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Opinion | Features
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.
Savage counsel - JFDI
Hi Chris,I run a medium-sized agency that is doing pretty well. As the leader, I am finding my workload just seems to go up and up. I am struggling to stay motivated and particularly to tackle the bigger and tougher challenges I have to face every day. How do I keep up the energy when there just seems so much to do? How do you do it?
Productive, successful executives are those able to consistently tackle difficult and big challenges. It’s a constant struggle for me so I know how you feel. How do the successful leaders do it?
Q&A with Brett Clegg
Brett Clegg, group director – business media, Fairfax Media, in a Q&A that first appeared in Encore, on the journo who refuses to work with him – his wife.Who is the most powerful person in Australian media and why?
Hard to go past Rupert Murdoch. He controls the single largest and most diverse portfolio and is intent on leveraging its scale (and, of course, influence). He’s an innovator and his will to win is obvious to all.
The experiential experience
Anyone can throw up a tent in a high-traffic area and harass the general public, but what does it take to pull off an effective experiential event? In a piece that first appeared in Encore, Matt Smith investigates.A television commercial can easily be muted and ignored, but try ignoring a purring, squirming cat in your arms. That was the experience awaiting passers by in Sydney’s Martin Place in October last year when Mars Petcare built Whiskas Kitten Palace.
The News Limited paywall isn't about revenue. It's about data
In this guest post, ninemsn’s editor in chief Hal Crawford argues Fairfax Media and News Limited’s new paywalls won’t draw much revenue, but will generate data. And they’re late to the data party.When I first learned that ninemsn’s major digital competitors Fairfax and News Ltd were going to introduce paywalls across their mainstream properties, I was excited.
Every obstacle thrown in the way of their audiences is an opportunity. People hate friction and anything that makes life difficult on a rival site is a chance to get them on yours.
GetUp! seeks to crowd fund airtime for supermarkets pokies attack ad
Campaign group GetUp! is seeking crowd funding to broadcast an anti-pokies ad focusing on the role of supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths.
GetUp! has launched an appeal page and is asking donors to give $50 or more to get the poker reform ad on air.
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Comments
3 May 12
8:58 am
Great stat, worth spreading.
3 May 12
9:54 am
Get Up? Get lost!
3 May 12
10:38 am
Where do they own these pokies? Do they own hotels or clubs? Needs substantiation to be effective.
3 May 12
12:34 pm
Get Up! is a George Soros stooge. Run from this crowd of deceptive thieves and manipulators.
3 May 12
12:40 pm
Not too many roulette wheels in Coles or Woolies last time I looked. Misleading statistics bordering on lies. Typical of GetUp! with its army of useful idiots posing as a ‘people’s movement’.
Moreover, to even suggest that that commercial could get past lawyers and anywhere near a television screen is a fantasy, rendering the organisation’s request for a $50 sling virtual theft.
3 May 12
1:17 pm
Give me facts and details or bugger off. This is insulting and the ad is annoying.
3 May 12
2:00 pm
If there’s any truth to it, I’d certainly like to know more. And if it’s correct, then thank you Get Up for exposing it (although judging from the posts here it seems there are cynics aplenty).
3 May 12
2:24 pm
Bandit are you for real – you want a 30 second ad to list all the facts and details, like all the other TVCs in the world?
3 May 12
2:24 pm
Sorry …50
3 May 12
3:31 pm
Woolies and Coles own the all those pokies by virtue of the number of pubs they own. Bought to acquire the bottle shops.
3 May 12
3:34 pm
@Pinocchio 2. Yes. They wasted so much time with that stupid pokies device that they wasted any opportunity to make a real statement. The consumer is not getting frisked at the checkout which is what the ad implies.
Had they instead given me a why/how/what they are on about, I could have been up in arms about it.
They used something irrelevant and annoying to show something potentially important. Possibly, who knows, that ad told me nothing except that someone somewhere has a beef with Coles/Woolies and that supermarkets may in someway be involved with pokies???
3 May 12
3:43 pm
it’s a few years old, but here’s a relevant hungry beast piece on coles and woolies market dominance which delves a little in to pokies ownership. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1et_HBmLYw
3 May 12
3:49 pm
More brilliance from getup, enough to flush out the AHA astroturfers
Go back to the rocks from under whence you crawled, sock puppets!
3 May 12
4:30 pm
Good on You Get Up letting people know that the big supermarkets are not just ripping off families with their very high food prices, they are trying to get more money with their pokies. Time that shareholders of the two companies started asking Q at shareholder meetings of the two retailers.
3 May 12
6:25 pm
Confirms my impression of GetUp! as a bunch of sanctimonious wowsers who think their world view so superior to that of the wrong-thinking smelly masses. I suspect it’s not pokies they hate, but the people who play them. People they’d consider too dim to make “informed” decisions on their discretionary spending, their dietary habits and their choice whether or not to smoke, and so need to be patronisingly guided by more enlightened folk. Penny Wong will love this. ’nuff said.
3 May 12
6:40 pm
George Soros is a great guy – stop dissing him with this sort of Andrew Bolt/ Fox news type crap
3 May 12
7:31 pm
At least Get Up is doing something about the pokies that are ruining people’s lives.Not My Real Name – do you have any idea how many people follow and support Get Up – a lot more than you would imagine…Get a life.
3 May 12
7:33 pm
I for one am certainly going to be asking WW about their Pokies at the next AGM and before that too…..spending shareholders money on Pokies when they should be planting trees like Retail companies and shopping centres in Japan.
3 May 12
8:30 pm
Notmyrealname is an AHA hack who got lost on the way to The Punch
3 May 12
8:37 pm
Really beggars belief how you paid AHA shills sleep at night, turning a blind eye to the damage deliberately addictive poker machines inflict on innocent families, especially children
Maybe if you swatted up on the insidious techniques used by their makers and owners to activate and entrench addictive playing you’d think twice before selling your morality so cheaply
4 May 12
7:55 am
Do they give the money back to contributors if they don’t make enough to get it on tv?
4 May 12
9:40 am
@Carole Goldsmith – how could you hold shares in a company and not be aware of their interests? You accuse them of ‘spending money’ on pokies. Are you insane? Those pokies are making you money. What exactly are you going to ask them at their AGM? If you don’t like what they’re doing, sell your shares. http://www.alhgroup.com.au/
4 May 12
11:09 am
Michael, obviously WW has not been very vocal about the pokies ownership otherwise I would have known about it.
4 May 12
12:12 pm
Carole,
The only reason a business is ‘vocal’ publicly is to advertise to it’s customers, in order to make money. They are ‘vocal’ to shareholders through discrete channels. Each annual report clearly lists their gaming and hotel interests.
Do a little F on “gaming” in the 2011 annual report. http://www.woolworthslimited.c.....ortsannual
Whatever the hell your question is to them, they are just going to point out how they have ‘responsible’ practices on gaming.
As a shareholder, you’d know that Woolies are struggling with sales profits at the moment. With the supermarket price war, the hotels & poker machines which Woolies own are a valuable asset to the business… (profits are up 4.6% in that sector) There is no way they’re losing any pokie licenses soon.. whatever your question to them.
http://www.theaustralian.com.a.....6334774230
4 May 12
3:25 pm
@Carole Goldsmith
You clearly miss the irony in your statement: “At least Get Up is doing something about the pokies that are ruining people’s lives”. That’s exactly my point. No matter how many credulous (albeit well meaning) folk they’ve attracted, who the hell are “Get Up!” to tell the rest of us how we should live? Read some Orwell.