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Opinion | Features
Disclosure in Social Media: How transparent should bloggers be?
In this guest post, blogger and digital creative Laura McWhinnie argues for more disclosure in the bloggersphere.
The bloggersphere has always been a bit like the Wild West. Bloggers could post about products to their heart’s content without having to disclose their relationship with the brand. This meant that consumers had no idea who was behind the marketing messages influencing their purchasing decisions. But in 2009 that all changed
Liars, cheats and thieves
Is our industry full of cheats and liars or do people of honour who stand by their word still exist in business? In an article that first appeared in Encore, Cameron Boon investigates. The recent court case involving Paul Fishlock suing his former employer The Campaign Palace brought into focus more than just the struggle of one man. It highlighted that there are some in adland whose word cannot always be relied upon.
Q&A with Adshel's Rob Atkinson
Online trading is the next big thing says Rob Atkinson in a piece that first appeared in Encore. Who is the most powerful person in Australian media and why?
Harold Mitchell because of his influence and the footprint he has left. He’s built a huge brand in Mitchells, offloaded it into Aegis, Aegis has obviously done extremely well to be then sold on to Dentsu. So if you think about it, he is very much a father figure of the industry.
Making it overseas
Is the best way of being successful in Australia not be here at all? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Lee Zachariah speaks to Aussies making it big abroad.I always wanted to work in New York,” says Julian Cole. “I thought it was the number one place to work in advertising; a lot of the best campaigns were coming out of there. So I moved over and was lucky enough to have a couple of interviews in the first couple of weeks.”
Cole’s story is indicative of the somewhat contentious idea that the best way to be successful in Australia is to not be in Australia any more.
Got a book in you?
From journos to ad execs and PRs, these days everyone seems to have a book in them. But what does it take to get published and will you actually make any money? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Brooke Hemphill finds out.Attention wannabe authors. Forget big fat advance cheques and living off royalties. The reality of having a book published today is another story altogether. There are only two reasons you should even consider sitting down at your computer to bash out a manuscript – passion or profile.
Savage counsel
In an article that first appeared in Encore, Chris Savage tackles your career and agency dilemmas in his weekly advice column.Hi Chris,
My clients seem to be demanding more and more from us. At the same time, it seems many of the younger people in our industry simply don’t have the client servicing skills my generation grew up with. How do we instill in our executives some of the good old-fashioned behaviours that would keep a client happy and loyal?
Fake it til' you make it... as an ad agency receptionist
From dressing the part to playing the gatekeeper, Leo Burnett Sydney’s Susie Henry tells us how to make it as the face of adland in a piece that first appeared in Encore.What does a receptionist in an ad agency actually do?
Well, there’s the frantic every-day, all-day stuff of deliveries, courier bookings, doing expenses for directors – always challenging – plus arranging all the travel. But one of my main jobs is counselling the account service people. I also keep up with all sports information to discuss with our sports-loving clients – because who wants to be bored while they’re waiting? And I know how they like their coffee. You need to know everyone – from accounting to HR. I’m also the go-to for all catering and sending flowers.
Whose views skew the news? Media chiefs ready to vote out Labor, while reporters lean left
Most journalists lean left-of-centre, says Folker Hanusch of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in a post first published on The Conversation.Most Australian journalists describe themselves as left-wing, yet amongst those who wield the real power in the country’s newsrooms, the Coalition holds a winning lead.
But while the media’s political leanings will no doubt be debated in the lead-up to September’s federal election, our study has also found other largely unscrutinised biases remain – particularly whose views disproportionately shape the news.
It's time for a new New Wave in the film world
Government funding bodies are lazy and decadent, says industry veteran Michael Thornhill but in a piece that first appeared in Encore, Ed Gibbs begs to differ.I vividly remember the time I first saw Animal Kingdom, David Michod’s breathtaking labour-of-love feature debut. The press screening was half empty, despite the film winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance just months earlier, in 2010. Yet its superb performances, stylistic flourishes and overall polish left me speechless. Could this really be a feature debut, an Australian one at that, I wondered, almost out loud? It seemed too good to be true.
Going cold turkey on an agency addiction
Life is sweet for freelance writer Max Kitchen, but in a feature that first appeared in Encore, he admits his struggle against returning to the agency fold.I’ve never taken heroin. But I suspect if I had, the temptation to try it again would not be too dissimilar to the lure of returning to agency life.
Can sport save Ten?
First there was the Grand Prix. Next came the reported $500m bid for cricket rights, then Ten secured the 2014 winter Olympics. So, can sport save the ailing network? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Nic Christensen investigates.The television sports rights bidding process is a bit like a game of poker.
Check, fold or bet. Those were the options for the Ten Network last week when it had to finalise its bid for the cricket rights.
Andy Lark: good for the marketing of marketing
I can still remember the first story I wrote about Andy Lark, when it emerged that he was to be the new chief marketing officer of CommBank.
It was immediately clear that Australia was about to meet an interesting marketer, one who blogged and tweeted and thanks to his time at Dell in the US was digitally savvy. Even two years ago, that was a big deal. The fact that he also had a stint in public relations gave him an absolutely intriguing background before he even arrived.
Storming the media barricades - advice for young journalists
This week Mumbrella’s Nic Christensen, who began his career four years ago, gave the keynote address to would-be journalists at the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance’s Student Day. This is an edited version of his speech.Good afternoon, I can remember distinctly the last time I was in this room.
It was 2009 and I was sitting where you are. I’d come to this event, a friend and myself — from memory we sat up the back — and I can remember at the time wondering if I’d ever get a job as a journalist.
It was only four years ago and then as now getting a job was ultra competitive but I’m not sure there was quite as much media ‘doom and gloom’ as there is now…
Paywalls will help fund campaigning journalism
In this guest post, News Limited’s group editorial director Campbell Reid responds to the views of ninemsn’s Hal Crawford that the company’s push into metered paywalls is about data rather than dollars.Hal Crawford is both right and wrong in his article which argued that our digital subscription plans are all about the data.
Fake it 'til you make it... as a features editor
Cosmo’s Kate Leaver tells us how to bluff it in her job in a feature that first appeared in Encore.What do you do, as a features editor?
Really, play with words and ideas all day. At any one time, we’re working across three issues of the mag – getting one on its way to the printers, pooling all the words together for another, and planning the issue after that. It’s busy but it’s a pretty magnificent process.
Five sure fire ways to screw up your next digital campaign
In this guest post, Daniel Monheit has some tips for what digital advertisers should always do if they like to fail.
Stop the guesswork. These tips will ensure you screw up your clients next digital campaign so badly that social media, mobile and the internet at large don’t find their way into another brief for at least a decade. Thankfully, this will let us all get back to REAL work like making interruptive (but potentially award winning) TV commercials and running auditions for flash mobs.
The golden ratio refers to how much we ask a user to do in relation to the size of the outcome they get for doing it. The more difficult, obscure or ridiculous the better.
For example, as a treat for pulling out their phone, downloading a QR code app and looking like a dick by scanning a poster at a bus stop, reward users with a visit to the homepage of your website, preferably scaled for desktop.
Other top suggestions include getting users to switch on their webcams, make and upload their own videos and instal software to ‘experience the awesomeness of your augmented reality app’.
2. Don’t involve developers until the very last second
Keeping developers away from the project until they’re absolutely, totally required is imperative. After all, they’re there for production, not ideas. This technique also stops the guys who build the stuff getting in the way of any important promises your account manager makes about things like performance, time frames and possibilities.
If you can, outsource all of the ‘low value grunt work’ to Bangalore or Manila. Everyone’s doing it. Besides, how hard could it be to build the thing once someone else has already cracked ‘the big idea’?
3. Desktop. Desktop. Desktop!
Start here. Finish here. People don’t use their phones for browsing anyway. That’s why only 40% of web traffic comes from mobile devices.
If you’re running outdoor, tv, radio or print ads, I’m sure people will remember them and check your site just as soon as they’re back at the office anyway.
4. Be careful not to promote it
The Internet has pretty much got your back here. As long as you include enough ‘Facebook share’, ‘tweet this’ and ‘email a friend’ calls to action, awareness should take care of itself.
Let’s take this baby viral!
5. Make sure you really crunch the timeline
Don’t worry about the 12 weeks you’ve got to get the print ads looking just right. If you’ve see an opportunity to slice a few days off the digital stuff then hop to it.
How long could it really take anyway? It only needs to work perfectly on 3,000 different device/operating system/browser combinations (some stretching back a decade), while integrating seamlessly with a stable, predictable platform like Facebook.
Testing is a great place to start for this one. A week is completely ridiculous. I have a 14 year old cousin who could build a whole website in less than that.
So there you have it. Five simple steps to digital disaster. Happy briefing!
Dan Monheit is director of strategy and an owner at HardHat Digital
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Comments
15 Feb 13
11:39 am
” People don’t use their phones for browsing anyway. ” eh, what? Mobile traffic will overtake desktop traffic in the very near future.
15 Feb 13
11:50 am
I think every agency in the world knows all this.
And this is great advice—in a vacuum.
What it doesn’t acknowledge is the limitations of budgets, non-savvy clients and inter-agency politics.
I’ve worked in huge digital agencies where this process rarely happened, so I can safely say this isn’t solely a problem with advertising agencies.
15 Feb 13
11:56 am
Great advice. Sadly simple, direct, helpful, jargon-free advice such as this is increasingly rare.
15 Feb 13
12:11 pm
Enjoying the first comment. Sarcasm… lost, much??
15 Feb 13
12:21 pm
@Cpt Obvious, a big reason that digital has limited budgets is because clients are constantly being burnt by agencies making all of these mistakes.
15 Feb 13
12:56 pm
haha informative, entertaining and devoid of self service or agenda – good little piece. cheers Daniel
15 Feb 13
1:12 pm
nice, but can i suggest a 6th – “Lets build it in Flash, Adobe tells us Google can ‘see’ it no probs”
15 Feb 13
1:14 pm
nicely written, thanks mate. blows me away that this sort of the thing is still happening- be cool if there was a list of recent examples of this “adfail”.
15 Feb 13
1:26 pm
Love it.
15 Feb 13
1:27 pm
amen to that, Golfer – from an advertiser who has slashed our budget because we’re sick of digital snake oil
15 Feb 13
1:29 pm
Nice piece, Back to the basics… refreshing
Thanks Daniel
15 Feb 13
2:29 pm
An honest builder in a sea of cowboys
15 Feb 13
6:08 pm
A friend who works at a brand asked me to look over his (under development) website by an agency. It had an “click here to enter site” on the homepage. I was astounded. Then she told me how much they were paying the agency; I was dumbfounded! I then checked the functionality of the site, which was awful – she is now ANGRY!
15 Feb 13
6:17 pm
Thanks guys. Appreciate the comments.
15 Feb 13
8:59 pm
Gold…Dan you just described my week!
16 Feb 13
5:46 pm
Major fail: ‘Content? It’s only a few lines – get the graphics guy or the client to knock out a few words…’ Or
Five massive words that drives everything?
16 Feb 13
7:45 pm
love it
17 Feb 13
12:43 pm
Good piece, that Golden Ratio thing is so true. Step away from the brand people.
At the same time, I have seen plenty of digital folks evangelising campaigns that involve these kinds of interactions a la ‘you guys really need a FB campaign so you can increase engagement and be part of the conversation’. Really, do you really?
It’s unfortunate we have to play on two polarising teams when it comes to the “traditional vs the digital”. A lot of agencies are guilty of downplaying one approach, and upselling the other in line with either their agenda or their stupidity.
18 Feb 13
3:01 pm
#6: hire someone who’s never had experience in an art form to f-ck-up that art form in fake-it-til-you-make-it RMIT style, and therefore screw over the client, like the “Crimestoppers” stuff. Which has been recently used for TV spots! Hey, you make things for TV, and you make things for hand-held iTard devices, and make things DIFFERENTLY for both!
1 Mar 13
4:13 pm
LOVE IT.