-
Opinion
Video: How to win new business
Mumbrella Question Time saw the panel asked the secrets of winning new business. Read more »
Let’s stop the anonymous vitriol
In this guest posting, Peter Bray, boss of The Brand Shop, takes issue with negative comments from anonymous posters on Mumbrella and elsewhere.
There are very few ads that I vehemently dislike. There are also very few ads that I really love. But most ads I see on Mumbrella and other blogs I can usually take something from, whether it is information about the brand, a bit of inspiration or a “watch out”. I’m open to learning as much as I can from others, and encourage those around me to do the same.
My basic assumption, however, is that because an ad has been produced by a professional agency, and had the approval from the client, then the end result must be doing something right. Therefore, without knowing the practical rationale behind the ad, for me to have a strong opinion about whether it is great advertising would be kind of arrogant. There is a reason that awards shows ask for information about why an ad was created: they are rarely judged on end product alone.
So as someone who enjoys watching the work that our industry creates, I am stunned at the level of vitriol stemming from some people’s comments in both this blog and others. Read more »
Read his lips
This is several weeks old, but worth a look. It’s certainly an original way to deal with media criticism.It features Air NZ boss Rob Fyfe responding to weekly current affairs magazine The Listener using the medium of sign language. Read more »
Let’s not be too positive just yet – the nail is still there
It’s more than a year since News Ltd’s marketing boss Joe Talcott used the memorable analogy of a dog whimpering on a nail to describe the structural change the industry needs to go through. Read more »
The AdNews numbers that mislead the market
It’s always a tad tawdry when competitors attack each other, but I hope you’ll bear with me…
Whether cynically or through incompetence, AdNews has been misleading its advertisers by providing them with data that seems to suggest they have six times their true online audience.
Allow me to present the evidence. Read more »
Technology will help us own the agenda – all day, every day
In this opening speech to the Future Forum of the Newspaper Publishers Association, News Ltd CEO John Hartigan argued that news organisations have the opportunity to become more rather than less relevant.
Today I want to talk about a tipping point that heralds the most exciting era for journalism. The most exciting era ever.
This tipping point is already upon us. It has arrived at lightning speed, with the explosion in demand for mobile devices.
I am not consigning newspapers to the scrapheap. Not by a long shot.
But this tipping point is going to change journalism forever. In my opinion, very much for the better. Read more »
The real time shit sandwich detector
In this guest post, Clive Burcham of The Conscience Organisation, relishes the instant feedback of social media.
I’ve been making brand driven content since 1996 and often I’ve been so close to the work that I couldn’t tell the difference between if we were chomping on a shit sandwich or savouring the crème de la creme. From an audience perspective, we wouldn’t know the difference for weeks or months. What excites me most now is that we know within 24 hours if we’ve developed shit or cream. Read more »
SMH shows how to make a home page takeover work
When you’re a commercial organisation, balancing the needs of consumers with the need to make money through ads is tricky.
Among the organisations that sometimes goes the wrong way in my view is Fairfax, with its autostart video ads, for instance.
But today, a bit of unreserved praise Read more »
Inside the Foxtel factory
Having been at the launch of Foxtel’s new season the other night, nine points occur… Read more »
ABC News 24 – a handy service for niche journalists
It may not have many viewers yet, but ABC News 24 saves specialist journos having to leave their desks, argues Delimiter’s Renai LeMay
When media commentators discuss the future of journalism, they usually agree on at least one thing: It will involve much fewer generalists and more reporters dedicated to exhaustively covering niche fields. Read more »
The seven ages of Carlton Draught’s Made From Beer
Today sees the launch of “Slow Mo”, the latest instalment of Carlton Draught’s irreverent Made From Beer series.
It’s been quite a run – from the highly awarded Big Ad, to the comedy of Flash Beer, to the debacle of the abortive banned Tingle campaign. These are the seven ages of Made From Beer… Read more »
Real consumers don’t have ‘brand conversations’. They use search
In this guest posting, Simon van Wyk argues that much as marketers might wish otherwise, most consumers don’t have emotional connections with brands
I have a background in marketing, but my understanding of branding seems at odds with the 2010 opinions I see from social media commentators, marketing and advertising agencies. Read more »
Hot, censoring atheists: Google’s insight into what punters think about pollies and journos
One of the charms of Google is autocomplete, where it takes a punt on what you’re going to ask, based on what the rest of the world has been wondering previously.
And it certainly gives a few insights into the high quality of political debate about the Labor leaders in the run up to the election.
Take NSW premiere Kristina Keneally… Read more »
The copyright-busting election
This is rapidly turning into the copyright-infringing election. Read more »
Digital Fail: The gaping void in digital training is failing our industry
In this guest post, Amnesia Razorfish’s Iain McDonald warns that the industry has fallen badly behind on digital training.
Before I get accused of trolling with that headline, I’ll state what I think is obvious: The current education system isn’t producing or nurturing enough ‘digitally skilled’ individuals to sustain a growing a digital economy. Read more »
Numbers prove success of Flip’s Bondi flashmob
You may remember at the beginning November, Razor, sister creative agency Us and Curious staged a dance flashmob at Bondi Beach for the Flip video camera. At the time, comments were mixed, but a month on, looking at the number of views it’s received on YouTube, it’s got to be put down as a good day’s work.
At the time of writing, the first, rough video they posted is approaching a third of a million views.
And the more edited version that followed has clocked up nearly 75,000.
Even the Mardi Gras-themed spoof response has had 237,000.
I’d say the client would be happy with all that.
Tim Burrowes
December 1st, 2009 at 10:02 am
-
Follow Us
-
Email Newsletter
Latest Jobs- Junior Producer - Sydney
- Senior E-commerce Marketing Specialist – Travel sector - Sydney
- Product Manager - Online Media Company - Sydney
- Marketing Executive - global technology company - Sydney
- 1192 Account Director, Melbourne - Melbourne
- Communications Strategist - Sydney
- Brand Strategist - Sydney or Melbourne
- Senior Account Manager, Sports Marketing - Sydney
- Graduate Analyst - Digital Media, $35,000 to $50,000 depending on experience - Sydney
- Head of Content & Ideation - Sydney, NSW, Australia
Comments
2 Dec 09
3:19 pm
Considering this piece of promo was for a flip video camera, I’d like to see some further stats for the said camera before saying if this was a success or not.
Just because the promo created some buzz and it gets some hits on YouTube, does not make it a success – the proof of the pudding is in how much more traffic to the video camera website or actual sales of the camera it created. From my memory of the ad as well, I couldn’t see any actual link from the flashmob to the camera, other than I thought the ad was very badly shot, so in that sense it could be a complete flop?
Thoughts?!
2 Dec 09
4:13 pm
.. and I think that is testimony to the fact that:
a) it can be tricky to correctly predict the success or otherwise of any marketing idea when you’re in the industry
b) some people will watch literally anything
c) I’m sure there’s a c).. and a d)..
2 Dec 09
4:20 pm
… and numbers that would get a TV programme axed … just providing some perspective.
3 Dec 09
9:08 am
Tony, if only every piece of the marketing effort could be directly linked to sales! Unfortunately, we are almost certainly never going to achieve that. Instead each aspect of the communications solution is assigned a more acjhievable goal and corresponding metric… like views in this case.. and when it achieves those it is said to have been successful in driving awareness of the product among its target audience.. of course the hope is that this translates into sales.. but you can lead a horse to water…
3 Dec 09
9:43 am
They should have followed it up with mainstream media because I have not seen the flip camera anywhere.
3 Dec 09
10:29 am
Hey Darren,
you mentioned “…been successful in driving awareness of the product among its target audience”…sorry but I could not find anything relating to the product in the ad, so from my point of view the ad was a total failure as it didn’t relate anything to it.
Then when I found out via the Mumbrella forums that it was for a flip video gadget, it completely turned me off because the actual video quality and camera work was so shoddy.
So although I watched it twice, the ad did nothing for me – you’re right people will watch anything if it gets some buzz behind it, but saying you can’t track and directly link every piece of marketing effort to sales or awareness of a product is not entirely correct. I’ve been involved in plenty of marketing campaigns across TV, mobile, web, banner-ads, billboards, flyers – you name it, and on the majority of them we’ve successfully tracked them through to website visits, signups, sales, requested demos, sales leads, increases in customer databases etc.etc. Granted you nearly always have to make 1 or 2 assumptions but with sound logic and reasoning behind statistics, and using a solid analystics & tracking solution you can determine whether something has been a success.
Another good point from Andrew as well – have they followed this up with a mainstream media campaign of any sort? I haven’t seen anything as well, and thinking about it…I still can’t recall the name of the device anywhere!