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Opinion | Features
Plain and simple
The best pieces of marketing make a case so well, it feels like there can be no further argument.
Like this piece for Cancer Research UK making the case for plain packaging for cigarettes.
Why is advertising so much better in New Zealand than Australia?
Ok, so this isn’t a new observation.
But it really hit home after I watched some TV ads for a kiwi supermarket yesterday that advertising in New Zealand is so much better than much of the crap that is being served up in this country at the moment.
Why is it that Colenso BBDO Auckland can turn something as bland as a supermarket chain into a brand I almost like, while Australian agencies succeed only in either irritating me (Coles) or passing me by unnoticed (Woolies) because the ads are so average?
My memo to your boss
So let me guess?
You really want to come to Mumbrella360, but you’ve got to justify the time and cost to your boss?
Good news! I think I can help.
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.
Free TV channels set to lose sports rights when they won’t show them live
The government has reportedly decided that free to air stations will no longer be able to keep the rights to sporting events they do not broadcast live.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald’s chief political correspondent Phillip Coorey, the decision was taken by media minister Stephen Conroy several months ago, but was parked until after the election. Coorey reports:
“They are awaiting sign-off by the cabinet and will be enacted by regulation before December 31, when the current anti-siphoning list expires.”
At present the rights to a long list of sporting events cannot be sold to subscription television, even if the free to air channels do not show it, or show only highlights or delayed coverage.
The intention of the legislation is to protect the public from having to pay a subscription in order to watch big sporting events. However, in many cases it has meant that live coverage has simply been unavailable.
The new “use it or lose it” rules would allow the free-to-airs to run sport on their digital channels, which is not currently allowed by the anti-siphoning legislation which was drawn up before the dawn of multichannelling.
One of the reasons the Ten Network launched its relatively low rating channel One was in anticipation of such a rule change.
September 21st, 2010 at 3:16 pm
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Comments
21 Sep 10
3:27 pm
As an AFL fan living in Sydney, i’m excited at the prospect of actually seeing live games. Not one game of the finals series this year has been shown live – possibly with the exception of the Swans prelim, and even then (from memory) there was a 30 minute delay.
And most games – if they were shown on Seven at all, started after 3 hours of Scrubs repeats.
21 Sep 10
3:37 pm
I REALLY hope this goes through. The experience of watching sport is completely ruined by tonnes of advertising during delayed games (Channel 9 Sunday NRL coverage I am looking at you).
21 Sep 10
3:46 pm
Wow that’s great news, lucky 10 has oneHD in place to do this…… but wait, they still managed to delay AFL finals by 90 minutes in Brisbane on a channel dedicated to live sport! I hope this drives the message home to the FTA networks, DELAYED TELECASTS SUCK!
If people overseas can see these games live (which they can and do) then surely the least the local stations can do it too….. all commercial channels now have multiple channels…. and I’m pretty confident there won’t be huge backlash from the “I Dream Of Jeannie” fraternity if they miss a couple of 40 year old episodes…..
It’s about time the TV watching public were treated with respect!
21 Sep 10
3:51 pm
Isn’t part of the reason for the delay to encourage people to get out of their armchairs and actually attend a game?
A foreign concept for a lot of Aussie sports fans, I know.
For ‘out of town’ games, then fair enough.
21 Sep 10
3:58 pm
“Isn’t part of the reason for the delay to encourage people to get out of their armchairs and actually attend a game? A foreign concept for a lot of Aussie sports fans, I know.”
That’s a bit harsh Blue! With a nickname like that I would have thought you were a true BLUE Aussie. Obviously not.
Have a bit of compassion for us AFL fans stuck in limbo – ie NRL territory. I had to hear about my beloved Bulldogs bowing out of the finlas via Facebook because FTA in NSW won’t televise the game live! Oh, unless the Swans are playing…
21 Sep 10
4:00 pm
The AFL has been on so late that I’ve watched the first half and then gone online to see the result. And the AFL reckon another franchise will work in Sydney – well, no it wont until they at least start respecting the fans/viewers. They should lay the law down with the networks. Seven is worse than Ten, but they’re both fairly hopeless.
21 Sep 10
4:05 pm
@Loz…
See my post where I said “For ‘out of town’ games, then fair enough”
In the UK they have no live games on at all at 3pm Saturday (the time when most lower leagues and traditional top-league soccer games kick-off), in order to protect the real match-attending fans, and the lower league clubs.
Personally, anything that encourages people to get to the games is fine by me – if it means avoiding Facebook for a couple of hours in order to watch it as live, well so be it.
21 Sep 10
4:20 pm
Blue.
My main issue with your comment was that it indicated Aussie sports fans are all watching from the couch, not the sideline. I wouldn’t dare question a Pom’s knowledge of, or indeed prowess, in the sporting arena…
As a long standing member of my football club I’m the first to encourage attendance at the game. But spare a thought for us AFL lovers living in NRL territory, who have to put up with Sydneysiders yelling “offside” instead of “ball” at the rare decent game we manage to get at the SCG.
PS – nice quip about Facebook. You are obviously far too busy out there kicking a ball to be caught online.
Hold on…
21 Sep 10
4:40 pm
What this unfortunately means is that the rights will go to FOXTEL – Kim Williams will be having a party
21 Sep 10
4:49 pm
Use it or lose it networks – seems fair enough to me.
And I have no idea why anyone would bother to argue over delayed coverage of an AFL match – delayed permanently would still not be long enough.
Silly, silly game.
21 Sep 10
4:50 pm
Loz. If they were yelling “offside” I suspect that you wandered into the SFS and not the SCG and were watching NRL and didn’t know any better. Oh, of course, anyone brought up in Sydney doesn’t know the rules of our indigenous game – I forgot.
And as for ‘rare decent game we manage to get at the SCG’, that is just laughable. Having been to over 200 AFL games at the SCG I can name many classics played there – and I can’t recall anyone yelling ‘offside’ though I suspect that back in the early ’80s there were some newbies who weren’t conversant.
But, I suppose you do have a balanced view though – with that chip on both shoulders.
21 Sep 10
5:21 pm
Live sport is a luxury most stations can’t afford. But I will take as live. Allowing the stations to play a commercial. And when we come back from the break the action resumes where we left. That way we lose maybe a couple of minutes a half and have less of wait between halves. But still miss no action.
21 Sep 10
5:24 pm
John. Who took the jam out of your doughnut? You’re not even reading my posts propoerly.
I’m not from Sydney, I come from AFL haertland. I even did my high school major project on EJ Whitten for God sake!! Mr Football himself.
I’m not even sure why we’re arguing, we’re clearly in agreement that AFL is the best game in the world and it should be shown on FTA TV.
21 Sep 10
6:30 pm
Yeah that is totally fair enough and they have the most money to pay for the coverage anyway!
Well done channel 10 for thinking ahead of the game.
It is unfair that we should have to pay for cable when we don’t even need it.
21 Sep 10
7:06 pm
While they’re at it lets hope they also look into that other underhanded trick where “live” coverage will slip further and further into tape delay as the game progresses so the broadcaster can screen more commercials. Channel 7′s rugby coverage – I’m looking at you…
22 Sep 10
8:35 am
1…The stations need to pay the over paid football stars wages. Hence the commercials. So “as if live/tape delay” is the way they will have to go. Or more of the in programme sponsorship messages like the NFL in the USA. No one really wants 2 minutes of sponsors messages within programme do they??
2… AFL is not a big sport in Sydney or Brisbane despite recent premierships. The brownlow medal almost hit 1 million viewers but only 19,000 and 12,000 in Sydney and Brisbane. So do you revert to live only in the states outside of home play so that you don’t adversely effect crowds for AFL?? No such problems with NRL as less than the 29,000 that watched the Brownlow turned up for the Elimination final on Saturday!! You may as well up the revenue from the stations and play on local grounds if the turn up crowds keep diminishing for the NRL!!
22 Sep 10
9:52 am
Channel 7 and 9 there broadcast of afl and league has been appalling over the years just treating the sporting fan with contempt.I hope both the AFL and NRL TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT WHEN THE BROADCAST RIGHTS ARE UP.are we going to be continually not taken into consideration .We demand to see the games and sport LIVE and if you cannot or will not show it live then you loose it….
22 Sep 10
10:10 am
@chuckster re the 2nd AFL franchise in Syd – my thoughts exactly. How are they supposed to rally support for another team when they don’t even show the games live?
As for the Brownlow count, the reason the numbers were so low in Sydney was that it was only shown on One. Channel 10 instead decided to run with a show about planes crashing.
And comparing UK soccer broadcasting to Aussie AFL broadcasting really can’t be done. Most people don’t live near an AFL ground – and if they do, and they’re outside of Melbourne, you’re going to only have a game to go see every other weekend.
As a Crows supporter living in Sydney, I’ve only seen two crows matches broadcast in the past 2 years – and one of those was when I was in SA anyway!
22 Sep 10
10:47 am
In NZ all the sport is on SKY TV. So 57% of households have SKY. The Rugby is bigger than any single sport here in Aust. And all the All Black Matches and most of Cricket and even some of the NRL are only available via subscription. If Fox Tel gets the sport content everyone will have to pay regardless. You will still see ads even then. The advertising industry will demand opportunity to advertise product to sports fans. Foxtel will need to get revenue outside and above subscription to pay for the rights to NRL, AFL and Cricket. And those of you who don’t like sport and don’t really care will. Because your entertainment packages on foxtel will have to go up to subsidise the cost of sport rights.
Keep the sport free to air and as delayed as needs be so that someone else pays for me to see my odd shaped balls for free.
22 Sep 10
12:28 pm
I certainly hope that this is an action that is followed through on, but they (the networks) still need to retain the right to make commercial decisions for interstate matches (for the NRL/AFL coverage.)
Resisting the urge to follow some previous bloggers lures into the ‘NRL vs AFL is better’ argument, the FTA networks still have advertising revenue and their clients to consider when it comes to being forced to cover all contracted sport live. I respect that there are AFL followers in NSW/QLD who get frustrated at the lack of coverage and vice versa in Vic and other states for NRL, but look at the viewing numbers. A hypothetical – If you were an advertiser, would you want to be charged top dollar for a 30-sec slot in the Brownlow count, shown live into Sydney homes on a Monday night? Not unless you were comfortable burning money, as this show would be seen by the vast majority of Sydneysiders as the television equivalent of root canal. As a network, would you want to be forced to show a 4 hour coverage, knowing that it would be ratings suicide for that night? Again it answers itself.
Whilst it would be lovely if every show was shown exactly when we wanted it, viewer ratings and the subsequent advertising flow-on will most always determine programming schedules on FTA. An idea moving forward is removing the gray area that exists where networks ‘delay’ coverage by 30 mins/1 hour. Not enough to encourage the game attendance that the leagues also want, but enough to piss off the viewing public with ad breaks and the big chance that the live score will revealed via another means.
22 Sep 10
1:19 pm
@Paula
There are other teams than the Crows you know – in the UK the blackouts are not to protect the Premier League football attendances (healthy enough!) but to encourage people to go and attend local sides games – most people will have an EPL side, and a local team to go and watch.
More and more I think sports teams realise that TV viewers want to watch games that have a full house of live spectators, compare watching on TV (or attending) a Sunday afternoon blockbuster at a packed Leichhardt or the MCG with a 3/4 empty ANZ or Football Park.
Live spectators are like paying extras to the main show – you need to keep them happy (and noisy) if you want the TV coverage to be good.
There’s plenty of AFL around if you know where to look – just head down your local oval (even in Sydney) where the team will appreciate the $5 you chuck their way in the raffle, then get back home and watch your overpaid superstars on TV.