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Opinion | Features
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.
The top seven...most patronising pieces of communication
Sometimes brands have big ideas. Sometimes marketers get so caught up with a grandiose idea that instead of finding engaging ways to sell breakfast cereal, they start to believe their own rhetoric. And sometimes it’s just lazy marketing. Here are my top seven inadvertently patronising pieces of communication…
1) Last night thousands of women gathered in Sydney’s Centennial Park to take part in She Runs the Night, an event created by Nike.
TV audience measurement – why big isn’t always beautiful
In this guest post, Chris Walton argues that the media industry needs to take a new approach to TV tradingThere has been a significant amount of coverage recently about how successful The Voice has been. Indeed, audience figures of 2.6m+ people are very impressive these days. Based on reports, this is apparently double the size of audience that Nine was hoping for in the lead up to the programme launching.
Meet the Telstra social media team
Fair to say I’m not always a fan of Telstra (as a customer I occasionally experience their globally unique customer service so how can I be?).
But if there’s one thing the company has led the way on, it’s social media.
So I rather like this video introduction to their social media team.
There would not, I suspect, be any other brand in Australia that could boast a team this large focused just on social media.
Tim Burrowes
October 20th, 2010 at 10:20 am
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Comments
20 Oct 10
10:24 am
riveting
20 Oct 10
10:35 am
How to get customer service from Telstra.
Step 1. Never call their support centre.
Step 2. Try contacting them through Twitter (@BigPondTeam or @Telstra). If they can’t help..
Step 3. Email david.thodey@team.telstra.com with a polite email.
20 Oct 10
11:37 am
breaking the stereotypes!
20 Oct 10
11:38 am
I am the social media team at my organisation (or rather the one I work for) – the team is fantastic and love the video – i’m sure their customers appreciate the opportunity to meet them and get a few funny insights into some of the banter!
20 Oct 10
11:49 am
“We’re basically… a bunch of stereotypes.”
20 Oct 10
11:51 am
Now I know you. I’d like to apologies for all the swearing and name calling
20 Oct 10
11:54 am
I have accounts with optus and telstra. Fair to say I have had issues with both. Recently I vented my frustration on twitter for two separate problems. Optus tweeted back, called me, sorted the problem. Telstra? Tweeted me back, emailed me and then, crickets. Optus 1 Telstra 0.
20 Oct 10
11:55 am
Great to meet the team like this, they’re certainly a shining example of how to handle customer service in the social space. Nice work.
20 Oct 10
11:55 am
wow I wondered what David Brent was up to these days – now I know!
20 Oct 10
11:57 am
Maybe they should offer their team some healthy lunches
20 Oct 10
11:58 am
Big fan of the Telstra guys – best memory I have was one of them responding with a Futurama quote in reply to a tweet from me to Telstra’a head of social media Kristen Boschma.
Oh, and that time Telstra helped me out massively when I put a call out for assistance through Twitter: http://www.warlach.com/2010/02.....e-funeral/ (and the followup http://www.warlach.com/2010/02.....ospective/)
Whatever you say about the company, the social team do fantastic work.
20 Oct 10
12:08 pm
They all have great faces for Twitter.
20 Oct 10
12:09 pm
Whats that saying??
“Now there’s a face for twitter…”
20 Oct 10
12:19 pm
Tim
Was that a double meaning when you said that no other organisation could boast a team this large?
20 Oct 10
12:19 pm
It’s just Telstra employing a band to entertain customers while the good ship Titanic goes down. So glad to see the exhorbitant fees I pay being put to good use..
Still won’t stop my commitment to never spend another cent with the company in my life time once I come off contract.
20 Oct 10
12:23 pm
This is the face of Telstra’s brand online.
20 Oct 10
12:26 pm
Thom – way to get personal about it. Make a comment about what they’re doing for the business but let’s remember these are real people with feelings.
20 Oct 10
12:33 pm
Clearly Telstra appreciates the importance of being human in their social media dealings. I follow one of their Public Affairs and Media Manager on Twitter, @martinhbarr, to keep my finger on the Telstra pulse.
I’ve been impressed with Optus’ work also — especially their funky Youtube video on social media use in Australia. Check it out here: http://www.sr7.com.au/?p=248
20 Oct 10
12:35 pm
My one or two experiences with @telstra have both been fantastic. The rest of Telstra’s ‘customer service’ could learn a thing or ten.
20 Oct 10
1:37 pm
On Mumbrella and other advertising blogs a common complaint of new creative is that it may be good but it doesnt actually reflect the reality of the prodcut/service or the company selling the prodcut/service. I fear social media/twitter is also guilty of this. The customer service that organistaions tweeter accounts provide is not reflective of the general customer service that is provided and which 99.9% of all customers receive. My experience of Telstra’s customer service or lack of it was a 4 week nightmare of no broadband.
The easy option would be for me to switch all customer queries via Tweeter, however, if everyone did this it woudl be mereely switching the problem form one team to another team and the smiles of the 4 happy campers in the video would quickly dissappear as theri workload multiplied, and probably their roles would also disappear to an offshore customer centre.
20 Oct 10
1:47 pm
Adam – that video you posted is classic as it links to one of Tims other articles … check it here: http://mumbrella.com.au/20-cop.....more-34855
Optus are producing creative / content that is a copy of Sprint in the US.
20 Oct 10
1:49 pm
wonder if optus paid to use the deadmau5 track on that video
20 Oct 10
1:51 pm
@fraser… so true…
20 Oct 10
1:57 pm
Did Telstra even authorise this? It appears very unprofessional….snore.
It reminds me of an episode of that show The Office.
I would love to see a reality TV show based on this group, would be heaps of fun! No wonder they all giggle a lot, they just have fun all day!
20 Oct 10
2:00 pm
@Thom – agree! It’s hard sitting at a computer all day, you have to really set your mind to eating healthy.
20 Oct 10
2:06 pm
I think Tom (post #2) makes a really valid point. Were it not for the – percieved? – power of social media in disceminating negative customer feedback then it is unlikely Telstra would ever have created a social media team (although judging by this clip a more appropraite name for this team would be ‘capable customer service’).
That said, just because it feels like a bit of a sideways customer solution it doesn’t mean Telstra weren’t right to create this team. No doubt this group do some really excellent work on behalf of Telstra’s customers – and for that they should be congratulated.
20 Oct 10
2:09 pm
Hmmm can’t wait for the next episode. Do they seriously have this much time on their hands.
20 Oct 10
3:01 pm
Poor Dylan really didnt want to be there did he, at least he likes a brutal band \m/
20 Oct 10
3:53 pm
Hammertime — you’re quite right, they do have a similar look and feel. However, they’re certainly not stealing content, as Optus’ ad uses stats drawn from ABS data and is very focused on the Australian market.
Where creative is concerned though, who’s to say. As Tim’s other article points out it may not be IP theft but coincidence. If anyone has a claim to this concept I’d say it’s Socialnomics who did a similar piece on Social Media (here: http://www.sr7.com.au/?page_id=11)
I’d say so long as these businesses aren’t competing for the same customers in the same market, there’s no harm done.
20 Oct 10
5:01 pm
@adam joseph
Oi! That’s my name!!!
20 Oct 10
9:57 pm
No communication from Telstra on job cuts
http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto.....026225.htm
Telstra has outlined plans for cost cutting, sparking concerns that up to 6,000 people could lose their jobs.
“Currently we’re going through a redundancy process whereby around 1,000 workers are being made redundant, and that’s in the period July this year to December this year,”
Yesterday, Telstra announced the closure of its Grafton call centre with the loss of just over 100 jobs.
“Sometimes where there’s smoke there is fire and this is a company that has made around 50,000 employees redundant over the last 10 years or so”
/end
I think they Telstra has its staffing priorities very very wrong.
20 Oct 10
10:58 pm
Adam Joseph, you also make an excellent point.
I’ve anticipated this encounter, but not in cyberspace. I’m enjoying the irony of a couple of media specialists meeting through online comments on an internet media media piece about copycats. I confess I have Googled our name and was aware of your work via LinkedIn.
Here’s a pointless stat for you (sorry everyone else, this must be boring unless, like me, you’re a fan of Adam Joseph’s prose). According to LinkedIn, 42 of my contacts know various of yours, but none of mine know you directly (at least not on that social media platform).
How about a LinkedIn group for Adam Joseph to foster debate on our favourite topic, and maintain the standards of excellence for which we’re known? It would be a lonely Australian chapter though, comprising just you, me, and Adam Joseph (see: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/di.....ind_others)
Kindly remove your photo from articles you publish in B&T magazine…I quite like them.
Yours truly (et&c)
21 Oct 10
3:37 am
Dear Telstra Social Media Team
You should ignore what some of these terrible people have to say.
They can be cruel and they like to drink. It brings out the worst in them. They feel terrible about the things they say when they sober up, but it doesn’t excuse them.
You can tell who has ‘mother’ issues. It’s sad. But he’s just lonely and strikes out in anger.
And there’s one of them who has no real friends, you can tell.
And the other guy, he’s just jealous because you all have real jobs and seem to like each other. People who work in agencies all secretly hate each other. It’s true; you should hear what these people say about their colleagues when they drink. I’m going to start making tape recordings. Not that I want to go all Richard Nixon on them. But they have it coming.
Honestly, I don’t know how they sleep at night. All I know is that it will never be with me.
I think you all look lovely. One of you has a really nice smile. You know who. I don’t need to name names.
Thank you for being you and not pretending to be anything more than who you are. It’s really a change for the good. It’s so fake out there, so this is a good thing. You know what I mean.
X
Lavinia.
21 Oct 10
9:45 am
no company is perfect, but recently had the opportunity to hear more about Telstra’s strategy at a presentation that Kristen did, and I think they are leaps and bounds ahead of others and the other nice thing is that they were willing to share what they’ve done well in the social media space and what they’ve done not so well. I applaud their willingness to explore this space, as I know all too well that other organisations just go as far to block social media sites for their employees and that’s it.
21 Oct 10
12:15 pm
@Adam Joseph
It’s very nice to meet you in cyberspace. How old are you? It’s just that I reckon I’m older than you which means I had the name first. No hard feelings – I believe it’s relatively cheap to change a name by deed poll these days. Good onya!
Seriously though, I reckon the media and marketing community is big enough for two Adam Josephs. I’ll try not to drag your name and reputation down too much with my lewd comments and uninformed opinions on this forum.
BTW, liked your idea about forming a group. We should go one step further and have a doppelganger (re)union of some sort, although I’d pity the poor soul who has to manage the guest list for this (“Oh no – Adam Joseph can’t make it!)
Sincere apologies to all those here to read comments on Telstra’s social media team. It might be a Big Pond, but it’s a small world for us Adam Josephs.
21 Oct 10
1:07 pm
Thom and Dave – don’t be narky and rude re people’s appearances – they’re just people and don’t deserve rudeness or personal insults
21 Oct 10
2:15 pm
Looks a bit like they rounded up some IT guys and said ‘who here knows how to use Twitter?’ … good idea but a bit bland for a fun social media idea – I would have liked to see then a bit less staged … maybe tweeting etc! And at 8 minutes … yawn
27 Oct 10
5:34 pm
At least they are trying…..
5 points for that….
27 Oct 10
5:39 pm
I tweeted these guys 2 days ago and nothing but DEAD silence.
Good work so far guys.
2 Nov 10
11:17 am
I get excellent support from my ISP (TPG) through Whirlpool. It’s the ideal place for troubleshooting, since seeing other people’s issues and solutions prevents the customer service people from having to give the same advice multiple times. And you can quickly see if the problem is just with your connection, or if the whole network/node is down.
And pm is the perfect way to contact the representatives directly.
With Twitter, unless someone has added you, you can’t pm them directly.
10 Nov 10
1:28 pm
Self importance overload!