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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.
Domino’s stages Hawaiian-themed flash mob
To promote a new recipe for its Hawaiian pizza, Domino’s has organised a flash mob involving 150 people at a Westfield shopping centre in Brisbane, who dance around a hula girl wearing a grass skirt.
According to a Domino’s press release, the stunt is a “truly unique” way to draw attention to the campaign.
The video is hosted on Domino’s Facebook page, where visitors can win a trip to Hawaii.
Other marketing flash mobs so far this year include BMW’s Grease Lightning effort.
July 12th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
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Comments
12 Jul 11
1:24 pm
No really, kill me.
12 Jul 11
1:25 pm
What is it with Flash Mob’s, truly unique my arse…
Why oh why do we offer these experiences to marketing managers, look I know budgets can be tight but surely there must be better ways of promoting a brand through experiential.
They make me vomit!
12 Jul 11
1:27 pm
The flash mob. The new “mandatory”… like doing something “digital” is.
12 Jul 11
1:28 pm
The flash mob. The new “mandatory”… like doing something “digital” is.
(wrong web link, sorry)
12 Jul 11
1:34 pm
Pathetic. Really hope this wasn’t a BMF idea.
12 Jul 11
1:45 pm
Brilliant work BMF….not.
12 Jul 11
1:55 pm
Hi Hurting myself and lame,
The flash mob idea was conceived by Red PR, and the social media element was done by Speedwell.
Cheers,
Robin – Mumbrella
12 Jul 11
2:00 pm
Oh i think it was a nice idea. Why is everyone so bitter and angry at the moment.
12 Jul 11
2:05 pm
So Red PR conceived an idea everyone else had 5 years ago.
12 Jul 11
2:35 pm
so what if its not a new idea. is no one allowed to do something if its been done before? fair enough, its not unique but it looks like fun, its well executed and the mix of tracks is good
the level of malice spat on these pages sometimes is just ridiculous
12 Jul 11
3:30 pm
Come on guys, in this day and age everything has been done before. If it gets people talking about the brand then it’s working – and we are talking about it aren’t we.
The flashmob concept has become a legitimate part of the marketing mix and why not. We should be celebrating this kind of marketing, original or not. Dancing is great and it beats blaring advertisements.
12 Jul 11
3:39 pm
“…it looks like fun, its well executed and the mix of tracks is good”
Is that the measure of a good stunt?
How about if anyone would bother sending this on to a friend?
If someone sent this to me I’d delete them.
richie, you’ll be waiting around a long time for this to go viral…
12 Jul 11
3:44 pm
what i find interesting about these stunts is that by the time you take out the “150 people” that were part of the flash mob there are stuff-all punters who see it live.
and with limited viral/pass-on appeal how many non-involved people get to see this? other than us in the industry of course who see it as the hackneyed overdone rubbish it is.
red pr should be ashamed of themselves for this. haven’t clients worked out that just because it’s relatively cheaper to do these ridiculous stunts it doesn’t make it right?
12 Jul 11
4:34 pm
316 views in a week! Youtube’s power is unleashed!!!
Most of them from people @ Dominos’, PR and Mumbrella.
How many pizze did this video sell? 11?
Well, as long as Dominos didn’t pay for that, ROI still is positive I guess…
12 Jul 11
5:04 pm
“new recipe for Hawaiian pizza”
What? i’m pretty sure ham and pineapple on a pizza could not be made any differently
12 Jul 11
5:25 pm
It’s not unique – we can all agree on that? Ok – move on…
Too many flash mobs now means it really needs to be something special to get passed on. I wouldn’t say this is a bad execution, but it’s nothing fantastic. I wouldn’t pass it on, but wouldn’t care if it was passed to me.
What the negative comments though do not take into consideration is that this is just a small part of an overall campaign – there are/will be other elements and so the true worth or effectiveness can’t be judged in isolation.
Having said all that, it’s still only a 5/10 for me.
12 Jul 11
5:33 pm
Oh the poor agency who executed this for Dominos. Everyone i know who has worked with them say the same thing. Client from Hell.
12 Jul 11
5:58 pm
People will pass it on and enter purely based on the fact they can win a trip – and from that perspective it will probably work well. It says that the campaign was launched today so in one day three hundred-odd views is not too bad.
I would be interested in seeing the results at the end of the campaign and will reserve my judgement until then as opposed to jumping on the bandwagon to slam someone else’s work.
Come on guys – when did we become such a miserable bunch of cynics in this industry?
12 Jul 11
6:39 pm
To promote the Hawaiian pizza they wore grass skirts. I cannot wait for Domino’s to organise a flash mob for the meat supreme. Yummo.
12 Jul 11
6:40 pm
or the Italian sausage
12 Jul 11
9:25 pm
Yes, they need ways to stand out in latest pizza wars
12 Jul 11
10:11 pm
Yo don ho, u miss my point. It might not win awards, but its doesn’t deserve all the raspberries!
13 Jul 11
7:48 am
Looks like there are two clear sides to this debate: Those who are offended by companies doing “flash mobs” (argument of semantics acknowledged); and those who are opposed to anonymous campaign pundits who are offended by flash mobs.
From a business objective perspective, I see the campaign as being measured in the net increase in contest entries and Facebook friend count per campaign dollar spent. I imagine alternative concepts could do better or worse. Time will tell, but I doubt the above critique is driven by any vested interest in knowing the answer.
Chad
Who often ponders working in an industry driven by criticism
13 Jul 11
9:18 am
Jesus people.
Even if you know that it’s not the best use of their money, and you’ve explained the reasons why, sometimes clients simply insist on a specific activity.
I wouldn’t be so quick to blame the PR agency without knowing the circumstances behind the strategy.
13 Jul 11
9:35 am
Did anyone join in that wasn’t part of the original crew?!
13 Jul 11
9:39 am
Hey Chad, jump down from that high-horse of yours, and ponder this for a moment – the business outcome as you see it is based on “net increase in contest entries” (not clear what the net increase is on top of) and “facebook friend count per campaign dollar spent”.
Really??!! You have drunk the social media kool-aid my friend.
How about selling some more pizzas as a business/campaign outcome? This stuff is so circular and self-fulfilling, and creates a lot of noise in the industry, but is a pimple on the ass of society in terms of its impact.
What the hell has happened to the art of marketing?
13 Jul 11
12:18 pm
Don’t share stuff with your peers if its not compelling, or expect to be ridiculed. Now, Campaign Brief bloggers – they are a whole other level of nasty.
13 Jul 11
12:26 pm
Now if they’d only given away some Hawaiian Pizza to the real people there watching!
13 Jul 11
12:37 pm
I am not in “your industry” I am a client as it were.
And I have to say to all the you out there canning this…… where are the competitor marketing ???
I dont recall any other pizza advertising in recent times that dont tell me the toppings are better or bigger or crispier or the delivery boy is sexy.
Thats lame and monotonous.
From a consumers view and a (non food client), I watched it throughout and thought it was fun and will send it on to my network !!!!
Lighten up people you are all so anal.
13 Jul 11
12:53 pm
Whether this could be judged successful depends entirely on the objectives of the client and the brief – neither of which I’m privy to.
As a media stunt to generate coverage flash mobs have to be truly groundbreaking to get traction these days – I’m thinking naked one-legged breakdancing badger posse groundbreaking…
To give decent ROI as an experiential campaign I reckon a flash mob has to be conducted somewhere that can genuinely impact on a seriously large swathe of the target audience – e.g. roll it out at Big Day Out in every State.
That said, most brand flash mobs weren’t all about generating PR or achieving experiential cut through in the first place – even the first ones out of the block like T-Mobile’s Life’s for Sharing were filmed for a TV ad.
T-Mobile generated viral traction because it was amongst the first, very well filmed (what ad agencies do well), seeded and it was backed by TV distribution dollars.
Domino’s Hawaiian certainly isn’t unique and I’m doubtful it will set the news agenda on fire but I doubt the client and the agencies involved expect it to.
It’s got a well thought through and relevant engagement mechanic through the win a holiday element that takes it a step or two above the average Facebook brand offering.
If the brief was to generate some buzz amongst the Domino’s Facebook community, capture some more members and create an above average social media campaign I reckon it delivers.
If they have loftier ambitions I’d be ‘managing expectations’.
13 Jul 11
12:53 pm
Hi Chad’s a Tool,
First of all, I never thought I would start a response with that. Thank you for the opportunity.
Totally agree, everything comes back to increased revenue and/or decreased cost, which with the right mix results in profit. To do that, companies sell product. To do that, they may have opportunities in the digital space. We could make assumptions that increased Facebook count of the appropriate user could increase sales potential. But that is just an assumption. As is our Kool aid consumption habits.
Chad
13 Jul 11
1:02 pm
I think it works well. And is something DIFFERENT than a normal marketing exercise.
13 Jul 11
2:16 pm
that’s the point Chad, there is no proven link between facebook followers and increased sales – and which comes first? we do know that facebook ad click-through rates are less than 2 in 10,000 so facebook as an advertising medium is pretty much screwed.
do people want to follow brands on facebook and have conversations with brands and engage with brands? yes if the brand is lady gaga, maybe if the brand is something high involvement like a car, not if it’s low involvement like a pizza.
in the case of the pizza, get it to my house hot and cheap and leave it at that, nothing more to say or do.
13 Jul 11
2:39 pm
Its interesting to read comments from people who dont like the flash mob to actually write a comment about the flash mobs. It would be good if there was a twist to the flash mob. That would take the concept to the next level. Now I will let the creatives to think of that one and see what they can do….
Will there be a unit at University for Marketing called “Marketing – The flash mob way?
13 Jul 11
2:43 pm
In the meantime whilst the shop assistants were watching the flash mob. There was another flash mob shopstealing….
13 Jul 11
3:08 pm
Hendra may be spread by flashmobs not bats – study.
@theworstofperth Twitter
13 Jul 11
9:23 pm
Hi Chad’s playing with his tool,
Thanks for the response! It’s good to know your flash mob angst aligns with your Facebook frustration.
Not sure if I would say there is no proven link between facebook fans and sales. I suspect some commercial entity has posted a deal in Facebook at some point and had a percentage of their fans take a call to action to purchase that they would not otherwise have accessed. Just a guess.
Still, totally agree with the unreferenced statistic about Facebook advertising. People don’t come to FB to click on banners and ads.
Cool that you don’t follow pizza brands on FB. Some do, though (more now than before the flash mob, I suspect
). And of those that do, there are a percentage who will pass the message on.
I did a side project for my Masters a while back, where I was seeing between 37% to 42% of people forward on a campaign via FB with 8% conversions on those referrals. You can read more here (although the post highlights email submissions rather than FB): http://www.renando.com/blog/in.....ase-study/ .
Chad
who is going to “like” Bunnings on FB so he can learn more about tools
14 Jul 11
11:58 am
Chad I respect your (somewhat naive) enthusiasm for all things social, including these interminable flash mobs. In my opinion they are cheap stunts masquerading as marketing when a client lacks the budget or balls to do something properly (that is, take a message and get it in front of as many people as possible so they can act on it).
Old Spice is a great example, which I’m sure you bang on about in your blog. But what most of the social media maniacs fail to disclose is that the Old Spice campaign was launched with a very heavy paid television blitz before it went “viral”. Plus the creative was awesome. Both these things help.
Also, see elsewhere on mumbrella the much more effective campaign Eagle Boys are undertaking while Dominos screws around with low-rent flash mobs. Eagle Boys have brought a product benefit AND a negative competitive positioning against Dominos to the table, in one clever campaign idea. This is real marketing work.
To your point about my unreferenced Facebook claim, here’s a link:
http://adcontrarian.blogspot.c.....-ever.html
Spend some time on that site, you’ll also find some excellent, well-researched material about social media’s massive failure for Pepsi (the opposite of what the true social believers will tell you).
Oh and I read your case study and the “campaign” you refer to is research, not exactly a robust commercial undertaking where you had to sell stuff. But yeah, Facebook as a coupon/offer/promotion pass-on media, sure why not. But it will never replace proper work out there in the real world promoting real products to real people who buy stuff with real money.
14 Jul 11
2:31 pm
Sorry guys, I couldn’t resist contributing to the Chad hate thread.
‘Chad is a tool’ you are hilarious and I want to marry you. Please continue to entertain me at work by commenting on threads all the time.
14 Jul 11
3:45 pm
Hi person obsessed with Chad’s tools,
Not sure where you pick up on my enthusiasm for all things social or thoughts on kool aid or drums. Pretty critical of it in general, but it serves a purpose, like inane and narcissistic posts, poor commercial expressions, non-commercial personality tests and assorted contests. Anything else, it’s mixed.
Eagle boys, been done before, feels petty, not convinced on how “effective” it will be, be interesting to see if they get any traction from it, doubtful myself.
You’ve been entertaining.
Chad
14 Jul 11
4:08 pm
@39 Chad&cetera.
That’s the Hendra talking.
15 Jul 11
8:38 pm
Pretty dull and hardly newsworthy