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Opinion
The score in the retail war: David 2, Goliath nil
Last night, online electrical retailer Kogan got the sort of advertising that (quite literally) money can’t buy.
The Gruen Transfer spent more than seven minutes discussing the merits of a PR strategy involving taking on the retail behemoth Harvey Norman. Read more »
The Gen X media has misinterpreted Stephanie Rice’s Gen Y ‘faggots’ tweet
In this guest post, Mat Baxter comes to the defense of Stephanie Rice over her much criticised “faggots” tweet.We should all be ashamed. I certainly was as a gay guy this week as Stephanie Rice, a perfectly decent and respectable Australian, was subjected to a totally indefensible attack from a small minority of gay people who desperately need to get a grip on generational reality. Read more »
Google – powered by Bob Dylan
Google is currently rolling out the latest iteration of its search, with instant results as the user types.
While this might be a rather minor improvement in the scheme of things (2-5 seconds per search apparently) the video to promote it is rather good too. Read more »
Video out of the box – literally
Last time I had something good to say about a Fairfax Digital ad execution, I appeared to be in a minority of one.
But here goes with another.
I rather like this execution with the Fairfax video player integrating what’s going on inside the ad with the rest of the page. Read more »
The History Of New
Here’s a really nice piece of advertising work for Vodafone out of New Zealand. Read more »
How to win awards (and why ad agencies are backslapping knob jockeys)
PR agencies need to get better at making awards videos if they want to beat creative agencies in the public relations category of the Cannes Lions – and adland is the home of awards-obsessed, “backslapping knob-jockeys”, the Mumbrella Question Time panel heard. Read more »
Video: How to win new business
Mumbrella Question Time saw the panel asked the secrets of winning new business. Read more »
Let’s stop the anonymous vitriol
In this guest posting, Peter Bray, boss of The Brand Shop, takes issue with negative comments from anonymous posters on Mumbrella and elsewhere.
There are very few ads that I vehemently dislike. There are also very few ads that I really love. But most ads I see on Mumbrella and other blogs I can usually take something from, whether it is information about the brand, a bit of inspiration or a “watch out”. I’m open to learning as much as I can from others, and encourage those around me to do the same.
My basic assumption, however, is that because an ad has been produced by a professional agency, and had the approval from the client, then the end result must be doing something right. Therefore, without knowing the practical rationale behind the ad, for me to have a strong opinion about whether it is great advertising would be kind of arrogant. There is a reason that awards shows ask for information about why an ad was created: they are rarely judged on end product alone.
So as someone who enjoys watching the work that our industry creates, I am stunned at the level of vitriol stemming from some people’s comments in both this blog and others. Read more »
Read his lips
This is several weeks old, but worth a look. It’s certainly an original way to deal with media criticism.It features Air NZ boss Rob Fyfe responding to weekly current affairs magazine The Listener using the medium of sign language. Read more »
Let’s not be too positive just yet – the nail is still there
It’s more than a year since News Ltd’s marketing boss Joe Talcott used the memorable analogy of a dog whimpering on a nail to describe the structural change the industry needs to go through. Read more »
The AdNews numbers that mislead the market
It’s always a tad tawdry when competitors attack each other, but I hope you’ll bear with me…
Whether cynically or through incompetence, AdNews has been misleading its advertisers by providing them with data that seems to suggest they have six times their true online audience.
Allow me to present the evidence. Read more »
Technology will help us own the agenda – all day, every day
In this opening speech to the Future Forum of the Newspaper Publishers Association, News Ltd CEO John Hartigan argued that news organisations have the opportunity to become more rather than less relevant.
Today I want to talk about a tipping point that heralds the most exciting era for journalism. The most exciting era ever.
This tipping point is already upon us. It has arrived at lightning speed, with the explosion in demand for mobile devices.
I am not consigning newspapers to the scrapheap. Not by a long shot.
But this tipping point is going to change journalism forever. In my opinion, very much for the better. Read more »
The real time shit sandwich detector
In this guest post, Clive Burcham of The Conscience Organisation, relishes the instant feedback of social media.
I’ve been making brand driven content since 1996 and often I’ve been so close to the work that I couldn’t tell the difference between if we were chomping on a shit sandwich or savouring the crème de la creme. From an audience perspective, we wouldn’t know the difference for weeks or months. What excites me most now is that we know within 24 hours if we’ve developed shit or cream. Read more »
SMH shows how to make a home page takeover work
When you’re a commercial organisation, balancing the needs of consumers with the need to make money through ads is tricky.
Among the organisations that sometimes goes the wrong way in my view is Fairfax, with its autostart video ads, for instance.
But today, a bit of unreserved praise Read more »
Inside the Foxtel factory
Having been at the launch of Foxtel’s new season the other night, nine points occur… Read more »
Freedom Furniture comes up with one for the little ladies
It’s a sad fact that not all brands really understand modern consumers, and that can sometimes show in plodding advertising messages.
Happily, Freedom Furniture is able to bring insights and cutting edge creativity to its female-focused communications that puts it a cut above everyone else.
If they were able to send this ad back to 1958.
Still, great that it ran the weekend before International Women’s Day, eh?
March 7th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
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Comments
7 Mar 10
6:59 pm
Wow, I wonder if some clever planner wrote a brief for this along the lines of: “She likes to be patronised, in between washing dishes and doing laundry”
8 Mar 10
12:39 am
On the contrary Mumbrella – if the ad said ‘every mans dream – being paid to drink beer / sleep with women / laze around the house’ – would that be considered ‘outdated’, ‘patronising’ and ’sexist’??
Probably not, because they only guys that would bitch about it probably breast-feed their kids.
8 Mar 10
9:05 am
Mark that’s not exactly hypothetical – most advertising does portray men in a patronising, or at the very least one-dimensional, light. The problem to me is not that it’s offensive in any way, but that it’s lazy communication.
8 Mar 10
12:51 pm
Tony Abbott works for Freedom now?
8 Mar 10
12:52 pm
So I suppose now it is also every womans dream to be pigeonholed, stereotyped and reduced down to the lowest common denominator?
Oddly enough I have a lot more going on in my life than shopping, and though this may sound outrageous to these stuck in the 50’s ad execs, I DO NOT LIVE FOR SHOPPING.
Although I wonder how I would even be able to go shopping as Freedom Furniture most probably wants me chained to the kitchen sink….
8 Mar 10
12:56 pm
I hope I am not the only one disgusted by this ad. We as women have come a very long way in the last 50-60 years pulling ourselves out from under this kind of ridiculous male oppression and I for one do not feel like going back.
Rewarded? What with? A nice pat on the head and slap on the rump, then off to the kitchen to fix dinner?
8 Mar 10
1:18 pm
I agree. What happened to plain language?
We’d like to give you back 10% of everything you spend, so you can spend more in our store.
8 Mar 10
1:22 pm
Have we become so politically correct that no one is allowed to have a bit of fun…has anyone heard of humour, it’s a light hearted ad that is different to other retail ads.
People get your heads out of your proverbial and allow yourself to have a laugh. It would do you and the world you live in a bit if good.
And I don’t work for the creative agency
8 Mar 10
1:26 pm
I’m not that offended by the innate sexism (let’s face it, I really love shopping). I just think it’s a poor way of targeting customers – when I wander around Freedom, it seems heavily skewed to couples and families. At the very least, it’s not like they are just selling womenswear. So why just target women? Don’t men get to help choose the furniture?
8 Mar 10
1:28 pm
Paul – I’m all for politically incorrect humour. Don’t think that’s what they were going for here though.
Is this masterpiece M&C’s work?
8 Mar 10
1:39 pm
I love shopping; it’s my only hobby, apart from staring at men in wide-eyed, open-mouthed admiration.
Happy International Women’s Day, people.
8 Mar 10
1:47 pm
It’s a special day? Well, shouldn’t you be baking us a cake to celebrate, @Acatinatree? That’s a good girl…
8 Mar 10
1:55 pm
Just for the records, I included a hilarious HTML tag indicating that the above comment was clearly a joke and sarcasm, but the Mumbrella comment section ate it, thinking it was real HTML.
So, just to be clear, I don’t think women should bake me cake. They’re certainly allowed to, I like cake, but the onus for cake bakery should lie equally across the gender divide.
In this spirit, which guy wants to bake me a cake?
8 Mar 10
2:04 pm
I’ll bake you a cake @warlach, but don’t expect it to be edible – not only do I hate shopping, I can’t cook either! *shock* *horror*
8 Mar 10
2:14 pm
This is as bad as that ad which had the boyfriend putting on sanitary pads all over himself like they were Star Wars costume props.
Humour has it’s place but does it always have to be so obviously sexist.
8 Mar 10
2:17 pm
Channeling Mad Men a little too much?
“Excuse me, I’m off to have another scotch and think of another stereotype to degrade inadvertently…”
8 Mar 10
2:21 pm
@Warlach
I’ll bake you a cake, provided that cake = fairy bread.
8 Mar 10
2:29 pm
You’ll find women in every level of government and every level of the corporate heirarchy. You’ll find us running our own multinational companies, advising world powers and curing diseases.
But apparently all that comes second to our uncontrollable shopping lust. And non transferrable vouchers.
When did advertisers become so out of touch? Actually no, the soaring personal debt rates attest to the fact that more than a few ad agencies know their stuff.
Whoever did these Freedom ads though… bunch of out of touch dinosaurs.
8 Mar 10
2:29 pm
@tweebs do you mean the current Mastercard-derivative Tooheys ads? As a ‘bloke’ they open all my twisties
8 Mar 10
2:47 pm
“I guarantee you a man made that commercial.”
“Of course a man made it. It’s a commercial, not a delicious Thanksgiving dinner.”
8 Mar 10
3:14 pm
Yes it’s sexist, but it’s also a lame message: “be rewarded to shop at this store”. Oh wow! And you have to spend $1000…not a small investment to get a 10% ‘discount’.
Retail incentives in one form or another are everywhere. You’d want your agency to put up a better idea than this one. Now they have 2 reasons to fire the agency! #freedomfail
8 Mar 10
6:17 pm
Exactly Tim, its not even a discount, it is just a voucher which forces you to visit their store and spend at least that $100 there, which probably isn’t enough to cover anything so out comes the credit card again.
9 Mar 10
9:48 am
I’m sick of this kind of advertising all over Australia, no wonder things are so backwards with the percentage of women in senior management declining.
San-pro advertising is a sick, sexist horror.
The prevalence of the two-blonde-children-married-mother-father advertising is just execrable.
Oh! but Australia is such a young!!! and *progressive* nation!
9 Mar 10
5:15 pm
Who has time to shop.
There are far to many dishes to wash and shirts to iron.
9 Mar 10
5:17 pm
Oops M&C.
Oops.
29 Mar 10
3:07 pm
What a pointless ad. I would never buy a big ticket item like furniture. My husband looks after those sorts of things.
;b
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