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Opinion
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?
One-eyed Willy’s rich stuff: brands as movie heroes
I have just spent an entire day on a plane. I can’t sleep on flights, even after heavy sedation. So I watched seven films, back to back. Most of the new ones were truly awful and I couldn’t finish them. So I watched an old favourite, The Goonies. I have probably watched this film more than 200 times since I was a kid. But this time, with work in the back of my mind, one thing stuck out – how much brands were the stars of the film.The gospel of participation is making brands forget about mass reach
In this guest post, Simon Lawson argues that brands are becoming obsessed with getting consumers to participate, rather than remembering to deliver mass exposure.I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of brands are wasting significant amounts of time and money on ineffective marketing. Large sums are being put behind tactics which end up being too small to have much chance of influencing total brand preference.
Sultry Sally faces PR woes
Marketing wunderkind Tim Pethick is facing a major PR issue after an investigation by The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney suggested that the packaging on his Sultry Sally chips may be misleading consumers.
The newspaper contradicted the brand’s claim that its crisps are 97% fat free, after commissioning laboratories to examine the products. It said they contained twice as much fat as claimed.
The newspaper has shared its findings with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which said it would launch an investigation.
Regardless of any regulatory issues, erroneous claims over packaging can generate major PR issues for brands. Last year Ribena was fined NZ$217,500 after it admitted that it had misled customers over the vitamin C content of its blackcurrant drink.
The issue led to bad publicity across the world for the brand. Eventually the boss of GlaxoSmithKline in Australia appeared in TV ads apologising for the incident.
The incident is a new blow for Pethick, who build a high profile in Australia’s marketing community after the success of Nudie fruit juices. But his next venture, creative consultancy What If, closed its doors a few months after he joined as managing director. Pethick handles the marketing for Sultry Sally and has a stake in the business.
UPDATE: Check out the comment section for a very full response from Tim Pethick.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
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Comments
15 Dec 08
3:13 pm
Hi Tim
The flippant side of me is tempted to say “What a great result!” – we certainly couldn’t afford a whole page ad in the first 15 pages of the Sunday Tele – and to an extent all publicity is good publicity.
More seriously, I think it is scandalous and reprehensible behaviour on the part of the paper.
Before I get into why, let me say that as those who know me and follow my nusings will attest I am a staunch advocate of consumers and believe it is absolutely necessary that we are truthful in all our communications.
In this case we believe we have been, and we have substantiated it and we provided that substantiation to the newspaper.
Think about how you would cook at home when following a recipe. Making a food product in a factory is not dissimilar. Our ‘recipe’ calls for 3% olive oil and sunflower oil to be added to potatoes. The factory followed that recipe. But, because we are relying on it, the factory goes a couple of steps further. It has calibration equipment which shows there is 3% added oil in a batch AND the factory has independent tests conducted on random batches. They all show 3% fat content so we have reason to be comfortable with our claims.
I can’t dispute or query the Sunday Telegraph tests because they won’t provide them to me (although I provided ours to them). On the phone the journalist indicated to me that one of their test results came up showing 2.8% transfats. Neither olive oil or sunflower oil have any transfat. In a batch process which just uses those two oils it would be impossible for one isolated sample to have transfat. The Sunday Tele didn’t report this finding but it raises questions in my mind about whether the samples they used were adulterated or tampered with, or whether they were even our chips.
The whole things looks to me like an unwarranted media beat-up. What prompted the story? Was it that we were a new product – hang on there are thousands of new products launched each year. Was it because we were a low fat product – there are hundreds of those and they didn’t test any other products.
It certainly isn’t balanced or appropriate reporting. The journalist also let me know that they had tested other brands of chips and found they had significantly more fat than listed on their nutritional panels yet they chose not to report that.
They singled us out and sought to beat us up. One has to ask the question why?
I don’t retreat from the fact that we must be truthful in our communications. We believe we have been. Regardless, we still have a product which has anywhere between 8 times and 12 times less fat than any other real potato chip product in the market.
It is a great product, which is unique and beneficial for health-conscious snackers. It is a great shame that The Sunday Telegrpah tries to put a lid on a start-up small business doing something beneficial for Australian consumers rather than tackling the American multi-national which dominates the category with their deep-fried, fat soaked alternatives.
kind regards
Tim
15 Dec 08
5:38 pm
Tim: if your product is as good as you say it is, why are you only focused on putting it in newsagencies and have not pushed it with conveneence stores?
15 Dec 08
5:54 pm
And here was I thinking your post was about everyone’s favourite Channel Ten Newsreader
15 Dec 08
10:53 pm
Hi Scott
We aren’t ignoring other types of retailers – we are happy to deal with convenience stores as well. It is just that we have no infrastructure. We have no sales people or delivery solutions. In the case of newsagents we have service providers who can do both. As we begin to find independent distributors we will push further afield.
16 Dec 08
4:09 pm
I’ve never bought crisps in a newsagency but my wife and I frequently eat “Sultry Sally” chips, perhaps twice per week. We’ve always purchased these chips at our local “Woolworths” supermarket and were unaware of their availability anywhere else.
As far as the fat content goes, neither my wife nor myself are anywhere near approaching being overweight but we buy the “Sultry Sally” crisps, mostly for the heart health benefits of a very low saturated fat content as well as the negligible trans fat content as described on the packaging’s nutrtion chart. It would therefore be of immense interest to my wife and me (as well as countless other health conscious consumers) to be reassured that the saturated and trans fat levels as described on the nutrition chart, are accurate.
Also, regarding Tim’s statement that neither olive oil nor sunflower oil contain trans fats, could be seen to be only half true. It is my understanding that no natural foods contain trans fats but that trans fats are a by product of the processing that takes place during the production of some foods. That is, that the oil used is hydrogenated to maintain freshness in the product, thereby producing trans fats. It’s a common process that has been used worldwide for many years but is only recently receiving publicity for the elevated rate of cardio vascular disease that trans fats are thought to be responsible for.
Thank you, kind regards, Mark Warner
18 Dec 08
4:18 pm
Hi Mark
Thaanks for your support.
I can reassure you that the level of transfat (and total saturated fat) is as we disclose on our nutritional panels.
We only use olive oil and sunflower oil. You are correct that transfat is created when vegetable oils are hydrogenated. Olive oil and sunflower oil are known as natural oils which are not hydrogenated and that is why we use them.
The beauty of our baking process is that the potatoes are not cooked in oil (the oil is sprayed on afterwards as a base for the flavouring). A normal potato chip is deep fried, generally in hydrogenated vegeatbale oils. Many fried foods use hydrogenated oils because, apart from extending the shelf life of the oils, they increase heat stability in the frying process.
My point in introducing the transfat issue was that I am more concerned about he veracity of ther test results than I am about the reality of our product.
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