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Opinion
The keyboard warrior of Twitter
In this guest post, NBN staffer Scott Rhodie writes an unofficial, personal view on his experience with a hostile Twitter critic.Last night I had a strange incident. While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated. I wrote a small note back explaining they were incorrect.
And their response? The lovely gentleman (whose Twitter profile says: ‘Father of 5 kids, Loving Grandfather of 10 Grandchildren,and 2 Great Granddaughters. love to give heaps to Pollies and Poofters’) said to me: “Go and lick Gillards C*** out U commie Prick”
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.
Speed reading PR stunt brings media to Dan Brown launch
Despite having no idea of the content of the book, PR agency One Green Bean saw a major media turnout for its launch of Dan Brown’s new novel The Last Symbol at Sydney’s State Library of NSW today.
The agency was appointed to the project by Random House last month, and promised “a high profile stunt” to launch the latest blockbuster from the author of The Da Vinci Code.
The stunt proved to be a hunt using Facebook to find 40 speedreaders who had access to the book from 9am, with the first to finish giving their review to the waiting press at noon.
Among the media turnout was Channel 9 News, Channel 10 News, Live News, News.com.au, SMH and the Daily Telegraph.
One Green Bean boss Kat Thomas said: “From a PR perspective, this potentially looked like challenging job as we had no access to the book prior to 9am this morning as there is a strict global embargo, nor did we have any access to Dan Brown. We therefore came up with the idea to do a search for Australia’s fastest reader to ensure we had some interesting content for media.”
September 15th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
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Comments
15 Sep 09
12:20 pm
Good idea but the event/ stunt was probably quite boring for the media.
15 Sep 09
12:34 pm
who cares, as long as they covered it? i think it was a very good idea for a difficult brief
15 Sep 09
12:35 pm
Pretty clever given the constraints, ie, no access to content, no Dan Brown etc. A ‘traditional’ PR launch would have flopped, so all credit to the OGB team – gee you Sydney PR people have funny company names
I still won’t read the book though. I remain one of the few people who has NOT read the Da Vinci Code. I also refuse to watch the Titanic
@freocookster
15 Sep 09
12:37 pm
Typo – Australia’s fasted reader. Should it not read Australia’s fastest reader?
15 Sep 09
12:42 pm
Ta, Andrew. Sorted now…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
15 Sep 09
1:01 pm
Why didn’t they hold the launch in the Freemasons’ museum in Sydney? They’re selling copies of The Lost Symbol in the foyer, so they’re hardly embarrassed by connections to the subject matter of the book.
15 Sep 09
1:51 pm
@ Darryl
Yes, I think they’re taking whatever publicity they can get.
In response, the Freemasons have appointed PPR as their PR agency and the first on their agenda to dispel any myths from their POV, is also in the form of a book called, It’s No Secret: Real Men Wear Aprons.
It’ll be out in another couple of weeks or so. Check it out: http://www.itsnosecret.com.au/home.html
Stu
15 Sep 09
2:04 pm
Nice idea. But couldn’t that stunt have worked for any book? Would it have been a Great Idea if associated with the govt’s 50 Great Books promotion that runs during September?
I don’t get the ‘connection’ to the author or the title (both bits of information which were at least, unlike the story, known)….Maybe just me….
15 Sep 09
2:28 pm
no, i dont think it wouldve worked for any book – speed reading was a logical extension of the the high demand for the book coupled with the manufactured sense of urgency around their availability
15 Sep 09
3:20 pm
a watered down version of the recent muse albumn release…
http://www.nme.com/news/muse/46143
15 Sep 09
4:47 pm
Yawn. OGB spends more time promoting themselves than they do their clients it appears.
Dan Brown’s latest book – his first in years since DaVinci Code, of course it’s going to get coverage.
As for the stunt, not much of a surprise given Facebook invites and a search went out about a month ago. A friend forwarded it to me, naturally I hit decline.
15 Sep 09
6:38 pm
Here’s one Frank PR made earlier for the launch of Harry Potter in 2007….
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ho.....248219.ece
Wonder where OGB got their ‘inspiration’ from
15 Sep 09
8:02 pm
Hey Sven – Doesn’t that mean that the stunt would have worked for any high demand book? If it is the perception of high demand that connects to the concept of speed reading to the product. It woud seem that you could take the ‘stunt’ – the idea – out of the launch and get as good a roll up as the attendance was based on the manufactured urgency and demand you mentioned. I should say, haven’t read Dan Brown so most likely shouldn’t be commenting.
15 Sep 09
9:40 pm
How about we stop bean bashing and acknowledge a good job well done. From a client point of view it feels like I’ve seen it everywhere today, I’d be happy with that.
16 Sep 09
10:27 am
Hi Jaded,
In fairness to OGB, they weren’t promoting themselves. I remembered they’d won the account from our story of the other week, so rang to ask how the launch was going. The mobile phone footage you see was shot by a member of their team at my request.
And the launch has indeed been all over the media in the last 24 hours. A job well done, I’d say.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
16 Sep 09
2:35 pm
Hi Bambi – yes, it would work for any high demand book. Do you think a PR stunt has to be unique to that product to work? are you confusing PR with other forms of marketing? OGB weren’t trying to persude people to read the book – they just needed the media exposure for it. All PR needs to do is get a time-poor journo with competing story ideas along to a launch, hopefully with a camera. Without the stunt, maybe they would have turned up, maybe they wouldnt. The stunt gave the event an angle and increased the probability of coverage. This is what good PR aims to do.
16 Sep 09
2:40 pm
Was it original…no. But as Sven said it doesn’t have to be.
Did it work????
‘Among the media turnout was Channel 9 News, Channel 10 News, Live News, News.com.au, SMH and the Daily Telegraph’.
I’d say yes
Yeah you could have had more fun with it but we don’t know the budget, time constraints or the objectives so I’d cut OGB some slack. It did the job
16 Sep 09
3:46 pm
Lets be clear. Just because you get media ‘bums on seats’, does not mean your stunt or launch is a success (unless the only objective is to boost the marketing directors ego by having a Nine News camera in his face). It’s what goes to air / print / web that matters.
If this stunt was genuinely covered, then kudos to OGB, irrespective of whether it’s a ‘new’ idea or not.
17 Sep 09
3:15 pm
let’s be even clearer. If you don’t get any media bums on seat, your stunt or launch is an unequivocal failure. Any PR who got angsty about the likely tone of coverage for a Dan Brown launch is probably in the wrong business
17 Sep 09
5:46 pm
anyone doubting the level of media interest in the stunt may wish to see if first hand here
http://www.thepunch.com.au/art.....rrer=email
and the fact that there’s now an online story about the filming of the stunt would indicate that is was even more successful
media fakes are bad PR for the media but even more free exposure for the book
what a nice little bonus for OGB. I’m sure they’re not stressing about the specific content of the narrowcast at all…..