Opinion

• SBS – too small to matter, too important to kill

  Later this year, SBS will celebrate its 30th anniversary as full time TV service. Unless something changes, I doubt it will be around to celebrate a 40th.

  Depending how you look at it, SBS either needs to get a lot bigger, or a lot smaller.   Read more »

• Why SBS still matters

  SBS managing director Shaun Brown argues that despite the growth of online access to overseas news, the need for the broadcaster remains.

  At its best the media can play an empowering role helping to foster social cohesiveness – it acts as a mirror, a mentor and a mediator.   Read more »

• Battle of Big Thinking part 4: Music discovery, Broadband and content; Nibble

  Wednesday saw the APG’s Battle of Big Thinking. The fourth session covered big media ideas. In my view it was the weakest session of the five.   Read more »

• Battle of Big Thinking part 3: Marketing is arse; Fighting mediocrity; action-based advertising

  Wednesday saw the APG’s Battle of Big Thinking. The third session covered big advertising and marketing ideas. For me it was the most entertaining of the five sessions.

  Speaker: Geoff Ross, founder of 42 Below vodka

  Topic: Marketing is a bunch of arse
  

  Quote: “Marketing has largely become impotent. Read more »

• Battle of the Big Thinking part 2; Giving voice to bloggers; Trust and the human voice; Closing SBS to fund journalism

  Yesterday saw the APG’s Battle of Big Thinking. The second session covered big storytelling ideas.

  Speaker: Antony Loewenstein, Writer

  Topic: Why the western press is failing to use alternative voices

  Quote: “A lot of people in the corporate press are not so much afraid as unimaginative.”   Read more »

• Battle of Big Thinking part 1: Creating unique brands; Changing the world; Perth vs Sydney

  Yesterday saw the APG’s Battle of Big Thinking. The first session covered big business ideas.

  Speaker: Peter Williams – CEO, Deloitte Digital

  Topic: The formula for changing the world

  Quote: “Any match in the box can start a fire.”   Read more »

• Carlton ads show it’s possible for a client to kill a campaign twice

  Remember the furore over the banned Carlton ads?

  Suspicious types predicted they’d quickly leak onto the internet.

  And sure enough, they are indeed now online, triggering more suspicion that the whole thing was a plan all along.

  However, who looks to me like a brand new fumbling of the digital strategy to go on top of the earlier mess, at least proves the whole thing was a genuine cock-up.   Read more »

• Live from SXSW. Day 2. The question about data nobody asked

  In his second guest posting from the SXSW conference in Texas, Sound Alliance commercial director Ben Shepherd talks about the big question that nobody asked.   Read more »

• Why I’m over live blogging (and I’m not sure about live tweeting either)

  I’m falling out of love with live blogging, and indeed live tweeting, from events. Too often, you end up being little more than a snarky dictaphone.

  My moment of clarity came yesterday, on the first day of Adtech, and my last live blog may come this afternoon at the APG’s Battle of Big Thinking.   Read more »

• What’s happening at the other digital conference…

  In his guest posting, Sound Alliance commercial director Ben Shepherd writes from the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas where he learnt that “Twitter is just a bunch of digital people talking to themselves, about themselves”.

  Read more »

• Adtech Sydney live blog: The financial CEOs

  Welcome back to Adtech Sydney. The CEOs mentioned in the headline above are Roger Grobler of Real Insurance, Gerd Schenkel of UBank and Harry Wendt of Westpac. So expect finance fun. Read more »

• Adtech Sydney – early impressions: nothing to start a riot; nothing to stop a riot

  We’re half way through day one of AdTech Sydney, my netbook is recharged and it’s back to the grindstone.

  So what to make of it so far? Read more »

• Adtech live blog – Big ideas (and why iSpyLevis wasn’t one)

  Welcome back to Adtech Sydney.

  We’re into the second session, and I’m sitting in on a debate on Big ideas. Read more »

• Adtech Day 1: Live blog – Unilever’s Babs Rangaiah & Jenny Williams

  Welcome to Mumbrella’s live blog from Adtech Sydney.

  8.54. The hall’s starting to fill. Here we go…

  After a loud burst of Massive Attack or something suchlike chairman Jenny Williams takes the stage.

  And we’re off. And we’re straight into the annual question. Will this be the year of mobile. It usually takes at least half an hour til somebody asks that. Read more »

• Women don’t need special treatment

  “I fail to see why women are obliged to compete in the intellectual equivalent of the Paralympics.”

  A Cat In A Tree argues that the Social Media Women group will not help the feminist cause