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Opinion
No - advertising has not beaten culture jamming at its own game
In this guest post, an activist argues why advertising has not subverted culture jamming - and why Australia would be a better place without ‘visual pollution’At a photography exhibition now on the Sydney Museum last week, a question was put to a panel of experts. Would our cities be better without any advertising. The answer was a resounding “yes”.
This didn’t really come as much of a surprise. After all, the panel were culture jammers – activists who subvert mainstream media, altering the message of an ad to tell a story of their own.
Think popular, not premium: Why the Henry & Aaron 'It's a snap' video went viral
In this guest posting, YouTube’s Karen Stocks says why she thinks CIT’s gory-funny ‘It’s a snap’ ad was a hit.One of this week’s viral hits on YouTube is a science fiction-themed ad for the Central Institute of Technology in Perth. The skit-style video commercial features CIT grads-turned-YouTube stars Henry & Aaron, who magically jump from one CIT department to the next with a snap of Aaron’s fingers. The comedy takes a distinctly darker turn when Aaron’s teleporting skills start going horribly wrong – with gruesome results.
The video holds a couple of lessons for marketers.
Mumbrella360 - call for curated sessions
I must confess that I didn’t enjoy Mumbrella360 last year.
Having staked our credibility and indeed (although I didn’t like to think about it at the time) the company, on Mumbrella360 being a success, the main thing I actually experienced over the two days was a growing sense of relief that it wasn’t shit.
The Woolworths virtual store is not the future of retail. But it is a good PR stunt
So last night I dropped by my local neighbourhood Virtual Woolworths.It’s located at Sydney Town Hall station – conveniently enough, almost directly underneath my local neighborhood Real Woolworths.
As you’ll see from the wobbly iPhone video I shot, it was a relatively lonely experience. But it was Sunday night.
How not to use Twitter: lessons from Qantas and Westpac
The likes of Qantas have a long way to go before getting to grips with social media, argues Axel Bruns.For major brands, the road to social media infamy is paved with what seemed like good ideas at the time.
Just this week, Qantas succeeded in having Twitter suspend the well-known spoof account, @QantasPR, claiming users would mistake it for the real thing.
Is Big W the beginning of the bounceback for Saatchis?
Google may prove me wrong, but in the entire time Mumbrella has existed, and very possibly for my entire editorship of B&T before that, I can’t remember ever writing the headline “Saatchi & Saatchi wins…”
So today’s appointment by Big W is a big deal.
Traditional agencies are driving away their digital superstars with their old ways
In this guest post, Daniel Monheit argues that Australia’s creative agencies will never be able to hang on to digital talentIn 2010 Steve Jobs was invited by James Murdoch to speak at the annual News Corp management retreat. Jobs issued a blunt, critical assessment of what newspapers were trying to do in technology: “You’re going to find it hard to get things right, because you’re in New York and anyone who’s any good at tech works in Silicon Valley”.
And that’s when it hit me. The reason why Australia’s best traditional agencies, working with the most prolific clients and the biggest budgets cant manage to put out anything remotely passable as decent digital work.
Anyone who’s any good at digital works at an agency that actually believes in it.
What does Fairfax's Media's data dump actually mean? And what's going on at ACP Magazines?
Although I rather like stats, there are a few days a year where they become a little overwhelming.
Radio ratings releases offer eight such days annually. Over the space of a couple of hours, the data drops for the five main metro markets. Generally the phone starts ringing within 10 minutes, from station bosses aiming to give their interpretation of those numbers. It becomes a game of keeping them on the line long enough to sift through the data to try to discover the real story you need to ask them about. Within minutes a blizzard of press releases follow too.
In truth, the press releases mostly get ignored in the race to write the story. Then they’re mostly ignored because the story is already written.
And twice a year, a similar exercise surrounds the release of the monthly magazine sales figures,
When the powerful buy into the media, can the media still scrutinise the powerful?
Economist Richard Denniss of Australian National University argues in a post that first appeared on The Conversation that the public needs to decide if it cares who owns the media.The mining industry is used to having its voice heard in Australian public debates, so it should come as no surprise that mining billionaires such as Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer would consider buying up a bigger slice of the Australian media.
While the estimated $20m spent by the mining industry on television advertisements opposing the introduction of a mining tax was the most visible example of the industry’s determination to influence the public it is, in fact, just the tip of the iceberg.
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.
Greenpeace uses real oil-covered dead birds in ads to warn of dangers of deep sea oil drilling
Greenpeace has launched a campaign attacking the New Zealand government’s decision to open its waters to deep-sea oil drilling.
The campaign features actual birds killed by the oil spilled from the MV Rena cargo ship, which was grounded in October. Oil prints of dead birds have been sent to celebrities and used as posters and in an online video.
The agency behind the campaign was Publicis Mojo Auckland.
Credits:
- ECD: Mike Barnwell
- Creative director: Lachlan McPherson
- Copywriter/art director: Barnwell and Guy Denniston
- Production company: Flying fish
- Director: James Solomon
January 19th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
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Comments
19 Jan 12
4:40 pm
MV Rena
It’s OK, we know Wikipedia is down so you couldn’t check
19 Jan 12
8:47 pm
Isn’t this like showing bodies from a plane crash, to demonstrate the problem of speeding?
20 Jan 12
7:11 am
Adgrunt – The point is that Rena showed how impossible it is to clean up oil once it’s in the water – even from a relatively minor spill in an easy to get to place and how damaging it is … and therefore shows what a bad idea it is to embark on risky deep sea oil drilling where the danger of spills is high.
20 Jan 12
9:25 am
@ Nick… I think the bigger problem is we’ve run out of oil in the easy to get places. The ad’s all nice and pretty and stuff, but sadly occasional oil spills are a consequence of a planet dependent on oil. It’s a very PC/left-wing view of the oil industry. I can think of hundreds, if not thousands of amazing benefits of oil. For every dead seabird, what about every human life that was saved by being raced to hospital in an ambulance, etc, etc, etc… Rather than harping on the negative, could Greenpeace offer an alternative?
20 Jan 12
9:44 am
I can see what you’re trying to say, but the leap in your “and therefore” is an irreconcilably large one. But that is the weakness of most Greenwashing from GP. It lazily relies on half-truths and questionable assertions.
Reasonable estimates from the Audubon Society peg bird deaths from the Deepwater Horizon incident at just over 20,000 – about the same as the MV Rena spill. So why the need for the ominous “1000 times worse” bullshit?
Worth noting for comparison that an estimated 30,000 birds die a year in Denmark from wind turbines. [Lomborg, 2001]
That’s a bit awkward, isn’t it.
PS – do you own a cat?
20 Jan 12
10:36 am
@Keith – You’re dead right but the point I think is that since we are running out of oil , and climate change dictates that we need to stop burning so much oil anyway, we should put our efforts into finding alternatives rather than searching for every last drop no matter what the risk. Our heavy reliance on oil does mean that inevitably there will be the odd oil spill through its use, shipment extraction and discovery but when we start talking about deep sea oil drilling we risk those spills being far more likely and far more devastating. One of the main reasons the Gulf of Mexico spill was so hard to deal with was that it was at an extreme depth of 1500 meters. Around NZ now, oil companies are beginning top prospect at depths of 3000 meters. The (deepest wells in NZ waters currently are only about 300m). So let’s race people to hospital in electric ambulances powered on renewable energy. Greenpeace has proposed a solution to fossil fuel addiction: http://greenpe.ac/mF3pHj
20 Jan 12
11:05 am
@AdGrunt I don’t agree that it’s much of a leap at all. It’s all estimates of course – only a fraction of the harmed birds are ever found, and we’re talking about a hypothetical deep water drilling accident in NZ waters but the NZ coastline is more pristine than the gulf of Mexico so has more to lose and the Deepwater Horizon spilled well more than a thousand times more oil than did Rena. So a Deepwater Horizon spill in NZ would in all livelihood be far far worse than the Rena.
How woudl you have worded the ad?
(Disclaimer in case it’s not obvious, I work for Greenpeace)
20 Jan 12
12:12 pm
Don’t worry. It was entirely clear you work for GP.
I wouldn’t have even written a brief for the ad, as the proposition has no support.
The material you have could lead to a proposition around maritime training and safety, flags of convenience, wind-powered freighters and post-wreck oil recovery procedures, but *absolutely nothing* about deep water oil exploration. But I presume that was a bit dull.
No oil exploration or production activity was relevantly involved in the death of those birds. Like pretty much every Greenpeace campaign of late, the evidence for your claims is a distortion and misrepresentation of unrelated facts.
Now back to the vastly greater number of birds dying from wind turbines (30,000 in Denmark) and cats (55,000,000 – yes 55 million – in the UK). That I could write you a supportable brief on.
But the mad-cat-lady GP donors would likely baulk at that, wouldn’t they.
20 Jan 12
12:27 pm
@adgrunt – I think you’re being a tad rigid in the way you’re looking at this.
The blindingly obvious similarity/connection between the Rena shipwreck, the Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Horizon and every other oil spill at sea whether past or future is oil in the water, dead and dying sea creatures, poisoned seafood, economic loss and large corporations hiding from responsibility.
Luckily not everyone has such a narrow view as yourself – we’ve had in excess of 6500 SMS messages as a result of airing the ad on TV for one week using money donated specifically for that purpose by people of NZ who do support he proposition (-;
(Of course there are many other threats to birds but this campaign is about oil drilling.)
20 Jan 12
1:18 pm
No, Nick.
Your connection is blindingly loose, sweeping and broad, with flimsy and mendacious support. But that’s Greenwashing for you.
I’m pleased for you that there are 6,500 suckers who have been hood-winked by your emotional distortions. Whatever helps you sleep at night and pays your bills, I guess.
Whilst a measure of success for your campaign, it isn’t going to help New Zealand gain greater economic or environmental security. You can’t export beautiful views, and tourists and freight aren’t going to arrive by sailing boat or electric plane.
It’s hard to deal with the deeper issues, isn’t it.
Now back to those cats killing birds, which can be easily dealt with…
Apparently NZ has one of the highest cat ownership rates – about a million to conservative, it would seem. Now studies vary, but a conservative average kill would be 50 birds killed per year, per cat. Some suggest upwards of a hundred, but I’ll be cautious.
So some brief sums suggest that 50 million birds, including the adorable kiwi, are being killed every year by domestic cats. That, my friend, is a fucking big number. And I didn’t have to make stuff up to get to it.
Any chance Greenpeace is going to deal with this environmental disaster that is literally sitting on your doorstep, licking its lips?
20 Jan 12
1:34 pm
idea brilliant, execution superb
this is a marketing blog, Adgrunt, not a politcal site
you’re starting to sound like one of those rabid Abbott supporters
20 Jan 12
2:11 pm
Archie, this is a political ad, on a marketing site. So it gets the political lens cast across it. Greenpeace also have long form for being “economical with the actualité” – see Mumbrella articles passim.
I’d agree about the execution, art direction and production.
However, a fundamental of such NGO ads is a truth in the support of their proposition. This doesn’t have that. At all.
I have also helpfully outlined a way this Greenpeace could actually make a difference to New Zealand birds. Aren’t I nice.
20 Jan 12
2:34 pm
Dear AdGrunt,
You are a tosser.
Cheers, Jacques
20 Jan 12
3:32 pm
Adgrunt – I believe you can export beautiful views and that’s through tourism. New Zealand as a brand has an image of environmental purity and that image would be under threat if they experienced more disasters such as the MV Rena let alone a serious deep water oil spill.
21 Jan 12
5:04 pm
Almost, Sam.
But as I noted earlier, tourists and freight don’t arrive on magic carpets.
This myopic skit isn’t going to help New Zealand gain greater economic or environmental security. And I’m afraid the economic security needs to come first.
22 Jan 12
9:43 am
AdGrunt,
The ’30,000 birds’ figure is often misquoted and used without context.
A better measure is deaths per Gigawatt hour of power generated – if we’re going to generate electricity, we should do so in the way that has the lowest environmental impact…
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.....wind_power
A study[31] estimates that wind farms are responsible for 0.3 to 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh. The study therefore states that fossil fuel based electricity causes about 10 times more fatalities than wind farm based electricity, primarily due to habitat alteration from pollution and mountain-top removal for coal mining.
Strange that the death of wildlife has never been considered a negative for coal or gas power plants…
22 Jan 12
1:25 pm
Saying no to drilling oil at crazy depths will do wonders for our environmental and economic security @adgrunt.
22 Jan 12
1:27 pm
Ps there will be no birds on a dead planet , climate change is the real issue here and renewable energy such as wind farms are far better than coal or oil.
22 Jan 12
4:56 pm
Craig,
Don’t quote selectively from Wikipedia you dolt. Read the rest of the whole piece at least. It ain’t all roses. Then have a quick squiz here http://snipurl.com/21tsaal which dissects your source reference.
Suddenly nuclear seems a wise option.
None of this diminishes the loose, sweeping and broad assertions, with flimsy and mendacious support of this otherwise elegant ad.
James,
What exactly is “crazy” about the depth? What is a “sane” depth? You’re making stuff up again, aren’t you.. 120 years ago drilling in 2 feet of water was bleeding edge. Provide support for your baseless assertions.
Once again, neither of you have addressed how:
a) New Zealand would get the tourists and freight in / out in this nirvana of which you speak. Pot-rattling, with no practical solution. Greenpeace greenwashing at its best.
b) How NZ fills the standard of living gap that causes thousands to cross the ditch to Oz.
c) You’d score a far greater goal with the 50 million odd birds dying annually in NZ alone, from cats…
That would be one hell of an environmental victory. Not up for a real challenge, boys?