Opinion
- 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.
- Does Gina Rinehart’s bite of a chunk of Fairfax make her an oligarch?
  
  In an article that first appeared in The Conversation, Mark Rolfe wonders whether the mining magnate’s move could turn Fairfax into something resembling America’s Fox network.
  
  Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has moved to increase her stake in Fairfax Media, owner of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and a number of radio stations. Rinehart has already shown her desire to play a role in public life, campaigning against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s aborted mining tax. She has also demonstrated a willingness to make media investments to ensure her pro-business worldview is promulgated.
  
  What does this latest move by Rinehart mean?
- Gillard's Australia Day crisis
  
  PM Julia Gillard’s media adviser Tony Hodges has been forced to resign over the Australia Day tent embassy debacle.
  
  It came after it emerged he had revealed opposition leader Tony Abbott’s whereabouts, leading to both politicians being rescued by police in ugly scenes.
  
  Mumbrella editor Tim Burrowes and advertising practitioner Jane Caro debate the topic on Weekend Sunrise’s masters of Spin segment:
- The biggest cock-up I made in business
  
  In this guest post, Chris Savage urges agency staff to live the brand.
  
  I still shudder when I think about how incredibly stupid I was when I made the biggest stuff up of my career. And then, 18 years later, I did it again. Do not make this mistake with your clients. Ever.
- Hey Groupon. Thanks for fucking up email
  
  In this guest post, Daniel Monheit warns that group deal overload is devaluing email marketing
  
  Email marketing used to be fabulous. Back in the heady days of 2010, brands would work hard to build up well qualified databases, upon which they’d bestow carefully crafted correspondence filled with information, offers and incentives. The recipients, of course would be delighted: “Oh look! An email! From one of my favourite brands! And it’s 40 cents off at Woolies this week!”.
- The staggering sway of Harold Mitchell
  
  The Power Index today names Aegis Media chairman Harold Mitchell as the most powerful person in Melbourne. Andrew Crook profiles him.
  
  Harold Mitchell takes pride in dispensing with the niceties. When The Power Index visited his South Melbourne private office before Christmas, fresh remains were scattered all over the boardroom table.
- Share a Coke with… the moronic masses
  
  The most-read story on Mumbrella last year, with not far off 100,000 page views, was a fairly humdrum yarn about the launch of Coca-Cola’s name-on-a-bottle campaign.
  
  The headline, “Coca-Cola puts people’s names on bottles in ‘Share a Coke’ campaign”, though hated by any self-respecting sub-editor, was loved by Google. And in rushed what can be politely described as the public.
- Assumptions kill creativity
  
  In this guest post, Gual Barwell disagrees that the sales success of the Old Spice social media campaign was overstated.
  
  Yesterday’s post from Cathie McGinn suggested the Old Spice campaign failed to connect with consumers. Based on the facts and figures, I disagree.
  
  What Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy has done and done phenomenally well is to create a franchise.
- The SMH's readers (are wrong) editor
  
  We are now about five months into the reign of Australia’s first readers’ editor. And I don’t think it is working.
  
  It struck me at the time of Judy Prisk’s appointment to the Sydney Morning Herald that the fact that her boss was editor-in-chief Peter Fray was not going to be ideal if she was going to be the independent voice of the reader.
- The emperor's new fragrance: Old Spice’s campaign failure
  
  In this guest post, Cathie McGinn slays a sacred cow of 21st century marketing – the highly awarded Old Spice campaign.
  
  One of the biggest myths of recent times (by which I mean a story of great heroism and triumph we’d all like to believe but deep down know to be untrue) is the Old Spice social media campaign. It’s been much lauded and awarded as an example of outstanding content, a creative and collaborative way of connecting with consumers and driving a record increase in sales.
- How reliable are radio ratings?
  
  In this guest posting, Jason ‘Jabba’ Davis wonders how accurate radio ratings can be, since the data is collated from handwritten diaries.
  
  So, the radio ratings season gets underway tomorrow. After a well-earned break, Australia’s commercial radio stations will renew their obsession with figures to see how many of us are listening. Are they winning or losing the ratings war?
  
  The much feared radio survey is the only way to measure the success or failure of a station’s playlist, talent, promotions or even good old Black Thunder crosses. With six-figure salaries riding on the make-or-break nature of ratings, just how accurate are Australia’s radio survey results?

Gruen Transfer delivers the ratings despite adland backlash

The Gruen Transfer may have been coming in for industry flak in the last few days, but it’s ratings have only been getting better – last night the programme was the fifth most watched in Australia.

According to preliminary ratings from OzTam, the programme about Australian advertising clocked up 1.2m viewers last night.

The result saw Gruen rate better than any show on Nine, and beat its stablemate Spicks & Specks for the second week running.

Meanwhile, the programme ‘s extended honeymoon period with the industry apepars to be coming to a close. Last week, issues over potential conflicts of interest involving regular panellist Todd Sampson from Leo Burnett were vigorously aired on the Campaign Brief blog which in turn generated further coverage of the issue in the Sydney Morning Herald.

And today, Campaign Brief has returned to the topic with a guest posting from Darryn Devlin, creative partner at Kastner Sydney. he suggests that the advertising industry has been providing the show with “free” content but getting little in return.

Meanwhile, last night was a strong one for Seven. The evening’s ratings share: Seven – 28.7%; Nine – 24.7%; Ten – 23.2%; ABC – 18%; SBS – 5.4%.

Top ten TV shows:

Australia’s Got Talent – Seven 1.6m
Seven News – Seven 1.6m
Today Tonight – Seven 1.5m
The Biggest Loser – Ten 1.3m
The Gruen Transfer – ABC 1.2m
Spicks and Specks – ABC 1.2m
Criminal Minds Seven – 1.2m
Two and a Half Men – Nine 1.1m
Nine News – Nine 1.1m
Home and Away – Seven 1.1m

April 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm

Comments

Simon T Small
23 Apr 09
3:48 pm

The industry backlash has probably fueled ratings.

Rachael Lonergan
23 Apr 09
5:24 pm

Not sure what the industry expected but seemed to me the ABC were never going to make a programme about Advertising that made us all look like Norman Einstein!

mumbrella
23 Apr 09
5:32 pm

My own view, by the way, is that The Gruen Transfer has been almost entirely positive for the advertising industry.

It has helped people understand the processes behind it; shown that there are passionate, articulate, intelligent, creative people involved and as the AFA has previously said, boosted interest in it as a career.

It has also helped several individuals boost their own (and their company) profiles – and I suspect that’s where some of the sniping may come from, because for everyone who makes it onto the show, perhaps ten people get rejected, which hurts.

If I were to make a list of the ten best things that happened to Australian advertising last year, The Gruen Transfer would be on that list, and I’m not sure what the other nine items would be.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

Rachael Lonergan
23 Apr 09
6:07 pm

I think ‘almost entirely positive’ is fair and it’s also important to recognise that at the end of the day ‘the industry’ is not the target audience. I did think last night’s conversation on the breakfast cereal category was well balanced (and in the interests of disclosure I used to look after Kelloggs).

Having tutored Advertising at Uni however, I can say that most kids initially think all we do is make TV ads and their first job in an agency will be to write ads. I don’t think TGF has done much to dispel that myth and would be interested to know any feedback on this from the AFA.

As a media person I’m often left feeling misrepresented by comment from the panellists who are mostly drawn from creative and account service, and once or twice from account planning. Then again, maybe no one from media made the cut…

Richard Wylie
24 Apr 09
12:44 pm

I agree with you Tim.
It’s been the best thing that has happended to the industry since Mo and Jo.

Cheers,

Richard Wylie – Ursa

William Felt
24 Apr 09
12:47 pm

I have to agree with Tim. I have many friends outside the ad industry who say “well I never knew that much thought and effort went into ads – I now begin to understand it”.

Tony@TacticalTV
24 Apr 09
1:37 pm

I’m glad my mates outside the industry can now see the thought and consideration that goes into advertising. But I’m gladder still that many clients will too. In ‘marketing land’ many ad people are seen as either incompetent or shonky.

Vaughn Davis
24 Apr 09
1:43 pm

We’ve been a bit ignorant of the controversy over here in NZ, but having just been a Pitcher on the show I’ve been very impressed by it. It could so easily have become Jasper Carrot’s Funniest Aussie Commercials; what I saw was closer to a high end arts show. The panelists know their stuff, the host keeps things cracking along and it knows when to take itself seriously and when not to. I’d love to see something similar over here – the only problem being we don’t have a non-commercial broadcaster and I’m not sure how this format would work if the producers had to worry about treading on their advertisers’ toes.

bruce
24 Apr 09
2:02 pm

“but it’s ratings” is incorrect

should be… “but its ratings”

Sorry, totally pedantic, but I hate this simple grammatical mixup and you just happen to be the second place I’ve seen it written in the past 60 seconds.

Rae
24 Apr 09
2:53 pm

I believe TGT is positive for the advertising industry. While ‘regular’ people don’t enjoy being told how they are manipulated, they feel a bit more included in the process. The conversational water-cooler value for the industry is immense. Infighting in the media industry will destroy us all.

Richard Wylie
24 Apr 09
4:00 pm

Yes I wonder whether the people that are criticising Gruen, aren’t the same people that spend fun filled hours spitting bile at each other about how un-creative their contemporiaries are… on blogs like Campaign Brief.

Talk about confirming stereotypes about up their own asses advertising people can be. Good grief.

Richard

Lynchy
24 Apr 09
4:40 pm

I think The Gruen Transfer’s The Pitch segment is a great opportunity for normally dull, un-creative agencies to prove they can come up with a pretty good idea, given the chance to let loose. Here’s one I liked: http://www.ursa.com.au/tvc/gtvideo.html

Anonymous
24 Apr 09
9:14 pm

sounds like a win / win … does this mean all publicity really is good publicity? Even ASCA claimed it had boosted their responses

Kelly
25 Apr 09
9:56 am

Darren Devlin’s post is hysterical. Doesn’t he see that gruen isn’t for people who make the ads but for the people who watch the ads. What should they get out of it?

And the beat-up about Todd’s conflict of interest thankfully didn’t take flight – because it was a beat-up; the ‘conflict’ (existant or non-existant) doesn’t take away from what was a terrible and completely inappropriate.

Kelly
25 Apr 09
9:58 am

….oops, last word chopped off…

…inappropriate execution.

Lynchy
25 Apr 09
2:33 pm

Kelly… oops… (existent or non-existent), and it’s Darryn, not Darren.

As to the conflict of interest ‘beat up’ not taking flight, it was a big enough story to be ranked #2 that day on smh.com.au and theage.com.au, and because it was linked, crashed the Campaign Brief Blog for most of that day.

Look at me
27 Apr 09
2:05 pm

So typical of the self-obsessed ad industry to assume the program is only about them and for them. It is about how one particular industry creates and presents concepts to the public and the impact that may or may not have – it could have been about the fashion industry and worked the same way. Whilst the presenters are interesting and very well informed they are no more important than Kyle Sandilands on Australian Idol, and certainly shouldn’t be discussed over and above the programs content.