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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.
The first in the great Yaris social media race – meet Wolfy
The race is on for what may prove to be one of the oddest brand experiments in social media yet.
As part of the Toyota social media pitch, five agency campaigns will go live in the coming days, all for the same brand. Each have been given a limited budget of $15,000.
It appears that One Green Bean’s effort, which launched a few minutes ago, is first to market.
Tapping into Halloween, it will be called An Amercian Werewolf in Yaris. It will feature “Wolfy”, an actor in werewolf costume driving around Sydney in a Toyota Yaris offering lifts to people who have connected via Facebook and Twitter. They will also be able to follow him via GPS and flag him down if they want a lift.
The lifts will start tomorrow to get people to Halloween parties.
Meanwhile campaigns from Hothouse, Saatchi & Saatchi, Iris and a joint effort from Oddfellows and The Population will follow int he coming days.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:22 am
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Comments
30 Oct 09
11:33 am
Now this is cool.
30 Oct 09
11:49 am
Tim, it’s not actually an actor in a costume – it’s a werewolf. And he is American too.
30 Oct 09
12:06 pm
Uncool
30 Oct 09
12:11 pm
Pascal, if you ask Wolfy if he’s wearging Levis will he give you his pants?
Dave.
30 Oct 09
12:12 pm
oops – “wearing”
30 Oct 09
12:12 pm
In time, this type of activity might not seem ‘odd’ at all I would venture. Good on Toyota for shaking it up with this methodology.
Although it does feel like the conusmer is playing second-fiddle somewhat, it’s a pretty progressive way to unearth a winning agency based on some solid data… After all, there’s no shortage of social media efforts out there that have failed to make themselves a blip on the radar – so not much to lose for the brand by experimenting here, so long as they adhere to some fundamentals.
30 Oct 09
12:26 pm
I bet this gets more airtime as a PR piece than an actual social media play. Our industry will talk about it more than the punters will. How do people follow on GPS? Sounds like PR spiel as this feature isn’t available.
30 Oct 09
12:28 pm
Always love these small production campaigns. Great ideas in a hurry. I can only imagine the looks on some of these ‘top’ creative agencies having to pit their skills against unknowns at the same level. EgobashT hard
30 Oct 09
12:31 pm
Well played Toyota, convincing 5 agencies to go head to head can’t have been easy.
Is this your handy work Chris Parker?
30 Oct 09
12:33 pm
Really? Vampire’s are so hot right now that the thinking was to freshed it up with the new angle of a werewold??? Original. And the tie in with Halloween to close the loop on the idea? Sorry was this meant for the US?
Disppointing effort, really weak. How does this enhance consumers experience? It isn’t even egaging. Where is the google maps real time plug in? Hope for the sake of the pitch let alone consumers that this isn’t it.
30 Oct 09
12:36 pm
Hm, I’d say Saatchi & Saatchi’s was the first to come out actually – I saw its Toyota Yaris short film competition website yesterday: http://www.cleverfilmcomp.com.au/
30 Oct 09
12:44 pm
Just saw the Saatchi microsite. Getting a bunch of unpaid students to create your content for you?
That IS clever. Isn’t it?
30 Oct 09
12:45 pm
@Dave King you may have to try it out, you are in for a hairy ride in any case
@ those waiting for the GPS tracking, it will be available when Wolfy is taking the streets for the first time tomorrow
30 Oct 09
12:50 pm
Hahah you can’t beat a good pun. And american werewolf in Yaris…
30 Oct 09
12:59 pm
Wow the Saatchi’s one is bad. How did they manage to give away 10 grand in a total budget of 15 grand. 5 grand for all production, service and creative? Looks like Toyota were duped by the bait and lure.
30 Oct 09
1:09 pm
Love the saatchi idea – on such a small budget it is genius getting everyone else to do the work!!
30 Oct 09
1:24 pm
wonder how much these campaigns will crossover into the market known as ‘non media douchebags’.
i like it but i am a media douchebag … what would joe smith from pakenham think about it?
answer – they probably wouldn’t
30 Oct 09
1:28 pm
so no time or distance limits? i can’t find any guidelines or restrictions.
30 Oct 09
1:39 pm
Saatchi’s should be ashamed of that effort particularly with everyone watching this public pitch (which I’m loving thanks Toyota…).
30 Oct 09
1:40 pm
Five agencies. Five agendas. Five different messages. What’s the end customer supposed to think? They don’t understand that five different agencies are pitching for the business.
Would you go out with five different advertising messages at once Toyota…?
30 Oct 09
1:57 pm
Hey Earl, can you not add up?
The Saatchi campaign is giving away $7,000 + $3,000 +$1,000 = $11,000
30 Oct 09
1:59 pm
@Jame Duthie I doubt they are handing over the keys to the castle. They will still need to get ideas signed off I’m guessing to assure alignment. If that happens no problem, if it isn’t happneing then yes major problems.
30 Oct 09
2:08 pm
Wolfman wont reply to my tweet. Is it because its not full moon until Tuesday?
30 Oct 09
2:19 pm
@ Scott You are right, I can’t add up, we blue bloods aren’t the smartest people in the world. So that leaves only 4K for the entire campaign. Who knew Saatchi’s were so cheap.
30 Oct 09
2:45 pm
Who is Joe Smith from Pakenham?
30 Oct 09
2:53 pm
Excellent stuff actually. Now I might not exactly be in the market for a yaris, but i love the out of the box thinking.
30 Oct 09
2:54 pm
Hi my name is Joe and I live in Pakenham ….. I don’t get it
30 Oct 09
2:55 pm
Wouldn’t it be smarter for Toyota to actually listen to hear what customers are saying about their brands they want to use Social media for, rather than a blatant PR exercise. Social media isn’t just about telling people information through WOM / social networking / PR type media. It is also about listening to hear what customers are saying about the said brand. What would have been impressive, is that they focused on the reason why they should use social media, then developing the concept. A case of putting the horse in front of the cart. For all we know, customers might say that the Yaris is crap and the Corolla is the way forward
30 Oct 09
3:11 pm
seeing the ROI on these campaigns would be interesting.
generally auto marketers and especially dealers value selling cars quite highly and generally above blogcred … but things might have changed in this world of ours
30 Oct 09
3:20 pm
Great idea, but whats the long tail of the back of the green bean execution? After this weekend it’s dead… or rather, the suns risen.
30 Oct 09
3:37 pm
This is AWARD School thinking. Literally. http://www.dpdialogue.com.au/z.....o-far-meh/
30 Oct 09
5:39 pm
@paul, I couldn’t agree more.
The idea of pitching 5 agencies against each is other fine. In a public forum? Well that’s for the consumers to decide.
But the idea of researching, monitoring and devising a solid strategy seems to have been thrown out the window here. @paul, your “horse and cart” analaogy is great. The cart carries the tools (or flashy social media ideas) to execute the strategy, but the horse takes you to your destination.
However, there are a few more to come, so watch this space, we may eat our words
31 Oct 09
7:09 am
How does this interesting but ultimately trivial story muster 32 comments, yet the Fosters Boonie story none?
I’m confused.
31 Oct 09
7:34 am
Hats off to the agencies involved – It would be all too easy not participate and stand on the sidelines (or on mumbrella.com.au) and make commentary about a subject that we all know far too little about. The 2 ideas so far are pretty cool.
At least we’re not just looking at a bunch of half baked Facebook Apps which seems to be the common go to for digital agencies trying to be social!
31 Oct 09
10:08 am
Gee Matt. You sound like a sulky kid who didn’t get invited to the party. No wonder social media gets a bad wrap.
Surely you would actually need to read the brief and understand what was required before you pass and fail these campaigns in your blog.
Maybe if you spent more time doing some work rather than assessing other people’s you might actually get your ‘social media’ agency included in the pitch. Or was it bease of this piece of work you or your girlfriend did that they decided against your agency?
http://www.coldrock.com.au/
1 Nov 09
8:05 pm
Wow, some split opinions here. George Best, it is weird and a tad confusing.
aplet, seems like it’s touched a nerve with you? Your comments are very directed, is there more to it? Perhaps you are involved with one of the competing agencies, or even Toyota. Care to divulge your identity and cut to the chase?
2 Nov 09
8:00 am
Well that ended up being a total dud.
2 Nov 09
4:21 pm
what does an of this have to do with a Yaris? I reckon it looks more like an ad for Movember than for Yaris! The Yaris brand is one of the few well defined car brands – atleast Saatchi’s cleverfilm idea, whilst not original, links to the brand’s clever car positioning.
3 Nov 09
10:02 am
Good to see Saatchi have correct grammar!
“Make a original film”
It’s make an original film dufuses
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