Promoting the labels 140 characters at a time
In the wake of Lisa Wilkinson’s Andrew Olle’s lecture on Friday DDB’s head of social Karalee Evans takes a look at Nine’s new talent style Twitter account.
Let me start by quoting Nine’s Lisa Wilkinson: “You quickly learn the sad truth, that what you wear can sometimes generate a bigger reaction than even any political interview you ever do.”
Channel Nine’s own Lisa Wilkinson delivered a passionate and at times cuttingAndrew Olle Lecture on Friday highlighting the shameful focus on what women look like, rather than the substance of their reporting.
She lamented: “so often, it seems, the old combo of talent, a love of words, and the power to communicate – powerfully – are not always enough.
“Because today’s media landscape, particularly for women, is one now so focused on the glossy and the glamorous it often eclipses and undermines everything else. And it is everywhere.”
I wonder if Wilkinson was aware of the irony in her social media and women focused speech, in light of her network’s latest Twitter account, @channel9style, which exists to promote the fashion labels draped on its female personalities 140 characters at a time?
Channel Nine’s fashion-focussed effort of reducing its smart and credible women to clotheshorses with labels, appears untimely in light of Wilkinson’s Olle lecture.
Indeed, of 266 ‘wardrobe’ Tweets, there seems to be very few focussed on Nine’s male style – July 11th and 5th Tweets feature a suit and June 20th a Tweet calls out a suit and tie. In fact, the tone of the male fashion is markedly different; straight-laced, factual and informative, in contrast to repeated mentions of ‘beautiful’, ‘stunning’ and ‘lovely’ in regards to the vast majority of female content.
Monday’s Tweet was particularly poignant, following on from a September 8th reference of ‘tackling the latest financial news’, because a female financial journalist’s Witchery EARRINGS (sic) are important, right?
Now don’t get me wrong, the notion of a network using social media to give its audience an ‘insider’ view is a good one. Brands and media outlets, celebrities and politicians are embracing social media as a genuine means of engaging and building audiences around opinions and conversations. Behind the scenes and ‘insider’ content are good levers to build deeper engagement with an audience.
Clothing, shoes and accessories are often provided pro-rata in return for mentions and endorsement on-air. Nine’s strategy of furthering the available reach of labels working with it is a smart business move.
You can picture the discussions between its sales department and labels now: “give us a year’s worth of shoes and handbags, and as well as 25 on-air endorsements, we’ll promote you via our new Facebook and Twitter channels!”
As The Australian wrote yesterday, “Yes, it’s cheesy, but how much extra money is Nine pulling in from advertisers?”
Well, at this point, a Tweet, a Facebook mention and an Instagram photo won’t break the advertiser’s bank. And presumably Nine has factored in the ACCC’s Social Media requirements of disclosure when there is an agreement in place between a celebrity and a brand.
Including social endorsement in the channel mix to further Nine’s appeal to advertisers is an interesting one. And, despite Wilkinson’s (and this writer’s) concern over reducing women in media to a glossy and glamorous label, brands will jump on this approach by Nine, and the other commercial networks will undoubtedly follow suit.
Speaking of suits, perhaps in the spirit of equality, we could strongly encourage Nine to give their male personalities more of the same glossy clotheshorse treatment featuring stunning and handsome designer suits and ties and shoes and cufflinks that help them to tackle the news?
Karalee Evans @karalee is the Head of Social at DDB, and often tweets while wearing Toms shoes, Dinosaur Design jewellery, Manning Cartell pants and Witchery tops, which she pays for herself.
I’m pretty sure that’s the correct spelling of earrings?
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Hosts Juanita Phillips (ABC news 7pm), Leigh Sales (7.30 Report) and Emma Alberici (Lateline) destroy their commercial contemporaries for skill and professionalism and they never have to bang on about their lipsticks either. Could there be something deeper afoot here? A smokescreen for a lack of skill maybe? (And yes, I’m male.)
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that is an unnecessary snipe at Lisa W. FYI The ABC “ladies ” get buckets of criticism via Twitter, phone log and everywhere else for their (or ABC wardrobe dept’s ) choices too , in spite of their excellent journalistic skill-sets
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Sic is on the CAPs, Maz
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I think the sic is referring to the caps, rather than the spelling.
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Either way, the earrings aren’t witchery… they are Celeste and im pretty sure they put that in CAPS to make it clear what item belongs to what brand.
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Excellent article and Im sure the likes of Deb Knight would agree with you. However I get very disallusioned when some readers take these artilces as their sanction to discuss how smart female ABC presenters are and how dim witted those on commercial stations are. Its not only discrimatory talk they should be ashamed of, it’s simply not accurate. It seems to be a myth that some people feel compelled to perpetuate. It’s interesting that I seldom, if ever, hear that the ABC male presenters are so much smarter and intellectual than the males on commercial networks.Laurie Oakes from Nine and Paul Bongoirno from Ten come to mind. Also it seems to be a back handed compliment to ABC female presenters. I choose to watch mainly ABC but its certainly not because I’m smarter. The smartest people in the room seldom have to prove they’re smart by sounding intellectual and I know a brain surgeon whose book of choice is a comic. And while aligning competence with a lack of diligence in appearance I’m wondering where our fabulous governor general sits in the minds of “Go ABC Ladies”
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From a social media perspective, what exactly is the point here?
Aside from the generalist position that women in the media are unfairly held to different standards than their male counterparts (which is very well trodden ground), what am I taking from this?
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I have to agree with “Clarity”. I really don’t see the point from a social media perspective and I think many of the comments on this article reflects that.
Is the the point just that women in media are unfairly held to other standards than men? I just lost 5 minutes of my life, if that is the case.
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I’m going to put my hand up here and say there have been so many times when I’ve wanted to know the brand of something a presenter is wearing on TV. Ch9 and other stations might get a lot of requests from people wanting to know, so why not tell them? I don’t think it’s necessarily sexist/anti-feminist.
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Karalee / your a champ and bring alive some great points. I personally prefer wardrobe credits to be addressed via TV at the end of the show. It would appear adding a social account for what someone is wearing is a hard sell.
People are smart, intuitive and beautiful. They should be treated as such and when they are, I have seen countless times when the reward they give in return far surpasses any sponsored tweet or social channel.
Once again, great piece Karalee.
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