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Opinion
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 While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated.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.
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 marketingEmail 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.
Kmart’s Anzac Day backflip was good PR in action
While I’ve no idea what went on behind the scenes, it looks to me like Kmart’s rapid backflip regarding opening on Anzac Day is a classic of good crisis PR.
I
t started to go wrong for the brand over the weekend, when it emerged that Kmart had applied for pre-1pm opening.
The story got big on Monday, with a single story on news.com.au alone pulling in 430 mostly angry comments (point A on the Google News chart).
Yesterday, Kmart executed an elegant reverse ferret.
But the announcement from Kmart is what impressed me. First, it came fast; second, the apology was fulsome; and third, the boss Guy Russo took personal responsibility (point B on the chart):
“I got this one wrong and on behalf of Kmart, I apologise to the RSL, retired and current members of the Australian Defence Force and the wider community for any offence that this application has caused.”
It looks to me like Kmart has handled the issue effectively, and I suspect we’ll now see it quickly go away.
If only every brand in a PR storm could act as decisively.
Tim Burrowes
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:57 am
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Comments
3 Mar 10
11:06 am
I think he learned that from our PM with his ‘buck stops with me’ comment regarding Peter Garrett. It’s good business to take responsibility rather than run and hide.
3 Mar 10
11:41 am
Tim. I couldn’t agree more. They handled it well. However, if the operations people who made the stupid decision to apply for the extra opening hours had have consulted their PR people first, the whole thing could have been averted.
3 Mar 10
12:46 pm
And a fourth tick.
Mr Russo sounds completely genuine.
3 Mar 10
4:33 pm
The old saying “There’s no such thing as bad PR” is true… 90% of the time… but in this particular case, Kmart could have easily slipped into the 10% that are negatively impacted, as a business, by bad PR.
What’s the message Guy Russo was sure to include in his prompt response? That he was trying to increase convenience for his customers. And if you haven’t noticed… their (Kmart’s) new advertising campaign is centred around the changes they are making to the stores – one of which is clearly articulated in the recent ASX release – “Open our doors for longer, at more convenient times”.
Either the PR company was very quick to react and is very much in tune with the brand, or Guy Russo is living-and-breathing the business strategy and was clever enough to turn this one around on his toes. I suspect it may have been the latter… after all, who better to deal with bad publicity than an X-Maccas man.
3 Mar 10
4:40 pm
Goes to show why social media is an ear trumpet, not a loudspeaker.
3 Mar 10
6:45 pm
This is proof that public pressure could cause other similar changes to the minds of company bosses if we choose to use it.
Sadly it takes a big issue like ANZAC day to get enough people motivated to apply that pressure.
Imagine lower prices!!!
3 Mar 10
8:39 pm
Dont think this will go away they where testing the waters.its been tried before and they will keep on trying.expect another go.They will try maybe boxing day,xmas day ,easter sunday and maybe even good friday to be in there sights .
4 Mar 10
9:16 am
Agree wholeheartedly with Nicola (comment 3). While the backflip was good PR, the whole issue should never have left their boardroom and if competent PR staff had been involved from the beginning, it never would have. Having written that, organisations generally don’t suffer in the PR stakes for decisions that they make, but they always suffer by trying to cover-up, back pedal and blame anyone except themselves, so kudos to KMart for taking this hit on the chin.
4 Mar 10
1:42 pm
“Never should’a happened!” is a bit naive. Accidents happen, people make errors of judgement. It’s how you react that counts.
Imagine if Tiger Woods had immediately and unreservedly apologised to his wife, his sponsors and his fans, and also withdrew himself from his sponsorship relationships on the grounds that his behaviour was unacceptable.
What would have happened? Short period of Tiger in the wilderness, plenty of stories around “people make mistakes but it’s how they react that counts, he deserves another chance gawd bless’im etc” and eventually Tiger holding his head high again, back on the course and with sponsors in tow to boot.
Instead, he disappeared into a hole… begging the question “where was his PR advice?”
Crises do happen. And it’s how you deal with them that people respect and remember.
4 Mar 10
4:42 pm
The “never should have happened” comments are little simplistic.
If companies don’t ever try new or different things, how will they know if they work or not? Advice is easy to ignore and who’s to say who’s opinion is correct – sometimes you’ve just got to go out there and actually try something.
Seems to me that K-Mart did absolutely nothing wrong. They offered longer store opening hours on a public holiday (nothing wrong with this plan on paper), got a negative reaction (due to the overlooked or misunderstood cultural signficance of the day) and subsequently adjusted their position. No harm – in fact if anything, they showed they were able to listen, admit they were wrong and we can all now move on. Good work K-Mart
4 Mar 10
5:38 pm
They handled it well but as soon as you hear the words Anzac day you should hear alarm bells. What would have happened next? Worse case scenario you’d get employees complaining that they couldn’t go to the march. Depending on how good the Union was in finding a Veteran who happens to work at K-Mart or the child of a veteran all of a sudden K-Mart hates Anzac day. The lost half a day of potential sales and lets be honest who is desperate to go to K-Mart? They are open outside business hours.
5 Mar 10
2:38 pm
Good point, Nigel. It wouldn’t have happened if (good) PR was in on it from the start. Then again, the PR person could have been over-ruled. Neroli. you are showing your age (or possible lack of it). You obviously don’t understand the significance of ANZAC Day and how some things are sacrosanct. You don’t try new things like this on that day. As an Army veteran, I was ready to marshal my biker mates and surround the local K-mart.
5 Mar 10
3:08 pm
Thanks Greg, as a woman closer to 50 than 20, it’s always lovely to be told how young I am.
I never said ANZAC day was not culturally significant or not sacrosanct. Only that that K-Mart had overlooked or misunderstood cultural signficance of the day.