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Opinion
Video: How to win new business
Mumbrella Question Time saw the panel asked the secrets of winning new business. Read more »
Let’s stop the anonymous vitriol
In this guest posting, Peter Bray, boss of The Brand Shop, takes issue with negative comments from anonymous posters on Mumbrella and elsewhere.
There are very few ads that I vehemently dislike. There are also very few ads that I really love. But most ads I see on Mumbrella and other blogs I can usually take something from, whether it is information about the brand, a bit of inspiration or a “watch out”. I’m open to learning as much as I can from others, and encourage those around me to do the same.
My basic assumption, however, is that because an ad has been produced by a professional agency, and had the approval from the client, then the end result must be doing something right. Therefore, without knowing the practical rationale behind the ad, for me to have a strong opinion about whether it is great advertising would be kind of arrogant. There is a reason that awards shows ask for information about why an ad was created: they are rarely judged on end product alone.
So as someone who enjoys watching the work that our industry creates, I am stunned at the level of vitriol stemming from some people’s comments in both this blog and others. Read more »
Read his lips
This is several weeks old, but worth a look. It’s certainly an original way to deal with media criticism.It features Air NZ boss Rob Fyfe responding to weekly current affairs magazine The Listener using the medium of sign language. Read more »
Let’s not be too positive just yet – the nail is still there
It’s more than a year since News Ltd’s marketing boss Joe Talcott used the memorable analogy of a dog whimpering on a nail to describe the structural change the industry needs to go through. Read more »
The AdNews numbers that mislead the market
It’s always a tad tawdry when competitors attack each other, but I hope you’ll bear with me…
Whether cynically or through incompetence, AdNews has been misleading its advertisers by providing them with data that seems to suggest they have six times their true online audience.
Allow me to present the evidence. Read more »
Technology will help us own the agenda – all day, every day
In this opening speech to the Future Forum of the Newspaper Publishers Association, News Ltd CEO John Hartigan argued that news organisations have the opportunity to become more rather than less relevant.
Today I want to talk about a tipping point that heralds the most exciting era for journalism. The most exciting era ever.
This tipping point is already upon us. It has arrived at lightning speed, with the explosion in demand for mobile devices.
I am not consigning newspapers to the scrapheap. Not by a long shot.
But this tipping point is going to change journalism forever. In my opinion, very much for the better. Read more »
The real time shit sandwich detector
In this guest post, Clive Burcham of The Conscience Organisation, relishes the instant feedback of social media.
I’ve been making brand driven content since 1996 and often I’ve been so close to the work that I couldn’t tell the difference between if we were chomping on a shit sandwich or savouring the crème de la creme. From an audience perspective, we wouldn’t know the difference for weeks or months. What excites me most now is that we know within 24 hours if we’ve developed shit or cream. Read more »
SMH shows how to make a home page takeover work
When you’re a commercial organisation, balancing the needs of consumers with the need to make money through ads is tricky.
Among the organisations that sometimes goes the wrong way in my view is Fairfax, with its autostart video ads, for instance.
But today, a bit of unreserved praise Read more »
Inside the Foxtel factory
Having been at the launch of Foxtel’s new season the other night, nine points occur… Read more »
ABC News 24 – a handy service for niche journalists
It may not have many viewers yet, but ABC News 24 saves specialist journos having to leave their desks, argues Delimiter’s Renai LeMay
When media commentators discuss the future of journalism, they usually agree on at least one thing: It will involve much fewer generalists and more reporters dedicated to exhaustively covering niche fields. Read more »
The seven ages of Carlton Draught’s Made From Beer
Today sees the launch of “Slow Mo”, the latest instalment of Carlton Draught’s irreverent Made From Beer series.
It’s been quite a run – from the highly awarded Big Ad, to the comedy of Flash Beer, to the debacle of the abortive banned Tingle campaign. These are the seven ages of Made From Beer… Read more »
Real consumers don’t have ‘brand conversations’. They use search
In this guest posting, Simon van Wyk argues that much as marketers might wish otherwise, most consumers don’t have emotional connections with brands
I have a background in marketing, but my understanding of branding seems at odds with the 2010 opinions I see from social media commentators, marketing and advertising agencies. Read more »
Hot, censoring atheists: Google’s insight into what punters think about pollies and journos
One of the charms of Google is autocomplete, where it takes a punt on what you’re going to ask, based on what the rest of the world has been wondering previously.
And it certainly gives a few insights into the high quality of political debate about the Labor leaders in the run up to the election.
Take NSW premiere Kristina Keneally… Read more »
The copyright-busting election
This is rapidly turning into the copyright-infringing election. Read more »
Digital Fail: The gaping void in digital training is failing our industry
In this guest post, Amnesia Razorfish’s Iain McDonald warns that the industry has fallen badly behind on digital training.
Before I get accused of trolling with that headline, I’ll state what I think is obvious: The current education system isn’t producing or nurturing enough ‘digitally skilled’ individuals to sustain a growing a digital economy. Read more »
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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