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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 marketingEmail 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?
Scientific proof that newspapers are better than McDonald’s, Google or Nike
Regular readers will already be aware that Dr Mumbo is a big fan of The Newspaper Works’ light touch approach to gently promoting the medium’s positive atttributes.
So he commends the video that the industry body has uploaded to YouTube revealing details of its latest research, and the graph that apppears at about the one minute mark.
It would seem that newspapers are better than Nike, McDonald’s, Holden, Target and Microsoft. And are streets ahead of Google and YouTube. And if you keep watching the graph, newspapers gradually soar even further ahead with every moment that passes.
With science on newspapers’ side, it’s hard to understand why anybody thinks that papers have a problem.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:33 am
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Comments
3 Mar 10
10:44 am
‘conducted with over 1000 Australian residents’. Woah. Even closed panel survey methodology can do better than that.
3 Mar 10
10:52 am
Not really sure why/how they can compare “print media” to an actual company / brand. A newspaper is hardly “a brand”. Apples and oranges.
Also, wasn’t this the same propaganda machine that released some erm..”propaganda” of dodgy, supposed testimonials, that were in actual fact, possible answers from the survey.
Smacks of desperation.
3 Mar 10
12:08 pm
Agree with Foobar – some pretty illoogical comparisons here.
Disagree with Tim1 – no amount of sample can rectify shonky research or analysis…and since when is 1000 a small sample size?
3 Mar 10
1:25 pm
I just love the irony in that they’re using youtube to prove how relevant newspapers are.
3 Mar 10
1:49 pm
I still hate the VO talent they’ve used.
3 Mar 10
1:50 pm
Which is a shame as the content and graphics are pretty good otherwise. I like my newspaper more than a big mac and more than a pair of shoes. Why is that such a stretch?
3 Mar 10
1:54 pm
Scott, 1000 as a sample size is tiny in the Experiean Hitwise context – 3 million plus Australians a day from memory.
Then of course there’s Google, whether trend or keyword anlaysis.
Both are much larger datasets, sampled more often and from actual use – consumer demand – as opposed to (potentially) leading questions. I know which I’d bet on.
Agree re the apples and oranges too. I don’t look to Nike for reportage or analysis.
3 Mar 10
1:58 pm
cmon guys surely we have better material than this lazy print/newspaper bashing
3 Mar 10
3:18 pm
The research results seem to merely indicate that newspaper BRANDS are ‘reputable’ and ‘dynamic’.
And we want to question that finding?
Next research will show that the ABC is more ‘impartial’ than other TV and radio stations and we’ll all be gobsmacked. Not saying that some newspapers don’t push an agenda, but surely ‘reputable’ is one area where newspaper brands SHOULD have it over other media?
3 Mar 10
3:55 pm
does Dr Mumbo always talk about himself in the second person?
should we call for help?
3 Mar 10
4:18 pm
@Tim1 True, those provide larger sample sizes, but I’m not sure they fit the bill when looking to measure sentiment, trust or other emotional connections to brands/mediums (the argument of whether these are useful measures or not in this case aside).
Think you put it rather well with your point about (potentially) leading questions. Just make sure your research is good in the first place and your sample size of 1000 should be plenty.
3 Mar 10
10:27 pm
@ Foobar, seems a surprise you don’t think a newspaper has a brand. Of all digital brands I’d have to say newspaper brands are one of the strongest online and offline brands. Their problem is getting the same revenue out of the same brand on a different platform.
3 Mar 10
10:35 pm
Agree with Scott on this one. I’ll take a well constructed representative n=1,000 over an n=3,000,000 which excludes half of Australia any day.
Disagree with Foobar “A newspaper is hardly a brand”. Hello. Someone put the lights back on please! New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Times, Pravda, Sydney Morning Herald … none of those are brands? Give me a break!
4 Mar 10
3:05 pm
some heads need to be pulled out of bums here.
Foobar – the fact that you don’t understand that newspaper mastheads are brands revokes your license to comment on this thread
There’s also no irony in using youtube to advertise newspapers. Newspapers have advertised radio for years. Outdoor advertises newspapers. Other media are used to advertise media.
not every consumer in the world is a 22 year old egotist who has seen little more of life than what’s showing on his/her monitor for 23 hours a day
4 Mar 10
3:21 pm
True, newspapers are brands, but i don’t think this research is served all that well by comparing the generic term ‘newspaper’ with more specific brands like nike, google etc.
Maybe the research question wasn’t asked that way, but that’s the way it’s being presented for mine.
4 Mar 10
3:26 pm
Sven. Are we still talking about this? It was sooo yesterday. I’m guessing you still get the paper delivered to you daily?
What is a newspaper? It’s a delivery vehicle for “news” (I use the term loosely) and advertising. That’s hardly a brand. Even if you want to use the word in its literal sense, you can’t then go and compare SMH to Starbucks/Nike – they’re not even in the same ballpark.
4 Mar 10
3:40 pm
Sven – harsh but fair … and it gave me a chuckle.
Foobar. May I ask the question, “what is Google”? To use your line of ‘reasoning’, it is merely a delivery vehicle for a “search”. So that makes Google NOT a brand either? By extension you are saying that what is probably the fastest growing brand in the world is not a brand? That is just plain illogical.
And Scott, I agree if they lined “newspaper” up against “Nike” or “Starbucks” they have mixed’n'matched categories with brands which is an absolute no-no! They either have to ask “newspapers” against “television”, “coffee”, “sports shoes” (all categories) … or “SMH” up against, “Nine”, “Starbucks”, “Nike” etc (all brands).
Maybe The Newspaper Works or their research agency can clarify the way the questions were presented to the respondents.
4 Mar 10
4:06 pm
Brand – n. 1. a. a particular make of goods. b. an identifying trade mark, label, etc.
Surely being able to articulate a preference for one thing over another naturally generates distinctions i.e. identifying marks or labels. If someone enjoys reading a newspaper over eating a Big Mac then that has to be a higher preference for that brand.
Sorry Foobar, I wont be buying your brand
4 Mar 10
4:11 pm
Hi anonymous (comment 10),
Dr Mumbo tells me that he generally prefers the second or thrid person but never the first. He’s a very odd man.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella