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Opinion
The keyboard warrior of Twitter
In this guest post, NBN staffer Scott Rhodie writes an unofficial, personal view on his experience with a hostile Twitter critic.Last night I had a strange incident. While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated. I wrote a small note back explaining they were incorrect.
And their response? The lovely gentleman (whose Twitter profile says: ‘Father of 5 kids, Loving Grandfather of 10 Grandchildren,and 2 Great Granddaughters. love to give heaps to Pollies and Poofters’) said to me: “Go and lick Gillards C*** out U commie Prick”
What's in a name?
In this guest post, Moensie Rossier wonders about the power of names for brands and marketers.
Brands have been having a bit of fun with names lately, not to mention a fair bit of success. Interbrand just named a headhunting firm Cloak & Dagger. And ‘Share a Coke’ showed how much power there is in a name.
The Coke campaign effectively short-circuited the usual mechanics of communication. It undoubtedly stroked people’s egos. But, I believe, its success stems from the fact that it directly and automatically affected people’s behaviour, rather than doing so indirectly by shaping attitudes.
Best ads from Super Bowl 2012
The Super Bowl is all done and a team from North America won. But as well as some sort of sporting event, it’s the world’s biggest advertising showcase. See the best of them right here… and please tell us what you think.
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.
Four fight it out for ad of the month
Voting is now open form Mumbrella’s ad of the month contest.
The finalists are:
- Goodby, Silverstein & Partners – Commonwealth Bank
- BMF – Football Federation
- Bakers Delight – AJF Partnership
- Bondi Advertising – Fantasy World Cup
Mumbrella readers can vote at the bottom of this page. The closing date is the end of Monday August 2
CommBank:
Football Federation:
Bakers Delight:
Fantasy World Cup:
Have your vote:
With the support of:
July 29th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
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Comments
29 Jul 10
3:14 pm
When you say ‘Ad of the Month’, do you mean ‘Worst ad of the Month’?
29 Jul 10
3:30 pm
Lean month.
Bakers Delight is poo. But the Fantasy World Cup spot makes it look like rolled gold. The Comm Bank ad is very good though. Luckily.
29 Jul 10
3:37 pm
Fox Sports – The old cut away to show coach is really speaking to kids or a mirror or empty chairs gag.
Football Federation – The even older body paint gag .
Commonwealth Bank is so bad it has no precedent.
As least Bakers Delight has a message that is going to work in the market place.
29 Jul 10
3:41 pm
Please tell me Eek.
In what way, shape or form can Comm Bank be considered good?
29 Jul 10
3:50 pm
eek you have the brain of a mouse
29 Jul 10
3:53 pm
Comm bank – rip off of Amelie. Where’s Barbs?
FFA is good, although it is bad because I have no idea who the green and white team are
Bakers delight – it’s about bread. How interesting can you make that subject matter?
Fantasy football – Robbie Slater, you’ve had your 15 minutes mate…..
29 Jul 10
4:00 pm
bodypainted fans again??? groan. Bondi best of a bad bunch!
29 Jul 10
4:04 pm
Hi Milo,
Directed by the same director as Amelie – hence the similar look.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
29 Jul 10
4:22 pm
This is beginning to sound like another less productive cowardly blog. Keep it premium gentlemen…
29 Jul 10
4:35 pm
Commonwealth has to rate as worst of the year…or maybe decade!
29 Jul 10
4:52 pm
If you disagree with someone else’s opinion and you attack the poster personally, you’re on the wrong blog.
29 Jul 10
7:21 pm
Go Bakers Delight!!!
29 Jul 10
8:26 pm
A very, very, very thin month. Bakers Delight.
29 Jul 10
11:24 pm
If you want to know why the Comm Bank ad is so good Mr Anonymous, call Andrew and ask him why he hates it so much. There is your answer.
Personally, I thought the Bakers Delight ad was another spot for the Holden Owner’s Grant.
And Andrew, I’d rather have the brain of a mouse than the creative repertoire of one.
Even a mouse can learn to do things differently.
30 Jul 10
8:22 am
bakers delight once had a really nice lo fi direction where the bakers made the ads. now they’ve traded this in for what is essentially just another woolies ad right down to the annoying acoustic guitar which if i hear in another australian ad im gonna scream!
30 Jul 10
8:37 am
Hi all
Why all the snide comments about other peoples work? Objective critique is one thing, but I am seeing more and more comments on this blog (and others) that are designed to insult.
Agencies are doing their best, brands are doing their best, and it’s an uncertain time for everyone. Anything that gets up and aired/read/screened is a win of sorts for everybody. Rather than bringing people down, why not help build them up to do even better work next time? People put their hearts and souls into their work, and if the comments that seem to be more and more pervasive are anything to go by, their are a lot of mean hearted people out there.
Yes, people are often pitted against each other, but there is such a thing called the spirit of competition, and I am wondering where it has gone. Imagine if the energy put in to crucifying other peoples work was actually put towards making your own work better . . . really, think about it.
Just because you can comment doesn’t mean you have to, so every comment is always a choice. And that choice can be used in so many better ways.
Cheers,
Peter
30 Jul 10
9:28 am
C’mon Peter, agencies should know exactly where their work sits on the ‘creative’ scale. They also should know anything shy of excellent is going to be lampooned if posted onto a blog, especially if it was posted as a PR exercise for themselves. Sure the cloak of anonymity is easy to wear but there’s no point saying ‘LOOK AT US!’ if there’s not much to look at.
30 Jul 10
10:36 am
Harden up Peter. If you want to go into battle for these four ads as the representation of our best efforts for the past month, you’re going to need to.
An opinion only insults you if it’s not to your liking. In my opinion, the Bakers Delight spot is nothing different and nothing special. The strategy might be ok, but creatively it’s wallpaper.
And fuck me, are you serious about that whole “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all” schtick? Seriously?
This is an article asking people to judge. The standard here is not great. What would you do, give everyone a participation award?
30 Jul 10
10:52 am
Hi Eek and Oliver
I’m not saying that work shouldn’t be critiqued, if fact it should be, vigorously. I am simply critiquing the critique. I am not convinced that calling something “poo” is decent critique.
Also I don’t equate the “best ad” with the one being the most creative (and I say this as someone from a creative agency). Last I knew this isn’t a creative blog. Given we don’t know the strategy, or the objectives of the campaign, we lack insight to write things off.
Oliver, I agree with you that people who put their work out there deserve to be critiqued. In fact, I also agree that far too much work is PR’s by agencies in general, there needs to be more introspection by agencies rather than worrying about what other people are doing, My point is more about the poor level of critique.
And yes, I do actually believe that standard will be higher in a supportive environment rather than one of negativity.
Cheers,
Peter
30 Jul 10
10:53 am
And yes, my typos are atrocious, but the message is solid (case in point?)
30 Jul 10
11:13 am
Apologies Peter, we’re going to have to agree to disagree.
Now, I’ve got a fairly broad vocabulary. It’s something I pride myself on and as such I like to exercise it at every available occasion.
It just so happened that on this occasion, I personally felt that the Bakers Delight ad was poo. Not disappointingly lacking in artistic or strategic merit. Not devoid of an emotive hook that made it bearable or believable. Just poo.
Pooey poo.
The kind that goes plop.
30 Jul 10
1:22 pm
eek why waste your talent here when there’s a specialty brochure agency out there dying for a scribe with your incredible wit and dynamic turn of phrase?
30 Jul 10
1:24 pm
Oh Eek.. I’m wondering how much work you get done these days old mate.. Seems that slamming other agencies work is now your one big strength..
Go get some lunch for us will you.. Mines a bucket of wings and nuggets with a large Coke.. Not so much the flavour and nutrition for me, it’s the ad’s that do it.
ta
Mouse
30 Jul 10
3:16 pm
Bakers Delight makes me want to go out and buy their bread – I can almost taste it…. love this one.
30 Jul 10
3:18 pm
I’m actually struggling to see when this got personal?
A mouse is allowed an opinion, is it not?
Personally, I thought the Baker’s Delight ad was a fairly workmanlike effort to mask an ok strategy and a semi-stolen line.
You’ve got three CDs in there and no one picked up on “We’re for dogs”?
The ads have been running for a while. Surely you’ve seen them?
Or maybe “Just do bread” and “Refreshes the parts other breads can’t reach” didn’t make it through research?
So, instead of playing the man, defend your ad. Come on.
This should be fabulous.
30 Jul 10
6:05 pm
Commbank and FFA were okay, did the job but didn’t appeal to me personally. I thought the Fantasy WC ad was horrible and actually turned me off the product.
Not overwhelmingly magnificent, but Bakers Delight was nice, memorable and made me want to go out and buy bread.
30 Jul 10
7:14 pm
One vote for the Commonwealth Bank ad. Cheesy yet different.
The Bakers Delight ad is bland, reminds me of their bread. No wonder they are losing market share to the supermarkets. (Do you get a Holden with every loaf?)
Football Federation – predictable, yet laughed first time around.
Fantasy World Cup – time to put the kettle on
30 Jul 10
8:54 pm
comm bank – long walk for a ham sandwich. who is this appealing to really?
FFA – unoriginal and hammy direction.
Bakers – the fresh food people. no ham in this sandwich so why is this even on here, seriously?
Fox – sweet station ident with a ham sandwich budget, but not an actual ad so again not really sure why its here? good performance though from a footballer (not helped by that annoying station VO)
2 Aug 10
10:23 am
Go Baker’s Delight! LOVE the new campaign!