates, even if she doesn’t admit it consciously, she may sometimes feel cracks in her rock solid arguments.
Maybe similar to the cracks in the melting glaciers, or the dried up banks of the Murray. I am forever hopeful.
In this context Tim I wouldn’t chalk it up as points for Devine. The points should go to anyone fights the good fight, and who gets a response. In my eyes Nat’s removal of words which may cause negativity shows an elevation of character, when thinking of the hundreds of odious words still on public record which have been penned Miranda’s hand.
29 Jan 10
11:42 am
I use Miranda Devine’s column as preparation for my boxing sessions at the gym. I reckon she is just and agent provocateur, nobody could really be such a nutcase!
29 Jan 10
11:47 am
I find it odd that most of the people who have commented above, state that they hate Devine but quite obviously read her column.
If you don’t like it, stop reading it, just like I avoid the back page of The Age every morning…….
29 Jan 10
12:04 pm
Bullies. There are plenty of them, on the left and on the right. They are a dime a dozen.
29 Jan 10
12:05 pm
Like it or not, she’s bloody good at serving up opinions that get people talking.
Yep, she can irritating / antagonistic as all hell — that’s the point of opinion columns, after all.
Opinion pieces are not meant to be ‘fair and balanced reporting’ — they’re meant to provoke discussions/arguments. Who knows how much of what she writes is Miranda’s personal belief? Who cares?
29 Jan 10
12:58 pm
Yes everytime someone clicks on her badly researched, provocative articles the SMH keeps feeding her. Do not be tempted to click on that headline designed to infuriate you.
Whatever Miranda’s personal beliefs are (or morals) – she is paid by the Fairfax to be antagonistic. Let her face her demons (& her childrens’ judgement) if the environment goes to hell in the future.
5 Feb 10
8:51 am
Miranda Devine is a dreadful writer: her prose is turgid, her ideas hackneyed (she’ll pick an issue or a trends weeks after everyone else is done with it) and her arguments are usually weak and uncompelling.
I understand she is the daughter of some “iconic” Australian journalist?
If so this is not surprising, since there is no way she would ever merit a newspaper column on her own talents.
5 Feb 10
1:36 pm
Sullen Bigot? Excellent description, thank-you Melissa: it describes this terrible person perfectly.
Incidentally, she’s the single reason I switched for the SMH to the Australian.
5 Feb 10
2:02 pm
@anon1 She’s the daughter of Frank Devine. He was an icon (love him or hate him). He died last year. You’ll find them both on Wikipedia…
…and you’ll find this quote from Miranda herself about why she does her job her way:
“You are contesting ideas and you have to do it in a polarising way. When you write a column, you can’t sit on the fence.”
So… I don’t come here to defend or bury her, except to say I stick to my first point: she’s good at inciting debate.
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