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Opinion
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.
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?
One-eyed Willy’s rich stuff: brands as movie heroes
I have just spent an entire day on a plane. I can’t sleep on flights, even after heavy sedation. So I watched seven films, back to back. Most of the new ones were truly awful and I couldn’t finish them. So I watched an old favourite, The Goonies. I have probably watched this film more than 200 times since I was a kid. But this time, with work in the back of my mind, one thing stuck out – how much brands were the stars of the film.The gospel of participation is making brands forget about mass reach
In this guest post, Simon Lawson argues that brands are becoming obsessed with getting consumers to participate, rather than remembering to deliver mass exposure.I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of brands are wasting significant amounts of time and money on ineffective marketing. Large sums are being put behind tactics which end up being too small to have much chance of influencing total brand preference.
Men from Uncle pull off spectacular ATM brand hijack
Marketing agency Uncle has pulled off an audacious ambient stunt, rebranding 16 of Sydney’s ATMs for its client Tax Today in a 3am raid.
The guerrilla marketing project saw a team fit specially prepared boards around ANZ, NAB and Westpac machines in Sydney’s CBD during a 3am mission.
The message on the boards – designed to promote the same-day tax refund service provided by Tax Today – was “Get your tax refund this fast”.
Uncle – which is a year old – used freelance creative Adam Hunt for the project. In May, Hunt’s anti discrimination ad created for The Gruen Transfer became hugely controversial after the ABC refused to air it.
Uncle director Rupert Pay said that the only hitch was when a policeman became suspicious of a photographer used by the agency to photograph the process. Although police ripped one down immediately, some of the boards were up until at least 11.30am the next day, he said.
Pay said: “I recommended to the client that we should do some sort of ambient stunt and Adam came back with some ideas. The ATM is the perfect visual metaphor for instant cash.”
Pay conceded that he had angered some of the brands involved. He said: “As you can imagine I did get some phone calls. But we were very careful to not use any adhesive or cover up any information.”
He added: “I think we’ve found a new medium. There should be people rubbing their hands together and thinking they’ve got a great new opportunity.”
July 7th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
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Comments
7 Jul 09
6:45 pm
Great idea and an apt metaphor. But aren’t there laws against defacing property, even if its impermanent?
7 Jul 09
7:10 pm
Come on you’ve got a love a bit of guerilla advertising.Shame we’re all usually too scared of the ‘ramifications’ to even suggest it to a client.
Great to see a client with the balls to say yes. Nice one Uncle.
7 Jul 09
7:29 pm
I’m sure these photos will look great on Uncle’s website.
I know it’s boring to think of marketing and advertising as a business and not a creative fancy, but I’d be interested to know how the success of this execution will be determined. ROI? Brand awareness and perception metrics? Good old fashioned CPM? I haven’t heard of this anywhere else but here so presumably not via value of PR generated.
Ok yes I’m being more than a little facetious. It is a nice creative idea, but it looks like they forgot to have the rest of the conversation. Guerilla marketing can work but it needs to have scale and context in keeping with business objectives. Presumably, this ballsy client wants more of the tax return business so will be interested to learn how many more people called them today.
7 Jul 09
7:35 pm
Hi Rachael,
You may prove to be right, but it’s too early to judge the PR component just yet.
As a lucky Mumbrella reader, you’re getting the sneak preview as I think we’re the first to report it. I understand that the PR push begins about now so you might see this story appear on other outlets tomorrow.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
7 Jul 09
7:45 pm
D’ya mean other marketing and advertising outlets Tim? Surely it’s reaching potential customers that matters via more mainstream outlets? If this happened this morning and was done by 11.30am, I would have expected reportage on this before now (and it sounds like they had to tell you about it…you didn’t know about this because of all the buzz?). Feels like a flawed PR strategy to me.
I wish them every success and hope that ‘heaps’ of predisposed customers call them to do their tax returns.
7 Jul 09
7:50 pm
Hi Rachael,
I do mean mainstream outlets.
Although I don’t have the inside track on their PR strategy, I’m assuming they’ll be trying for consumer PR.
If they succeed in getting that, it probably won’t matter to the client whether it came via a word in the ear of journos, or spontaneous buzz.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
7 Jul 09
7:55 pm
Let’s hope no one famous dies over night then. ;->
7 Jul 09
8:12 pm
Or has a big memorial service…
7 Jul 09
10:13 pm
I wonder how many journalists will report this. Am I wrong to suggest that doing something that’s supposed to be audacious and then sending out a press release telling everyone what you did is a little bit lame? If they get press for the client then they’ve got a lot of free coverage out of it but if not I guess it’s a pretty cheap stunt and there’s not that much harm done. One possible problem is that with consumers being told to be on the lookout for anything “different” about ATM’s in the wake of card skimming could it possibly have a backlash effect?
7 Jul 09
10:30 pm
Definitely illegal. And as they’re claiming credit, a prosecution should be a slam-dunk.
8 Jul 09
12:15 am
NOT a fan of this approach at all. “Guerrilla marketing” sounds so cool, but if I was ANZ, NAB or Westpac I’d be pursuing every possible form of legal action against Uncle. One also wonders how Tax Today would feel if someone hijacked its own advertising, or hijacked Tax Today’s Web site and plastered their logo over TT’s logo.
8 Jul 09
9:52 am
meh. I’m a fan of guerilla advertising, but this doesn’t excite me
8 Jul 09
10:01 am
Have we completely lost our sense of humour? Aren’t we taking this a bit too seriously? Can’t we rebel against precise measurement for just 24 hours?
8 Jul 09
10:04 am
A clever idea in my book. There’s not too many exciting ways to dress up tax
8 Jul 09
10:38 am
Ho hum.
Jojo: Yes, it’s a ‘clever’ idea, but it takes more than being rebellious or risky to be a really clever idea.
Tim: But what’s “spectacular” about it. Hitting every ATM in the CBD would be spectacular.
Kate: The execution isn’t particularly amusing because it’s not very surprising, doesn’t leave me wanting, and makes me feeling “so what?”
Could be crucified for saying say so at a time when irreverence is still a lingering trend, but don’t you think the copywriter could have tried/worked a bit harder/smarter?
8 Jul 09
10:55 am
Ballsy move.
If they had hit EVERY ATM in Sydney, then they’d probably draw too much attention to themselves from the fuzz. A select few in high profile areas was a good choice for awareness, but not saturation.
Nice to see a client trying something new. Especially from the traditionally boring tax department.
Mental note to self. Get tax return sorted.
8 Jul 09
11:56 am
Hard to beat blowing up ATMs as a stunt.
Would a big bully bank prosecute a small agency or bunch of boring tax accountants? Not if they’re smart. They’re already as popular as herpes.
Rather than a slam dunk, the PR value would be gold.
8 Jul 09
12:22 pm
1. Re The Stunt – personally I think it was a nice media idea – legal or not – and I wish I’d thought of it.
2. Re the comment by 11:56am “They’re already as popular as…” HILARIOUS. RAOFLMAO
8 Jul 09
12:45 pm
Brilliant creative idea, but I feel it lacks the scale required for meaningful impact on brand or revenue. Still waiting to see it break in mainstream media.
Interesting business model too. Would argue that those who need cash ‘now’ would be more likely to lodge dubious claims. I hope the client is vigilant!
… or has insurance!
8 Jul 09
2:39 pm
ATMs usually mean “grab the cash and run”. A. Not sure how many people are grabbing their cash at 3am. B. Can’t remember the last time I looked at what’s on the window around the ATM C. Haven’t looked at the creative carefully, but for those who had a quick read while they were grabbing their cash, wonder how many thought “great, my bank now offers tax return services….”
I think this one of those great creative ideas that everyone gets excited about, but I would be really interested to see the results in terms of a case study.
8 Jul 09
2:51 pm
Now the Chaser boys can copy that idea and use it in a skit?
8 Jul 09
3:01 pm
Brilliant idea but there’s one flaw
Did anyone see any of the ATM customers look up and notice the sign around the machine they were using?
I think the boards blended in too well and weren’t noticed.
8 Jul 09
10:11 pm
so why is the talk about this stunt about the team from uncle. shouldnt it have been about the client. who was the client again, and i’m wondering how much money they wasted on this. does pr within trade titles add value or is it to add to the company that did the stunt
9 Jul 09
9:49 am
Very creative idea, and a huge money spinner for a flotilla of lawyers too!
9 Jul 09
10:51 am
Watched all the news bulletins last night and weirdly this didn’t make the news.
Checked the newspapers too – couldn’t find anything
The client must be rapt about funding PR for the agency.
9 Jul 09
12:18 pm
Guerilla advertising?
An expensive flop and waste of money if the reaction, or lack of, by the public is any indication.
Just another PR stunt for a “creative” agency using a client’s name and money to push their “creative credentials”.
You have to worry when the major thrust relies on generating PR for the stunt and not for the product. It appears the only publicity generated is in the advertising sphere, not mass market. Fat lot of good that does for the client.
Let’s get a dose of reality happening here, folks.
9 Jul 09
2:25 pm
i’d never heard of Tax Today until now, had anyone else?
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