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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 While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated.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.
Mumbrella Readers Choice Awards to go out live
In what may be a world first for a media and marketing industry awards show, The Mumbrella People’s Choice Awards is to be live streamed.
It will take place in Sydney in front of a select industry audience on the morning of Thursday December 10 and be broadcast from Studio 33, Mumbrella’s production partner in our video programme The Mumbo Report.
The formal call for entries for the Mumbrella Readers Choice Awards opens today. The categories are:
(Update: See our call for entries for eligibility for the ‘creative agency’ category. But to clarify one or two misunderstandings in the comment stream below from those that haven’t read that page, any agency which helps a brand create a communication with consumers is eligible for that category, regardless of specialty. That could include traditional, digital or experiential agency, for instance.)
Full details of how to enter are on the call for entries.
Sponsored by:
November 13th, 2009 at 11:26 am
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Comments
13 Nov 09
12:12 pm
digital agencies don’t get their own category? i feel intimidated by the big ATL guys
13 Nov 09
12:15 pm
I’m with Ash – what happens if we’re both Creative, and Media, but primarily digital ?
13 Nov 09
12:18 pm
Glad to see your ‘progressive’ new awards have ignored Promotional Marketing which continues to enjoy phenomenal growth, influence & share of spend (& awards for that matter).
13 Nov 09
1:25 pm
The list reflects the blinkered view of the marketing mix. Update please
13 Nov 09
1:26 pm
No consideration for Events, Event Marketing or Brand Experiences? Surely effective integrated campaigns have Brand Experience at their core?
Maybe next time.
13 Nov 09
1:37 pm
A can of worms has been opened!
13 Nov 09
2:02 pm
Just a quick response as I’m currently at the Bell Awards. Do take a look at the FAQs.
My view is that experiential is a subset of creative. Ditto on promo. If what you do is creative enough then throw your hat in the ring.
The beef’s just arrived – more later…
Cheers,
Tim – mumbrella
13 Nov 09
3:15 pm
You’ve either had too much to drink or are completely out of touch then Tim
13 Nov 09
3:16 pm
Seems a tired format to base the awards around what kind of organisation you are when lines are now so blurred that creative ideas, expression and comms execution are what really matter and are perfoemed by a host of advertising/marketing types
Why not focus on the people, project or solution?? So. Most creative team rather than agency.. opens it up to anybody who consider themselves creative? Forget best media agency.. what about Best consumer communications solution, Best business communications solution?? etc
13 Nov 09
11:05 pm
Tim, I agree with much of the sentiment here, in particular digital, that is surely a category which is an essential ingredient of any awards today.
Creative is almost always an essential component to more segmented and invariably challenging markets, such as those mentioned, ie Event Marketing.
I guess the difficulty is how many categories do you actually offfer up for entry, without catering fro every one or alienating others, and really, how long do we want to be sitting around sipping wine watching statuettes get handed out.
But please, don’t ignore digital, that tarnishes the awards.
14 Nov 09
1:18 pm
It is a bit disappointing…what about experiential, or the celebration of brilliant integration … Tired categories indeed.
14 Nov 09
3:45 pm
(Back from the Bell Awards – sorry for the radio silence, the sponsor speeches alone went on for eight or nine hours…)
Thanks for the comments.
To address the general point made by Marilynn, Chris, Darren, Will & Colin…
I’d better clear up some assumptions about what we mean by ‘creative agency’. What we do not mean is ‘traditional agency’, which one or two people seem to be reading it as.
Do take a look at the call for entries page, and the FAQs (which I’m sure will get longer in the next few days!): “What’s your definition of a creative agency? Any agency that creates something that helps a brand reach consumers. That could include traditional ad agencies, digital agencies, experiential agencies or social media agencies.”
So in other words, if you work in promo marketing, experiential or digital for example , you’ve every right, as far as we’re concerned, to compete for the title of creative agency of the year.
It is precisely because of those blurring lines Darren refers to that we’ve taken the decision not to have a succession of speciality categories, but recognise that the marketing mix is too complex now to pigeonhole what an agency does.
Hopefully if you’re in a specialist role, your ideas and executions are good enough to go up against the agency behemoths. It seems to me that taking on all comers to win such an award is far more meaningful.
It’s probably the first time that an industry awards has taken this approach, so I should have drawn more attention to it in the above news story, rather han relying on people reading the full call for entries which is admittedly a chore.
In other words, I violently agree with the well-intentioned comments above, which is why we’ve done it this way.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
15 Nov 09
5:58 pm
Feel like a bit of a dick now, Will?
No need to be quite as obnoxious when you comment. It can make you like like a prat if you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
Or perhaps you’d had some Friday lunchtime confidence juice yourself.
16 Nov 09
11:36 pm
Like it! Marketing peeps overly confident about how important their part in the promotions game is!
Did Edward M Forster read a similar dialogue when he was moved to say: “The idea that nations should love one another, or that business concerns or marketing boards should love one another, or that a man in Portugal should love a man in Peru of whom he has never heard — it is absurd, unreal, dangerous. The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much?”
Peoples choice awards are good. Nice and democratic. So good on you mUmBRELLA for using the full force of this interweb thing!
My suggestion, if I may, is to set the criteria in terms of the best efforts in getting others to buy/accept a brand, a product, a service, membership, change, etc… (given that’s what marketing should be about)
And maybe a people’s choice award in terms of the biggest flop? Not to ridicule, but for others to learn from…