-
Opinion | Features
Why is advertising so much better in New Zealand than Australia?
Ok, so this isn’t a new observation.
But it really hit home after I watched some TV ads for a kiwi supermarket yesterday that advertising in New Zealand is so much better than much of the crap that is being served up in this country at the moment.
Why is it that Colenso BBDO Auckland can turn something as bland as a supermarket chain into a brand I almost like, while Australian agencies succeed only in either irritating me (Coles) or passing me by unnoticed (Woolies) because the ads are so average?
My memo to your boss
So let me guess?
You really want to come to Mumbrella360, but you’ve got to justify the time and cost to your boss?
Good news! I think I can help.
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.
Ten types of people to unfollow on Twitter
Just got into Twitter? Trying to decide who you should or shouldn’t follow? Maybe I can help. Here are the ten types of people I strongly recommend unfollowing:
- People whose Twitter profile ends in guy, guru, expert, diva, evangelist or visionary
- People whose Twitter profile begins with Mr, followed by something digital
- People who send @ messages to stars in the hope of instant Twitter validation through a reply
- People whose automated ‘thanks for the follow’ messages make you want to vomit
- People whose automated ‘thanks for the follow’ messages contain a link to their site
- People who ask questions they could answer quicker on Google
- People who as soon as a star dies tweet “Just warning you, if anyone makes a joke about this, I’ll unfollow you.” Not if I can unfollow you first, petal.
- People who think adding the phrase “please RT” makes their spammy message more likely to be passed on .
- People who think putting fail on the end of another word and sticking a hash on the front is still clever. #originalityfail
- People who Tweet linkbait Twitter lists like this one. That’d be me…
You can follow (or unfollow) Tim Burrowes @mumbrella
July 29th, 2009 at 11:41 am
-
-
Follow Us
-
Email Newsletter
Latest Jobs- Mid-Weight Digital Producer - Sydney
- Digital Sales Executive - Sydney
- Freelance Highly Conceptual Copywriter - up to $750 per day - Sydney
- Freelance Highly Conceptual Copywriter - up to $750 per day - Sydney
- Design Manager - Melbourne
- Junior Account Director - Sydney
- SEO Manager, Sydney - Sydney
- Digital Campaign Manager - Sydney/ Melbourne
- Customer Relationship Marketing Manager - Rhodes
- Brand Activation Coordinator | Drinks Brand + travel | $45-$50k inc. - iknowho - North Ryde
Comments
29 Jul 09
11:46 am
If someone’s an ‘entrepreneur’, I’m not a follower.
29 Jul 09
11:46 am
Here’s another two – people with zero updates and 364 followers + people with ‘see my sexy time video’.
29 Jul 09
11:49 am
Also, anyone whose name starts with “Fake”
29 Jul 09
11:50 am
I would question the logic in following them in the first place Kimberley!
29 Jul 09
11:53 am
Tim – I don’t follow these people, they follow me!
29 Jul 09
11:54 am
i think this list is incomplete without name-and-shame examples.
29 Jul 09
11:58 am
I don’t click on a lot of links through Twitter, but yours was interesting, because I’ve recently been bombarded with loser skanks and evangelist types. One other hint you missed is if someone’s user name looks like “klh9af767″ – best to steer clear of these types, who simply wish to not be identifiable.
29 Jul 09
12:05 pm
Personally speaking, here are three things that stimulate the “flight” part of my brain when it comes to Twitter:
1. Too much of the mundane
Sure, Twitter literally asks ‘‘What are you doing?’’ but I have little interest in the fact
you have a piece of sweetcorn stuck in your teeth right now. Unfollow.
2. Random stream of consciousness
If you tweet more than five times in five minutes, you’ve probably inadvertently
wired Twitter to your cerebrum. You should see a brain doctor. Unfollow.
3. Too much radio interference
If you seem to be having 20 different public conversations at once and I’m having
trouble following just one of them, I will tune out indefinitely. Unfollow.
http://www.slideshare.net/Adam.....-june-2009
29 Jul 09
12:09 pm
LOL. I really like this list, I was thinking of sending it out as a tweet, but after reading number ten, I guess that would be pointless. Thanks for sharing.
29 Jul 09
12:10 pm
Here’s another one – people who only RT. Ever.
29 Jul 09
12:12 pm
Please don’t tempt me, Heather…
29 Jul 09
12:24 pm
Kimberly stole most of my thunder, but here’s one more:
People with 2 followers (one of which is their mommy) trying to tell you that using product X will net you 2,000 followers a week.
29 Jul 09
12:31 pm
When I go to someones page and I see tweets with cash, money, invest etc… They don’t get followed back.
29 Jul 09
12:37 pm
I’m especially fond of Leslie’s suggestion.
He’d know.
29 Jul 09
12:40 pm
1. People who use Twitter with the aim of building their business, simply by asking people for referrals. How dumb is that? 2. People who don’t have a decent bio. 3. People who tweet during movies/Tv shows.
29 Jul 09
12:50 pm
KimberleyL and others – when followed by a spammer/bot/autofollower, make the effort to block them. I believe that Twitter uses that information to know who needs to be kicked off for abusing the service.
29 Jul 09
12:54 pm
Wilson Tuckey (above) on Twitter? I thought it was too ridiculous.
29 Jul 09
2:21 pm
I’ve tried and tried and tried and tried and still can’t get into twitter…. facebook is working just fine.
29 Jul 09
2:41 pm
I make a point of unfollowing people who tweet entirely in emoticons and swirly graphics, ie
¸.•*¨`*.¸.♥☼
or
♥˚◦☼◦˚♥˚~((((♥♥*HUGS*♥♥))))~˚♥˚
I’m sure there is a place reserved in hell for me, but … eh.
[Hope the examples above work]
29 Jul 09
4:31 pm
LOL your article is so awesomely FTW.
29 Jul 09
5:19 pm
i agree with most of these….except Greg’s comment about people who tweet during movies/tv shows. i have to admit i enjoy the to-and-fro on twitter during event tv like state of origin (though I’m sure the mates I’m watching it with wish I would cease and desist) or masterchef. to me this adds a dimension to both media that is really interesting.
sure, I don’t necessarily think updating anyone on what’s happening on the seinfeld re-run I’m watching is productive, but a real-time interaction with a large community adds a nice depth to tv imo
29 Jul 09
5:22 pm
People who follow more people than follow them back.
29 Jul 09
5:27 pm
don’t know if you’re being tongue in cheek kate, or elitist? publishers and celebrities are naturally going to skew following/follower, but give the average punter a break (yes, I’m in the category of following more than are following me).
especially when you are new to twitter and have to start by finding interesting people to follow before you’ve done much yourself by way of tweeting etc.
plus, i’m no mathematician but is it even possible to have an entire community that conforms to more followers than following for every single member?
29 Jul 09
5:35 pm
@Rob – It seems that the majority of ‘Twexperts’ reach their glorified status as popular ‘Twurus’ from aggressively following people in hope of a return follow.
29 Jul 09
5:38 pm
Instead of picking a specific ratio, I think you can cover that group by specifying anyone following more than they can feasibly read – e.g., more than, say, 150-200 people.
29 Jul 09
5:40 pm
i see what you’re saying. though amongst the non-glitterati it seems a rule of etiquette to follow everyone who follows you……particularly US tweeters. some of them even put in their bio – “follow me and I’ll follow you back”. seems a pointless exercise
29 Jul 09
5:44 pm
@Isaac – yeah, I agree. Couple hundred over is fine… it’s the ones that join, follow 1,000, send out commercial message… and so forth.
29 Jul 09
6:06 pm
What about people that are obsessed with tweeting their current location? Yes, location-based apps/mashups can be cool… but not when all you do is go from home to work to home to work to home…
29 Jul 09
9:54 pm
I kind of like the #OriginalityFail idea. But thanks for warning me it would be uncool. Gotta keep up with the cool cats.
How is the Addtoany service that gives you the social media buttons at the end of the article? Does anyone know of the best looking offerings of any such button service?
29 Jul 09
10:01 pm
Well this is the biggest problem with twitter after spam. This made up version of snobbery is just dumb. Telling people who to unfallow. Sounds like it is time to go to coffee shop gripe, kackle, and feel better about yourself. If you had any talent. Oh I am sorry
a n y which means S O M E talent. You get could things done. So griping and tearing down others does not make you feel like da dumyy dumb you are. So even if you are a Dumyy dumb you can fallow me (EXCEPT SPAMMERS YOU BAS#$%DS) isilverthe@twitter.com
29 Jul 09
10:22 pm
Yes, it is true that the old LinkedIn phenomenon of “I will connect with anyone” doesn’t work on Twitter nor should it. With LinkedIn we never got a stream of spammy updates from others unless we joined groups and had newsletters clicked on in settings. So connecting to a lot of people on LinkedIn really only had the benefit of increasing the likelihood of getting someone to personally recommend you to a specific person you needed to do business with or get a job from. I remember wanting to connect with LIONS who connected with everybody who asked because it reduced the 6 degrees of separation down to the point where, for me, any serious businessperson in the USA was “in my network”.
This worked for me in its time and probably still works well. LinkedIn got me hired within 40 days of putting myself on the market as the recession hit hard last winter. It could have been 20 days but for the need to move geographically. I had asked a venture capitalist if I could connect and he said “Sure and drop by anytime you’re in town”. Two weeks later I dropped by. I took LinkedIn into the real world quickly.
Twitter doesn’t operate on 3 degrees of separation putting you “in the network” and such LinkedIn recommendations that would carry a lot of weight as to whether someone took you seriously or not. With Twitter, your stream is either interesting or not to the people you connect with or who are directed to look at it. Your stream at any one time becomes more relevant than the LinkedIn online resume and degree of separation.
But a person’s willingness to follow your Twitter comments means, in and of itself, far less than their friending you on LinkedIn…their Auto-DMs are often bot driven which is unconscionable on LinkedIn. I present the above example of a LinkedIn VC saying “Sure I will connect and drop by anytime you are in town”.
We are all guilty of letting questionable people at least follow us on Twitter (without our blocking them) in order to make our stats look good. I have blocked more than 1000 people however (more than follow me). That is how many spammers are out there. If you have 200 followers and never blocked anyone, it means that you probably only have 50 people reading your tweets.
29 Jul 09
11:46 pm
Hey, pal I block 40 percent of all peeps. An it has nothing to do with the people. Just if they have ideas or abilities. I fallow people that can teach me or help me or think I am really cool. So I have not yet found someone to fallow on the last one. Just a matter of time. But, I do know that rigidity stiffels Creativity. Pal, l obliviously am not a english major. But, I can spell LAME.
29 Jul 09
11:48 pm
Nice chit chatten. I work nights crash time hit me up. AND oh nevermind.
30 Jul 09
10:06 am
How can you tell when someone is trying to get “instant validation” from a celeb’s reply as opposed to someone who’s just tweeting/replying to a celeb? Twitter isn’t meant to be a one-way medium.
30 Jul 09
3:30 pm
@Michael duvall: Shucks! I didn’t read your comment first, and I ended up sending this link as a tweet (lol).
A very amusing list indeed. I somehow feel glad that about a month ago, I changed my twitter uesrname to ‘anandspeak’ from the original ‘xpsguy’ (eeks! ending with guy).
30 Jul 09
5:10 pm
Cool list, do not agree with #wordFAIL point though.
30 Jul 09
10:51 pm
Its called twitter because your all fu?king twits, you are all up yourselves, re read your own comments.
30 Jul 09
10:59 pm
What is your problem with people replying or tweeting to celebs? I do that, I don’t care if they reply or not, and I’m not hoping for instant twitter validation. Someone, not important who, replied to me, which was cool. The only people who know that is those who follow me and that celeb, I did not shout out to my entire list of followers, so I’m a bit offended by that point in your list! But hey, you’re entitled to your opinion!
31 Jul 09
6:16 am
Hi Mia,
Thanks for your comment.
To clarify, you sometimes see @celeb messages where the main intention appears to be to get them to publically reply to them because of the minor kudos that will bring, rather than hold a genuine conversation.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
31 Jul 09
11:59 am
Thank you for the tips!
31 Jul 09
12:22 pm
I’ll add anyone who calls themselves a ‘maven’ or even uses the word.
31 Jul 09
12:48 pm
People who use the phrase “OMG you guys” and I don’t think it was said above, people who lock their accounts!
4 Aug 09
9:18 pm
You all are still fucking twits, i was hopeful that you would all stop being such pompous fucks. Thats not going to happen is it!
6 Aug 09
1:30 pm
funny
14 Aug 09
4:44 am
follow when it makes utter SENSE and doesn’t waste brain matter, follow Oprah, CBS, TIMES, LAkers, ULA, MBA, Anderson Cooper 360…Google..other STARS..Celebs..and Top Deal and educating Sites like mine, lol. IQ sites..hey these are only suggestions. Buts are things I live with.
As a matter of Fact My Tweet should be private, im a Pro Blogger and Graphics Designer & Logo Pro, a musician, im a Computer Sci. Scholar, at my local University and I tweet about my steps to successfully earning online to pay college bills. If interested.. im 19.lol. you can UNfollow me at *topdealz* lol.
14 Aug 09
4:50 am
My watch wordsare success, PROGRESSION, intelligence (even if you think for some reason you aint that smart, your still a friend, ok)….im new tweeting but great with facebookin, for some reason I draw a crowd of genuine people, who want to work, earn and life live to its fullest..
14 Aug 09
5:13 am
I think this is notices but utter non sense, people who lock their accounts want privacy from DESPERATE fools, and may accept those who promise a cleaner relationship or friendship, added success,and such forth, dont you THINK….,.also to escape spammers.
roflol, it amazing what people argue about these days, you guys or girls are some seriously funny psycho’s, stop wasting brain space and adding trash to cycber-space and live with it, or go private or just quit all together. lol
14 Aug 09
9:04 am
What. The. Fuck?
Trackbacks/Pingbacks