Opinion
- 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 marketing
  
  Email 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?

Murdoch and Google redux

I wouldn’t blame you for being bored of my views on the Google versus Murdoch debate by now.

But if you’re not, last week’s opinion piece on why Murdoch may have a point, which was triggered by his threat not to index on Google, led to an invitation to write a piece on the issue for The Australian.

You can read it here.

Tim Burrowes

November 16th, 2009 at 10:57 am

Comments

Rog
16 Nov 09
11:49 am

Nice piece! Still no link love for you though

Matt
16 Nov 09
11:51 am

Funny how a change of heart suggesting Rupert might be on to something leads to an invitation to write about the issue in the Murdoch press, huh?!?

Nothing against your piece, Tim. I think you make a good point and it’s an interesting addition to the debate.

I just very much doubt that someone who added to the debate, but didn’t come around to Rupert’s way of thinking would ever have received a similar invitation.

Larry
16 Nov 09
11:56 am

i’m curious whether they paid for the piece … seeing how they want to be paid by the search engines for indexing their content.

mumbrella?

mumbrella
16 Nov 09
12:18 pm

Hi Larry,

I was delighted to be asked to write the piece, and didn’t ask for payment, as the potential exposure made writing the piece worthwhile on its own. The same has previously applied when writing for the likes of the Walkley magazine, Crikey, ABC online and others.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

Gavin
16 Nov 09
1:54 pm

Tim
Think Matt’s point is worth revisiting. i read your Crikey piece, which was rivetting. I haven’t gone to da Oz as yet. However, if the outcome of the Crikey piece was that Rupert was up himself (as everyone else thinks), do you think da Oz would’ve asked you to write for them?
Cheers
Gavin

mc
16 Nov 09
1:55 pm

“But this bonus Google traffic was going to be of little interest to our advertisers.”

Because the people involved aren’t in the target audience? If so, this is unlikely to be much of a factor in Murdoch’s thinking, given the relative broadness of most of his properties.

Gavin
16 Nov 09
2:08 pm

yeah, and is it normal for da oz to not give link love?

JeffD
16 Nov 09
2:27 pm

Murdoch Vs Internet. Ive got my money on the Internet being around longer, and being stronger, even without him!

JeffD
16 Nov 09
2:30 pm

If News Ltd ceases all it’s printing tomorrow, would we notice? or would we care? Will the internet survive? Murdoch seems to think it wont without him. The ‘internets’ is already writing his obituary, and News LTD’s. Well, actually, he’s writing the Obit’ for News LTD each time he opens his mouth.

John Grono
16 Nov 09
3:00 pm

Jeff … good to see you’re willing to gamble your money away, but not pay for online content. I bet you were also one of those people who said they’d never pay to use a toll road.

JeffD
16 Nov 09
3:55 pm

No John;
I dont pay for online comment, my visits to the sites I do frequent gives them the numbers they need to reach advertisers they need to exist, like a free publication, twhich even News LTD owns a few around the world.

And why would I want to pay for Tolls when the fuel taxes we pay with every litre are suppose to go into making roads. Why is it ok to take our taxes for roads via the bowser, and then charge us to use the road that our taxes are suppose to produce, that’s a double tax. Good on ya Labor! and all those ‘special’ deals you do with corporations to ream everyone, you know, all those blue collar workers your suppose to represent and think about….

Larry
16 Nov 09
4:05 pm

who let grampa simpson on here!! and when did he change his name to jeffD

“a … then b … c would usually follow”

mumbrella
16 Nov 09
4:06 pm

Hi Gavin,

I suspect not. But there again, the tide of outside opinion has tended to be that Murdoch’s plan doesn’t stand a chance. So to have yet another person write that would be pretty boring.

Cheers,

Tim

JeffD
16 Nov 09
4:21 pm

@ Larry, says the guy who can’t even follow a thread. A thread..? What’s a thread, doh! You must be one of the News LTD Shills sent out like a good republican just like the rest of Fox (Faux) news, to insult anyone that dares says the truth about News LTD, even if it is bad.

Tim Kastelle
16 Nov 09
4:57 pm

Nice article Tim. While I’m working at considerably lower volume than you are in terms of readers, I’ve still been giving these issues some thought myself recently. I see your point about the wave of sudden readers not being in your advertisors’ target market, but I’m still not sure that the long-term benefit was modest. For example, how many of the extra 25k might have added you to an RSS feed? I’ll bet there was some kind of jump resulting from the surge. Analytics for blogs still seem to be pretty hard to figure, but I think that at minimum we need to be measuring both hits and feeds. Figuring out how the two interact for a particular blog will end up being quite valuable.

Holgs
17 Nov 09
3:39 am

I tend to agree with your comments in the article. I think a lot of people obsess about how their material appears in google, but the reality is that better traffic comes from other sources, and building up a readership of people who value your content. One of the problems google seems to be creating more broadly is that it encourages people to create low-cost, low-value content monetised by low-value advertising (ie. adsense).

John Grono
17 Nov 09
8:35 am

… in other words Holgs … it’s a race to the bottom. I wonder why Murdoch doesn’t want to play that game?

Alexander
17 Nov 09
9:55 pm

Good on you Mum, enjoyed the Oz article but it cost me $1.50. BTW why don’t you write an article – “Cynicism – a comparison of US and Australian blog respondents” – something like that. Could be amazing findings…….

Oh, and something for you to mull over – while it may be possible for Rupe to save the day the problem he has is too many advisers who understand too little about the Internet. and have too little imagination. Some even have a proven track record of sending top non Rupe properties downhill. And look what is happening to Myspace……. Let’s hope quality journalism isnt flushed away in the fall-out.