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Opinion | Features
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.
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.
The top seven...most patronising pieces of communication
Sometimes brands have big ideas. Sometimes marketers get so caught up with a grandiose idea that instead of finding engaging ways to sell breakfast cereal, they start to believe their own rhetoric. And sometimes it’s just lazy marketing. Here are my top seven inadvertently patronising pieces of communication…
1) Last night thousands of women gathered in Sydney’s Centennial Park to take part in She Runs the Night, an event created by Nike.
TV audience measurement – why big isn’t always beautiful
In this guest post, Chris Walton argues that the media industry needs to take a new approach to TV tradingThere has been a significant amount of coverage recently about how successful The Voice has been. Indeed, audience figures of 2.6m+ people are very impressive these days. Based on reports, this is apparently double the size of audience that Nine was hoping for in the lead up to the programme launching.
Google to provide Australian businesses with free websites
Google has announced a major initiative which will see it work with Australian business software company MYOB to provide small and medium sized companies with their own free websites.
The Getting Aussie Business Online project follows a similar initiative in the UK which launched a year ago.
The project – which raises a major challenge for existing domain providers such as Melbourne IT and Net Registry – will see businesses able to obtain a free .com.au site address and use MYOB tools to build their own basic website.
The move also creates a challenge for digital agencies in the business of building basic sites for small businesses.
Sites, and URLs, will be free to any business with an ABN number. The businesses will be able to create their site using MYOB’s tools. The sites will cover basics such as product information, locations maps and contact details.
The domain will be free for two years, and $30 for the next two years after that.
Google’s Head of local business Claire Hatton said: “Every day in Australia there are 12,000 Google searches for builders, but fewer than one in four businesses in the construction and trade industry has a website. We want to address this gap by removing common barriers like cost and time to set up a website. We also want to make it easier for Australians to find the information they’re looking for online.”
Tim Reed, CEO of MYOB, said, “Our initial goal is to get at least 50,000 businesses set up with a free website this year. We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Google on this initiative.”
After the first year, businesses can choose to pay $5 per month for their site to continue to be based on the MYOB platform.
March 2nd, 2011 at 11:30 am
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Comments
2 Mar 11
1:06 pm
shocked this is the first comment
2 Mar 11
2:00 pm
can already get a free website, and most small businesses are already there. it’s called facebook
2 Mar 11
2:14 pm
Whilst I do agree with the assertion that almost every business needs to be online (far to few are) and that it shouldn’t cost the Earth to do so … I also feel it prudent to remind business owners that you generally get what you pay for with “free” template business websites.
It’s a little like saying that you can run your business using an Excel spreadsheet (I did for a year or so as a single-operator myself). Sure you can, but MYOB’s 1 Million plus customers realise that this isn’t the best way to do things either.
Same thing with the “free” websites being offered here and other places … They will get your business online just fine but they may not represent your brand/business very well or you may outgrow them quite quickly.
Don’t be afraid to try the free stuff though … and if/when it becomes necessary then look for a more professional solution to suit your needs.
A simple small-business website built by a professional who takes the time to understand your needs often costs somewhere in the $1K to $2K range. That’s a good price to pay for a good branding and marketing tool.
I had this conversation with MYOB’s Tim Reed and Tony Palmer from C4 a couple of weeks ago on Sky News Business channel’s “Technology Behind Business”.
We all have slightly different points of view but there might be some good ideas in it that are appropriate to your small business, if you have a few minutes to watch the discussion.
http://www.youtube.com/CreativeIntersection
2 Mar 11
2:46 pm
@ken totally agree, this is less about getting small business online and more about stalling businesses from building effective websites on Facebook – which doesn’t index well for Google search results. Just a strategy to protect search results i.e. Adwords revenue.
2 Mar 11
3:15 pm
wix has a great free flash based builder for websites thats super easy to use – the money you save using that rather tahn paying someone to do it could go towards a paid hosting instead – makes much more sense
2 Mar 11
3:19 pm
Didn’t we have this conversation last year, Tim?
2 Mar 11
3:47 pm
I’ll be interested to see the take up of this offer, as I dont think the reason most of these businesses do not have a website is not due to the cost. Other factors like poor understanding, the belief that they are too busy and dont need ‘more business’ – they are too concerned with managing their current workload.
Most small scale builders and tradies struggle with the basics of bookeeping so Ijust dont see them building their own website. They would probably struggle with what to even put on it.
Imagine the spelling and grammar!
This could even be a good thing for many web designers if it prompts webless businesses to develop a website, they cock it up and realise it isnt as simple as it looks so will turn to the experts to fix their mess. Most businesses who have developed a website for free or very little $ are often very unsatisfied with the results.
Agree with Henry – a great way for Google to get more adwords dollars.
2 Mar 11
4:01 pm
Great points Ian – i see it as a side step from the yellow pages really, although it may encourage more advertising via adwords. Certainly it’s not a bad thing for a small business with no online presence yet, but for most businesses, they should be leveraging the web to drive them sales and grow the business (nice marketing talk, I know!).
Spending a few grand and getting something done properly, with advice from experts will be wisely spent marketing dollars in most industries.
Always surprises me that the owners of a lot of these smaller businesses owns a near new BMW, doesn’t bat an eyelid at a 2k advert in the newspaper or spending 15k on a tvc, but a 5k website is an “unbelievable” expense.
2 Mar 11
4:31 pm
Do you really think a builder is going to bother setting up their own website. No matter how easy the tools are to use they still won’t want to do it themself.
2 Mar 11
4:37 pm
This is pretty pointless when our internet speeds, costs and free options are still 5 years behind the rest of the world!
2 Mar 11
4:54 pm
Not really a surprise, since you are getting a guaranteed audience with the advertising, but a website you are not.
But i agree that the investment in a good site is worth it. However this initiative is also great for consumers.
Countless times ive been angry when I cant find a menu for a restaurant Ive heard of because it doesn’t have a site? They dont really need a involved one (yet) but having a menu online would do wonders.
Websites are a good investment, where spend is easily worth the rewards, but for the thousands without, there is nothing wrong with starting small.
Google are being really smart here, providing businesses at the grass roots and when they develop they will remain loyal to the next B2B product Google can on sell.
Good business is investing in companies whilst they are small, and helping them grow to a point where they can buy your bigger inventory.
2 Mar 11
5:19 pm
@ Emma
Your quote – “Most small scale builders and tradies struggle with the basics of bookeeping so I just dont see them building their own website. They would probably struggle with what to even put on it.
Imagine the spelling and grammar!”
Ouch.
2 Mar 11
6:25 pm
wow EMMA…. might want to see a mechanic and find out how much it would cost to get your head removed from that far up your arse…?…seems you’ve had quite the collision….. . yeh – those tradies…. what would they know…?…its amazing they can even do the paper work to launch an ABN, build houses, residential and those strange commercial blocks that people who wear suits work in… weirdly on top of this, they are probably pull more than you per annum…. i doubt they even know how to turn a computer on… i wonder where they all live?.. not in those big houses by the beach surely!!!!!
2 Mar 11
6:54 pm
agreed Emma that was a low blow that is a generalisation to the Building Industry. I know that I certainly don’t have the smarts to build an entire home…do you????
You need to be aware of what the income some of our good builders are earning. I’m positive it’s more than what your pulling in sweetheart.
2 Mar 11
8:38 pm
For at least six years I have seen companies pursue the supposed holy grail of “making it easy” for businesses to have a website. They all had success to some extent or the other.
People, especially the ones who think that a Flash based SME website is a great idea, search a generic term related to such a website, e.g. “builders” (used in this article) and see if such a site shows up in the first 10 pages.
Seriously, if you are a small business owner who doesn’t have a website and are about to get one, find a competent SEO in the Yellow Pages online and get them to build you one. If you get a freebie on the basis of “it can’t hurt because it is free”, let us know on Mumbrella six months later how many customers it brought you.
And did anyone else look up “builders” in the G Keyword tool to check where Claire Hatton got her figure of 12,000 local searches? I make it 368,000 exact match searches per month in Australia.
2 Mar 11
9:28 pm
“Would you like fries with that?”
Supersize me strategy in the making……
3 Mar 11
9:01 am
Could not agree more with Ian. There are sites out there already that are near free. We build websites for small businesses and we target Yellow Pages as our competition.
Is this more of a marketing exercise for MYOB? Yes this will go well for them but at the end of the day it’s about making the phone ring for small businesses it’s not about having a website. A website without a purpose or strategy is a bit like a brochure that sits under your desk. If no one gets to see it why have it?
Does this concern me as a small business website developer? Yes, I’d be ignorant to ignore it, but on the other hand it has a kicker when businesses soon realise these sites don’t work without some purpose and knowledge of how to drive them.
You have to love living on the cutting edge of technology. It’s a constant moving feast.
3 Mar 11
12:03 pm
Gee – who would have thought my comment would inspire such rage from all the anonymous posters of the world…?
Of course plenty of small business owners are savvy and can spell. But I have also come across plenty of others that I could easily say would simply not build a website themselves. And my comment re spelling and grammar was not related to any particular occupation (hence the stand alone paragraph), but just my experience of the general population. The comments in this thread prove that.
And since when was income an issue? I bet they do make more money than me but since I don’t want to build houses I couldn’t care less. There are always plenty of other occupations around that make more money than all of you but it isn’t all about the cash is it.
3 Mar 11
12:16 pm
I set-up my-domain.com.au specifically to address this market. With a little know-how, google apps is an amazingly powerful SME tool…
3 Mar 11
12:22 pm
i dont see so much a rage, as i see a cluster of people pointing you out for being the goose who came out swinging the bat of generalisation across an entire industry of SME ‘builders’ …
On that note; I’d perhaps take the liberty of suggesting caution prior to hyperlinking back to your humble co. if you are going to swing a sword through such a large body on a public platform…
re: income… so i suppose your in the M&A industry to ‘make a difference’ and cure our various media channels of all the worldy ills you expertly identify?… I wish i had such a tall horse… that would be awesome…
at the end of the day, he/she with the most toys and treasure WINS!…. its called WINNING..!!!
3 Mar 11
12:25 pm
Yeah, its about winning. I am a winner!!!
3 Mar 11
12:56 pm
the suit – its not a generalisation just an observation. Prove me wrong I’d be happy to hear of a builder who constructed a website instead of a house.
And I have no issue hyperlinking as this is an industry site and I am not afraid of having an opinion.
And no I cannot ‘cure any ills’ I am not so arrogant – I just enjoy what I do!
3 Mar 11
1:23 pm
EMMA: “I’d be happy to hear of a builder who constructed a website instead of a house.”
what does this even mean?!!! DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!!!
I’m sorry Emma, you’ll have to charge me with 1st degree stupidity because i just can’t for the life of me think why a ‘tradie’ would elect to build a website instead of a HOUSE…. this would be a little like contructing a fish pond for a horse me thinks. The fish pond i presume would feel small and a litle inferior for the horse and i think the horse would just be fucking confused. It just doesnt make sense. I can see why one might construct a fish pond within their horse barn, or perhaps a website whilst building a house. This makes a little more sense to me…
Oh and Emma, if you adopt the WINNING attitude im sure down the track you might just cure a few of the ills found dwelling within the halls of this pretty world they call media… back yourself!…
3 Mar 11
1:35 pm
@Jack
It’s not download speeds any more – you will be pleased to hear we got a new connection for Time Out this week and measured 61Mb/s down and 54 Mb/s up. And that’s in Glebe!
This is a great marketing idea by Google – clear benefits for them and hopefully it gets a few more small businesses onto the web.
I prefer Google Weddings- that’s a really cool sell of Google Apps- http://www.google.com/weddings/