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Opinion | Features
Why is advertising so much better in New Zealand than Australia?
Ok, so this isn’t a new observation.
But it really hit home after I watched some TV ads for a kiwi supermarket yesterday that advertising in New Zealand is so much better than much of the crap that is being served up in this country at the moment.
Why is it that Colenso BBDO Auckland can turn something as bland as a supermarket chain into a brand I almost like, while Australian agencies succeed only in either irritating me (Coles) or passing me by unnoticed (Woolies) because the ads are so average?
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.
NAB’s Break Up campaign changes tack to focus on honesty
NAB’s ‘Break Up’ campaign has changed tack, with the launch of a series of social experiments to test the honesty of Australian consumers. The idea is that Australians are essentially an honest bunch, so deserve an honest credit card to match.
The series of stunts called ‘the Honesty Experiments’, were orchestrated by Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and Will O’Rourke, the production company which includes The Chaser’s Julian Morrow, Craig Reucassel and Dominic Knight on its roster.
In the stunts Australians were filmed in three different scenarios to reveal their honesty.
The first was a coffee vendor who gives the wrong change:
The second involved a dropped wallet.
The third involved a man with leaky pockets.
July 13th, 2011 at 9:40 am
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Comments
13 Jul 11
9:45 am
ha, an honesty experiment from a bank!
13 Jul 11
10:19 am
This is one of the best bank campaigns that i have seen. Extremely enjoyable and thought provoking. Makes me slightly more proud of being an aussie.
I do wonder if these ad are working for them tho.
13 Jul 11
10:48 am
Brilliant, just brilliant.
13 Jul 11
10:56 am
Very cool.
13 Jul 11
11:01 am
So this is what that story about “a study on Australians’ honesty” on the 8:30am news was about… nicely played.
13 Jul 11
11:06 am
Australian’s are an honest bunch, but trying to link that kindness to a corporation that has nothing to do with someone simply being nice is absurd.
13 Jul 11
11:18 am
This is such a fantastic campaign. I have nothing to do with it, but wish I did.
It makes the ANZ and Westpac work look embarrassingly poor.
13 Jul 11
11:31 am
Great stuff indeed, witty, nice insight, nicely executed, more please.
13 Jul 11
11:48 am
Excellent! True consumer-centric work. The trick is whether the NAB product people can overcome the intricacies and complications of bank-land and now deliver on the ad promise with a genuinely “honest” credit card. If they can, and follow up with with other no bullshit consumer friendly banking products, NAB deserves to be no1. It’s not rocket science!
13 Jul 11
12:03 pm
Best work from a bank in a long time.
13 Jul 11
12:12 pm
I do like the idea, and very much applaud them for trying it. Hopefully it works. Getting a bank linked to “honesty” though is a very large hurdle for the campaign, but well worth the shot.
13 Jul 11
12:13 pm
Hello. For the record these spots and the original NAB Break Up campaign were directed by The Glue Society, another creative group on our roster.
13 Jul 11
12:15 pm
Hat’s of guys. This is great! That Batista is a classic… “When did you decide you had that condition”. Top work!
13 Jul 11
12:27 pm
Great campaign and very similar to the Fun Theory by Volkswagen. Great positioning and excellent execution.
13 Jul 11
12:39 pm
Brilliant! Very clever indeed. I think this will definitely win more hearts than the break up campaign
13 Jul 11
12:39 pm
nicely executed and plays on the patriotic nature of many.
13 Jul 11
12:40 pm
What’s an honest credit card?
Does it tell you that you’d be better off saving up before making a purchase?
Does it tell you that buying $500 jeans won’t make you cooler?
13 Jul 11
12:45 pm
Very nice.
Does this mean NAB are going to stop raping us with their standard credit card rate of 19.74%? Plus an annual fee for the pleasure of paying that 19.74%?
No? It doesn’t?
Didn’t think so.
13 Jul 11
12:55 pm
So, let me get this right, does the first video (the coffee cart one) teach us that even when people treat us like shit we’re still prepared to pay their prices and won’t seek to take advantage when the opportunity arises?
What possible lesson could a bank learn from that…
13 Jul 11
1:00 pm
Great campaign. Its simular to a campaign I wrote about in May for Honest Tea. You can see that video here:
http://bravoexperience.com/hon.....n-america/
Honest Tea set up a social experiment to see which city in America is the most honest.
13 Jul 11
1:09 pm
I like the idea but linking back to a bank that has such hefty profits doesnt fit. They should have saved the money on the ads and cut their Credit Card interest rates and be a little more honest with how much profit they make from their customers.
13 Jul 11
1:14 pm
Love it!
13 Jul 11
1:49 pm
Is this and the Break Up idea a campaign then or just a tactical execution with neither having any synergy with the overall brand promise, first I break up and now I’m honest
13 Jul 11
2:18 pm
Ok so this ad basicly says that even thought we are getting bad service we will still stay with the same company. I got bad service at the NAB and now I deal with a lot friendlier bank!!!
13 Jul 11
2:53 pm
Great campaign – for Clem’s. At the end of the day it’s still a big bank out to make record profits for their investors no matter how much smoke they blow up our ass.
13 Jul 11
5:22 pm
Thumbs up NAB. I may actually think about switching from ANZ.
13 Jul 11
5:30 pm
All NAB work is all very nice. But has a used by date equal to the next CPI rate rise. After that happens, and it can’t be far away, all this wonderful work will be a long distant memory because NAB will be one of the big four again.
All this is cute, but from a strategic sense, hopelessly narrow-sighted
13 Jul 11
8:23 pm
As an observer of various marketing blogs it’s interesting to witness continuing disbelief at NAB marketing claims….’it won’t last’….’what about the profits’….’wait till the next RBA rate rise’…etc.etc.
Maybe NAB is on a truly differentiated path. Maybe they mean what they say and as an organisation they truly want to change.
Worth considering don’t you think?
They’ve been at this for a while now after all and the well-publicised results speak for themselves.
Anyhow, more great work from NAB. Well done them and well done Clems.
13 Jul 11
8:24 pm
As an observer of various marketing blogs it’s interesting to witness continuing disbelief at NAB marketing claims….’it won’t last’….’what about the profits’….’wait till the next RBA rate rise’…etc.etc.
Maybe NAB is on a truly differentiated path. Maybe they mean what they say and as an organisation they truly want to change.
Worth considering don’t you think?
They’ve been at this for a while now after all and the well-publicised results speak for themselves.
Anyhow, more great work from NAB. Well done them and well done Clems.
13 Jul 11
9:05 pm
Snap! I work at another bank – we have missed the mark. We forgot the customer centric and single minded delivery. Us in banking face into the marketing challenge everyday of over coming all the negative comments above. But this serves its purpose and does it extremely well. I’d say take a bow Nab marketing.
13 Jul 11
10:58 pm
Call Adpolice – clearly “inspired by” Honest Tea
14 Jul 11
9:16 am
I only hope this inspires other banks to be more customer focused
14 Jul 11
9:25 am
The NAB credit card products are different from other banks in this way
* No overlimit fees
* Late payment fees reduced to $5
* Payments to your card are applied to balances attracting higher interest rates first (eg if you have done a cash advance)
* Balance transfer amounts are charged at the purchase interest rate after the balance transfer rate period has ended.
Because of these changes NAB customers have saved bucket loads of dollars.
Seems far more ‘honest’ than other institution credit cards.
Yes I work for NAB, very proud too.
14 Jul 11
11:23 am
i’ve never understood this and maybe you can enlighten me Kelly from NAB – why the hell do credit cards have late payment fees? isn’t that what the exorbitant credit card interest rates are for?
you can fiddle around the edges all you want but until a bank overhauls the entire corrupt system of bad service and BS fees and charges, these “clever” marketing campaigns will be little more than window dressing.
14 Jul 11
4:50 pm
the most insightful thing said about the NAB campaign is this:
Comment from Alan Smith, Associate Director Corporate Communications at Altium:
Clemenger BBDO is confusing the orchestrated dumping of a message into social media channels as public relations,
assuming that this adjunct to their mainstream media spend on advertising passes the PR test. What is missing is
engagement from the audiences they seek to influence. There’s no conversation that I can see. Their premise and rationale
remain rooted in classic ad‐speak: buy the space and shout. That they haven’t actually had to buy the social media space
hasn’t stopped them from shouting.
There’s no doubt that the advertising has cut through, and I happen to think that it’s a well‐thought through strategy that
hooks everything together. But the editorial coverage has been about the campaign, not the actual benefits to the bank’s
customers.
Away from media relations to a broader public relations comment, this is more difficult to measure from where I’m sitting.
Maybe lots of NAB customers have contacted NAB to congratulate them on the new bank account structures and fees. If so,
that would be a justifiable PR measurement and a credible claim for success.
But in that Clemenger BBDO claims $5 million of earned media on one day, I doubt it. They have clearly not realized that
public relations measurements are no longer couched in some sort of advertising spend equivalent, as this is. Their measure
of success stops here. How are they calculating such a figure, if social media channels are free?
What’s more credible is the increase in new business from people opening NAB accounts, but of course no‐one can quantify
which bit of the integrated communications had the most effect.
This is a great example of an integrated communications program. Some of the other entrants might be regarded as PR
programs, and certainly seem to be devoid of any advertising (shouting) effects.
14 Jul 11
7:24 pm
Great ad! Makes me want to sign up with NAB
15 Jul 11
8:54 am
Sven, that commentary was about NAB winning the PR Grand Prix – from a PR professional bitter that an ad agency had claimed the prize.
Some of his commentary is valid, a lot of it is horseshit.
If you’re disputing the earned media value may I direct you to the Cannes awards reel (available publicly). The volume of earned medai gained by the campaign is insane.
As for inspiring comversations with customers take a look at NAB’s social media channels. You’ll find plenty of Break Up inspired discussion taking place there.
And finally (although there’s lots more I’d like to say but will keep it succinct) the campaign has directly attracted over 225,000 new customes to NAB. Is that enough quantification for you?
Take your ill-informed ‘cut and pasting’ elsewhere Sven and accept that NAB are on fire.
15 Jul 11
10:37 am
A round of applause for NAB as it is about time a bank was more customer orientated than revenue but after leaving NAB 7yrs ago I would not go back, the memory of poor service, ridiculous fees and account stuff ups is still there……
15 Jul 11
4:48 pm
8.54am you could do with less defensive vitriol and more attention to detail – perhaps even some cutting and pasting. I’ve lost track of the number of letters left off words in your ranting post. I can assume that literacy is not a pre-condition to employment in whichever part of NAB or its agencies you work.
Rather than impress us with breathless hyperbole and unsubstantiated assertion, would you care to provide some actual numbers? Show us just how ‘insane’ the results are. Regurgitating press releases doesn’t impress anyone.
I’m so glad you mentioned the 225,000 customer switching figure. I saw this on an outdoor ad the other day. Aside from the fact that you can’t attribute the decision to change banks to any one factor (or did you poll the customers yourself), the claim does beg the question – is this figure gross or net of those switching out of NAB? Given that customers switch banks every day for a myriad of reasons, the only figure that counts is an increase in net switched customers compared with a previous corresponding period. To quote an absolute figure is misleading in the extreme. Which, i suppose, is why you used it.
18 Jul 11
9:40 am
Do it in Dandenong or Broadmeadows…. lets see then
18 Jul 11
2:15 pm
Saw the coffee vendor spot on air last night. Love it! Noticeable, relevant, memorable. Part of great brand advertising especially in bank land. ANZ take a leaf from their book (the Simon Baker spots are AWFUL). And Westpac’s talking heads aren’t much better. Do they think they can bore me into liking their brands?
18 Jul 11
6:26 pm
I LOVE these ads! Whether NAB’s credit card rate rips you off is irrelevant, the point of advertising is to lure and entice, not to report to a freaking ethics council. Suspect the coffee cart one is just testing how accustomed Australians are to getting bad service…
9 Aug 11
12:53 pm
I work at a competitor and I must say, I really, really like these ads. Not just as a a marketing person (I love how clean and single-minded these are) but as a consumer who is sick of trying to decipher meaning from ads (ANZ anyone!?)
Alas, the focus at our organisation is on squeezing as many messages as humanly possible into one execution, and then promptly achieving zip. Oh well.
Even our legal team here think the nab ads are excellent, which, given the calibre of said individuals hardly constitututes a compliment. However, that aside it’s actually great that you aren’t being handbraked by ensuring the ad is ‘legally’ compliant at the expense of delivering a solid, strong customer message.
I never thought I’d say this, but well done NAB, this campaign is well, well deserved of the industry’s praise. It’s excellent.
11 Aug 11
2:09 pm
It’s smart. Instead of chest beating about how honest they are, NAB proved how honest we all are and then offered us a product worthy of us. It redefines feelgood in advertising.