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Opinion | Features
My memo to your boss
So let me guess?
You really want to come to Mumbrella360, but you’ve got to justify the time and cost to your boss?
Good news! I think I can help.
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.
Media agency MPG takes the blame for using ‘Abo’ search term for Tourism NT
Media agency MPG has issued a grovelling apology taking the blame for a blunder that saw client Tourism NT buying the Google paid search term “Abo”.
As Mumbrella revealed yesterday, the offensive term linked to Tourism NT’s Travel NT website.
In an apology published this afternoon, MPG said:
“MPG wish to unreservedly apologise for the inadvertent selection of the word as a search term. MPG recognise that it was a mistake, an oversight and is unacceptable.
“Tourism NT did not specifically approve this search term as part of 128,000 search words employed for their business.
“MPG recognise that this term is highly offensive and apologises for any offence caused and its search procedures have been reviewed in order to prevent such errors reoccurring.”
May 12th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
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Comments
12 May 10
1:13 pm
“Tourism NT did not specifically approve this search term as part of 128,000 search words employed for their business.” That would indicate either MPG did or no-one did. Both of those are a slight on the agencies ability at paid search.
Come on guys – sort it out
12 May 10
1:42 pm
Whilst this should not have happened in the first place, and they will need to assure the client a repeat can’t happen, good on them for doing this.
12 May 10
1:52 pm
Chris, agreed that the best policy was to stand up and be counted but within paid search the devil is in the detail and one of the most important things in managing a brand is the negative keyword selection so that they don’t appear against terms like this and also the initial keyword selection.
This should have been picked up on both counts.
but yes, fair play for hands up.
12 May 10
1:57 pm
Come on – the client also needs to take responsibility.
12 May 10
2:18 pm
The term shoud have been proposed as a negative keyword OR the client should not have signed it off…..
But fair play to MPG for c’arrying the can’
12 May 10
2:26 pm
surely you hire an agency to manage your search to prevent these things happening and the agency should have controls in place to make sure these words are not even included.
If the client is expected to trawl through 128,000 keywords and approve each surely this negates part of the reason for having someone manage the search?
12 May 10
2:31 pm
I highly doubt there are 128,000 keywords…..there is not that much to say about NT!!!
12 May 10
2:46 pm
Kind of agree. Whilst good on MPG for taking the blame, i think us clients can’t hide behind the agency when things like this happen. The agency only has as much autonomy as they are allowed, and therefore – like – all things the client is permitting that autonomy. And therefore is responsible.
Doubt MPG would get the credit for all campaign successes. We can’t have it both ways, i think!
12 May 10
2:48 pm
As an exercise in PR Crisis Management good on Media agency MPG for standing up or carrying the can depending on how you look at it.
However also feel that NT Tourism should have issued an apology or at very least a statement.
Someone at NT Tourism signed off these keywords / SEO campaign and should issue an apology on behalf of organisation.
At end of any crisis PR event you ask what damage has been done and who comes off carrying egg on their face. So far it looks a little like NT Tourism….
12 May 10
2:50 pm
Shane , have you been up here recently.. you should come up sometime..there’s plenty to say!!!
12 May 10
2:56 pm
I don’t know 128,000 different words.
I’d be shit at search marketing.
12 May 10
3:01 pm
Come on, it’s the responsiblity of the media agency to professionally represent their client. In this case, they have failed to do while being offensive along the way! A search term doesn’t just get inadvertantly selected.
12 May 10
3:04 pm
I agree Shane, I doubt there is 128,000 keywords and if there is I bet 100,000 get 0 impressions.
I also bet that not many client actually are asked to approve keywords by any agency, generally campaign ads are the only thing clients get to approve.
12 May 10
3:05 pm
128,000 this is Bad bad use of PPC campaign.
Of course client didn’t approve – Who has the time and intelligence to select 128,000 keywords?
Have your heard about negative keywords?
Too easy.
12 May 10
3:06 pm
i’m politically correct but my boyfriend isn’t. we’ve fought over this in the past, and he says that abo isn’t an offensive term, but an abbreviation. keeping an open mind, can it be interpretted as that?
btw, he’s not a racist. he’s in an interacial relationship and has aboriginie friends. the word does get to me, though.
12 May 10
3:09 pm
At least someone said sorry about something for once.
12 May 10
3:10 pm
Actually I think they missed a tricked by not issuing a statement mimicking Kevin Rudd’s sorry speech when I think about it.
12 May 10
3:14 pm
I doubt very much that NT buy 128,000 keywords, the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use.
What a waste of money and time! You should employ an agency who is focused on your target market.
12 May 10
3:26 pm
The term keyword is deceiving as it can relate to individual words but also phrases, in the context of search marketing. So, 128,000 keywords is a lot, but nothing compared to say an airline who might have over a million keywords.
I get the feeling a lot of agencies build out search campaigns with so many keywords to justify the fees they are charging, even if the majority of keywords get zero impressions. And of course approving this many keywords is a joke, but they should definitely have approved a negative keyword list.
12 May 10
3:34 pm
This is mental.
It’s fine to use “wog boy” as the title of a movie but it’s front page news on SMH and other news sites that some random dude picked up on an agency were bidding on “abo”.
Come on Australia…sort it out.
12 May 10
3:39 pm
Let’s remember that this was brought to light by a guy who works at an agency that is likely out there looking for SEM business (and he’s done very well out of this by pointing everyone to his blog and the company’s site). So of course any errors they find they want to highlight as “incompetence” as he says. Which is fine, all competing companies try to find errors with each other, but lets not all be so critical and quick to point the finger.
I don’t think I have seen one SEM campaign that is perfect and error free or couldn’t be done better. So I suggest a few of you get off your high horse and deflate your egos as to how good you think you are 100% of the time. MPG admitted the error and I am sure they will move on and learn from it. This is a SEM process error, yes potentially a PC issue too, but it’s hardly bringing down the stock exchange is it. Move on people.
12 May 10
3:43 pm
Thumbs up to the agency for taking the fall on this – as they should. If I had time to run my own SEM campaigns I wouldn’t emolpy an agency – the responsibility sits with them.
Gem, the social connotations of ‘wog’ and ‘abo’ are entirely different. Wog can still be highly offensive if misdirected, abo is always a term of offence.
12 May 10
3:53 pm
so…are we going to the NT or what??
12 May 10
4:18 pm
Dar wins everytime
12 May 10
4:57 pm
I find it funny people think its impossible to use 128,000 keywords. I have seen clients in the past use 600,000+ keywords. I guess it sounds a bit funny for some one who does not work in the search marketing game, you must remember theirs the dictionary terms, you mix those up with keywords and then you also add in some miss spellings.
The problem is mistakes can happen, this one has been a costly lesson for MPG, yet I commend them highly for comming out and appoligising in full.
You see companies like Nestle facing a big problem and they run and hide and bring in the lawyers to remove negative comments.
12 May 10
4:58 pm
(Edited by Mumbrella)
12 May 10
5:17 pm
Have to agree with Michael – 128,000 search terms in a PPC campaign is far too many. That is like firing at a target blindfolded, hoping something hits the bullseye – a sheer waste of advertising budget.
12 May 10
5:18 pm
You don’t need 128,000 words to trigger reasons to visit the Northern Territory; just one: “Barramundi”. Mind you, you could also throw in the abbreviated version: “Barra”.
12 May 10
5:29 pm
true – 128,000 is OTT – what did they do upload a dictionary?
12 May 10
5:41 pm
@Jono ……….
“have seen clients in the past use 600,000+ keywords”
“you must remember theirs the dictionary terms, you mix those up with keywords and then you also add in some miss spellings.”
Obviously in your SEM experience you target people with webbed hands
12 May 10
7:51 pm
Seriously, 128k keywords is not that much when, as people have mentioned they are actually key phrases with multiple words and often including misspellings and their combination in the phrases.
Just the phrase “tourism in northern territory” could generate 200 misspellings.
If you understood search you would understand.
Also, for those searches with zero impressions, they may have an impression now or in the future and if you are the one with your ad there when others have ignored it then the consumer has a higher propensity to click on your ad as you’re likely the only one who is appearing.
Anyway, 128k is not the issue, in fact it is like the agency is using that as an excuse. It was a cock up, they have seen it and fixed it and admitted to the issue. It goes to show some of the issues of running a search campaign with large volumes of keywords/phrases but also shows the level of quality control that should be in place on both an agency and client side.
12 May 10
8:03 pm
Add to that if you have the exact phrase it is more cost effective than having the broad match then it makes sense to build the whole thing out to all possibilities of phraseology to give the most cost effective result.
13 May 10
8:19 am
NT Tourism is desperate to show any sort of progress or to
justify their relevance.
The ad agency would have been asked if they would like to continue with their
contract and to take One for the revenue stream…i mean team.
Do TourismNT marketing managers ever get fired?
I bet this issue, woke a lot of people on the fourth floor of Moonta House as well as the
Hon Malarndirri Barbara Anne McCarthy who says about 4 words a year.
13 May 10
8:50 am
“Gem, the social connotations of ‘wog’ and ‘abo’ are entirely different. Wog can still be highly offensive if misdirected, abo is always a term of offence:
So if I call someone an f”ing wog or f’ing abo one is more offensive than the other it? Of course this is all about context and personal interpretation.
One thing I find amazing is that every Aussie I know doesn’t think the term “paki” is offensive for example. I think it says a lot.
On the PPC 128k keywords…definately overkill – I would think there are probably 30-40 head terms that drive 90% traffic and I would be amazed if the remaining “long tail” accounted for the other 10% on a consistent basis. The perception that quantity of keywords is a huge factor to look at in a PPC campaign is prehistoric online marketing and if that is what your agency thinks, sack them immediately – My mum knows more about PPC that they do.
13 May 10
9:02 am
So in summary:
It’s not that big of a deal, it is a minor process issue between client > agency being leveraged by others for personal gain
Number of key words is irrelevant and does not incur the client additional cost – as long as the campaign is being optimised to the right metrics of course
Terms ‘Wog’ versus ‘Abo’ – far too many shades of grey/acceptability to come to a definitive conclusion
Fionn is clever and likes his giant iPhone…..
13 May 10
9:21 am
I’d like to hear from more PR professionals on your point of view on this issue. I completely agree with am’s recommendation that NT Tourism must issue an apology. By keeping quiet & letting the agency take the blame is poor PR, as publics (including media) will make a link back to NT Tourism. A statement apologising for the error is important to maintain their reputation & to diffuse the situation. This is crisis management 101.
13 May 10
9:34 am
I thought it might be that Fionn!
13 May 10
10:07 am
Well it’s not like there are that many Fionn’s out there!
And it’s not a giant iPhone, it can’t make calls
)
13 May 10
11:10 am
I just want to know how many hits they actually had on the blunder!
13 May 10
12:12 pm
Is Comment 15 trollin or stoopid?
14 May 10
4:51 pm
HAH! Love it austen tayshus (1)
Really, just how much can we Koalas bear?
Enough already mUmbrella and let the “news-cycle” go…
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