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Opinion | Features
How bosses can build trust by baring themselves to staff
In this guest post, Simon Rutherford, CEO of Slingshot Media, argues that bosses should be vulnerable in front of their staff.
Winston Churchill once said: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Fake it til you make it...as a radio newsreader
In a piece that first appeared in Encore, Emily Hoskins from ARN tells us how to do her job.
What does a radio newsreader actually do?
A radio newsreader has to be switched on from the moment they sit at their desk. At the Australian Radio Network each journalist writes, researches, edits and reads their own news bulletins under tight deadlines – every 30 minutes during the breakfast shift and every hour after 9am.
Keith Reinhard on freedom to fail, winning back Maccas and how agencies can survive
In an exclusive interview in Cannes today, advertising icon Keith Reinhard, one of the founding fathers of what is now DDB Worldwide, talked to Mumbrella’s Robin Hicks about freedom from fear, his favourite ads of all time, winning back McDonald’s and why the most important thing in advertising is passion.Savage counsel - little white lies
In a piece that first featured in Encore, Chris Savage tackles your career and agency dilemmas. This week, he talks about when it’s okay to lie to clients.
Hi Chris,
I often find myself telling little white lies at work – I tell people on the phone that I don’t want to speak to I’m about to duck into meetings. I told my colleague her new haircut was great when really it wasn’t and I praised someone’s work when actually it was kind of shit. After each of these occasions, I felt pretty terrible and wonder if you could tell me how can I speak with candour in the future – for my sake and others.
How to build a culture
How important is a company’s culture and how do you ensure you are breeding a good one? Matt Smith investigates, in a piece that first appeared in Encore.When production companies Cordell Jigsaw and Zapruder’s Other Films merged early last year, bringing the staff together within the walls of the Zapruder building proved to be something of a challenge. While the two companies weren’t strangers to each other due to six months of talks and negotiations, working together on a full-time basis was a different story.
Q&A Damian Keogh
In a piece that first featured in Encore, Val Morgan CEO Damian Keogh reveals his potential alternate career.
Who is the most powerful person in Australian media and why?
I’d say Kerry Stokes, slightly ahead of Harold Mitchell and Kim Williams. He controls the entity with the largest revenue across free-to-air, online, magazines and newspapers. On pure size alone, his influence and leverage over advertisers, media agencies and consumers is unmatched. Harold is still the king in media, slightly ahead of John Steedman, but Henry Tajer and Leigh Terry are the heirs apparent. Kim Williams controls News and that’s a big base to work from.
If a violent game is okay, then so is using a violent ad to promote it
An ad for video game Dead Island Riptide was banned by the ad watchdog. James Whitehead of online entertainment publisher IGN argues that it was the wrong call.A fortnight ago, it emerged that the Ad Standards Board had banned a television commercial for the video game Dead Island: Riptide, due to its depiction of violence – specifically suicide.
Why content makers are leaving our shores
In a piece that first featured in Encore, Craig Anderson says there simply isn’t enough opportunity for content makers in Australia, especially for those making comedy.Last year I had multiple meetings with production companies in Australia and discovered that apart from the odd commercial campaign, there’s no proliferation of paying platforms for comedy. From my own experience there’s iView, which will buy content once it’s already been made (though I live in hope that it will one day be granted the financial power to commission content). I’ve also had the odd informal commission from the SMH iPad consisting of two narrative series and a comical review show. But none of these endeavours were financially viable.
Managing your management style
In an article that first appeared in Encore, Stephanie Brown says the advertising industry often leaves people ill-equipped when it comes to managing staff, especially when they’re promoted into management roles.Managing people is hard. In fact, I actually think it’s the hardest job in the world. With no disrespect intended, I often joke that if my job didn’t involve other people to manage, it would be a walk in the park. I could get about my day’s work in a nice, linear fashion, happily checking off my to-do list as I go. I’m a process-orientated person. I get a kick out of getting things done.
Why the Facebook chase is making brands treat consumers like morons
You know how we look back at quaintly patronising ads from the 1950s and wonder what on earth the advertisers were thinking?
I’ve got a feeling that in a few years time, we’ll be looking at the behaviour of big brands on Facebook the same way.
An entire generation of marketers – or at least a sizeable proportion of them – have lost their minds.
So many have become so obsessed with generating user interactions at all costs, that all thoughts about overall brand perceptions or long term marketing goals have vanished. All that counts now, is generating likes and comments at all costs.
Blog this!
Paid content, sponsored posts and brand ambassadorships – in theory, today’s blogger can be just as valuable to brands as mainstream media. But does blogger outreach actually work? In an article that first appeared in Encore, Nic Christensen investigates.“I get approaches from PR companies constantly,” says blogger and author Kerri Sackville, with more than a hint of exasperation. “I have never done a sponsored blog, on my own site, but that doesn’t stop them from asking.”
McLennan right man for job
It’s all change at troubled broadcaster Channel Ten with new directions, new executives and a brand new CEO. Managing director of Adstream Peter Miller says Hamish McLennan is the right man for the job, in an article that first appeared in Encore.I am a bit of a schmuck when it comes to movies. I love romantic comedies. My favourite is One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney.
Q&A with Richard Herring
In a piece that first appeared in Encore, CEO of APN Outdoor Richard Herring talks media.Who is the most powerful person in Australian media and why?
I don’t know if there is one person in particular. The fragmentation of traditional media and new entrants has made it a more level playing field with regards to major influencers. As was demonstrated with the recent media reform recommendations, together, the broader media community still has a very influential and powerful voice.
What one medium could you not live without?
Outdoor – clean, entertaining, evocative and informative.
Q&A with screenwriter Craig Pearce
Craig Pearce, screenwriter for The Great Gatsby, spoke to Encore about working with Baz and writing for 3D.
How did you get into script writing?
I always loved stories and acting and dressing up and being anything but myself and I never realised that was not something other people did. After leaving high school, I did a three year acting course at NIDA but always thought I would one day write. Baz was a good friend and he had a theatre company. He wanted to extend a 20 minute version of Strictly Ballroom. We got it to 45 minutes then he was approached by producers to turn it into a feature film. I started helping him out on the film while they were looking for a real writer but eventually Baz had to go to the producers and say, “There’s this guy who’s my best friend and he is a really good writer”. To the producers’ credit, they believed in Baz so we had two weeks to re-write it.
Savage Counsel - winning pitches
Chris Savage tackles your career and agency dilemmas in his weekly Encore advice column.
Hi Chris,
It seems we have to increasingly pitch for everything. Even with existing clients, we’re now expected to pitch ideas, competitively, for every project. We’re winning about two out of five of what we’re pitching for. It’s a huge burden on our time and budgets. What is your secret to winning a pitch presentation? How do we make sure our presentations are a knockout?
The Shire: a thin line between love and hate
The number one trending topic in Australia last night was #TheShire. The conversation on Twitter and Facebook continues this morning. It’s on most home pages, radio and indeed the real world. And the sentiment is undoubtedly negative. People are outraged, repulsed and furious about a range of issues: the show, the depiction of Sutherland Shire, the provenance of the people featured (to say they “star” in it might be going too far), what constitutes “dramality” anyway.
Which I would say makes the first night of the show an unqualified success.
According to an analysis of the conversation by We Are Social Australia, there were 33,000 tweets, made up of 18,530 Tweets and 14,556 Retweets (data from Radian 6).
That’s thought to be a television first.
A preliminary assessment of the content of the tweets found that 93% of the comments were negative. The breakdown is as follows:
- 36.2% Worst Show Ever
- 16.9% Embarrassing
- 17.8% Stupid/Fake
- 22.1% Misc. Negative
- 7.0% Misc. Neutral. Semi-Positive
- 60% Generic ‘worst show ever’
- 10% Cast related – stupid, fake people, fake lips, fake boobs
- 20% Embarrassing representation of Australia
20427 – 40% : Sydney
9965 – 19% : Melbourne
6000 – 12% : Brisbane
2029 – 4% : Adelaide
1965 – 4% : Perth
1239 – 2% : Canberra
263 – 1% : Newcastle
I watched about half of the show, until I could stand it no more. Frankly, I thought it was awful. But what was most awful was that despite the mumbling incoherence of the cast, I had a sneaking desire to keep watching. It’s the same ghoulish impulse that makes us turn and peer into accident scenes, or sometimes experience a moment of guilty glee at hearing of the minor misfortunes of others.
“Set against the backdrop of the Southern Sydney region that commands the loyalty of its residents like no other, TEN’s brand new ‘dramality show’ The Shire is the latest daring addition to its schedule … The Shire isn’t another contrived piece of TV faux-fact; it’s true unscripted Shire life-through-a-lens.”
Unprecedented numbers of people are sharing content from the Shire’s Facebook page – at time of writing not only had 1800 people commented on a photo of Vernesa and Sophie, 536 had liked it, and most telling, it had been shared almost 150 times.
These are engagement levels most brands on Facebook would fill their faces with collagen to achieve.
It’s a spike into the vein feeding viewers concentrated Schadenfreude, and if there’s one thing that you can guarantee in social media, it’s that haters gonna hate. Memes are being created; comedians are adding it to their repertoires.
To view the show as a disaster because people loathed the characters is to ignore that fact that the show wasn’t created to offer Australia new role models, or as a tourism vehicle for Sutherland Shire.
It was created to get people talking, get them righteously indignant, to get them engaged: to get them to watch the show.
If you didn’t see it this week, the oft-cited current cultural trend “FOMO”, fear of missing out, will get you tuning in next week.
And I’ll be very surprised if hordes of people don’t tune in next week to find out what they missed.
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Comments
17 Jul 12
12:25 pm
based on those sentiments I think Channel Ten are on a winner.
17 Jul 12
12:59 pm
I hated/loved it and will tune in next week and the week after that. My attention span is pretty short, though, so I can’t make any promises after that.
17 Jul 12
1:03 pm
This is the same fire that started whe TOWIE was aired in the UK, I sit back and see if the tides will turn.
Two years after TOWIE first aired, tourism to Essex has gone up by 300%. I wonder if the Shire can do that for Southern Sydney?
17 Jul 12
1:04 pm
It seems pretty obvious what Channel 10 are intially trying to do – polarising opinion, creating commentary and outrage. But where to next. Surely for long term viewing you have to actually like some of the characters?
17 Jul 12
1:07 pm
If this engagement continues over the next few weeks, then not only has Ten created a monster, but you the viewers are perpetuating it. And sadly, if engagement does continue at this level, then the real idiots are those watching and engaging, not the show or those on the show.
I weep for our society where The Hills, Being Lara Bingle and The Shire draw high audiences and high social engagement.
17 Jul 12
1:11 pm
Absolutely loved the show. I thought the casting was spot on and actually better than The Hills or Essex.
The show was always going to polarize – but I definitely will be going back
17 Jul 12
1:14 pm
Yep it did exactly what it was meant to do. Rated well and engaged an enraged viewers. This exact senario played out in the UK and the US.
17 Jul 12
1:15 pm
lucky for me i dont’ suffer from FOMO…good luck to channel 10, but this is not a show that i will ever bother with…
17 Jul 12
1:15 pm
James Warburton, is this the best Ten can do…..seriously?
You have to be kidding mate.
17 Jul 12
1:15 pm
According to Vernesa and Sophie’s own Facebook page, the girls will be answering all questions on Channel Ten News today at 5pm. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vernesa-Sophie-Wifey-Love/462374510439338
17 Jul 12
1:15 pm
I thought it was hilarious and will be watching it again.
Good on 10 for trying something new the networks are so boring and predictable
17 Jul 12
1:23 pm
Vernessa and Sophie-I smell a spinoff……………seriously-they are hilarious and they are not even trying to be Bwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
17 Jul 12
1:27 pm
It would be nice to see this kind of investment and network support going into the kind of creative projects that Australian writers and directors are actually genuinely capable of…
I won’t bother getting into the ridiculous situation of every single new Australian show being another shitty incarnation of some poorly written crime/cop/hospital drama, because that’s an old story, and we are not on the topic of “scripted stories” anyway are we?… Or are we?… The Production value of The Shire was out of control, and from the dumfounded faces on the cast, you could actually picture the producers standing behind the camera yelling out to the cast “Now act a bit awkward! Make sure he knows you like him! Talk more about the botox! Look at him in the eyes now!”…
It’s just another example of the fact that the idiots running the Australian TV Networks will throw money at shit, and be more happy with a 90% negative conversation, than they will be to look at a great new idea, or take a risk with something that might be a ground breaking new Australian TV Show… We Australians are capable of writing and producing quality entertainment the likes of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Entourage, Mighty Boosh, The Sopranos, The Office, The Extras, Flight of the Conchords… it’s just that no muppet at a network would have ever given them a go on Australian TV… Why do you think all our talented creators and performers fuck off to America?
17 Jul 12
1:32 pm
Love to hate it. Great work from ten, yet concerned about social degeneration and effects on youth etc. (I’m getting old!)
17 Jul 12
1:33 pm
I thought it was fun – young, dumb and fun. Exactly what I thought it was going to be.
17 Jul 12
1:34 pm
They did an interesting experiment in the states after five passes of Car Accidents people stopped looking. I don’t think the shire has five passes. I approached the wreck that is The Shire I took a detour to an Amazing Race!
17 Jul 12
1:43 pm
Well… I expected pure crap and that’s exactly what I got! Loved it!!
17 Jul 12
1:48 pm
I don’t understand all the outrage. We all knew what to expect and the show lived up to its genre (designed for jaw-dropping viewing with a bit of audience outrage). If you tuned in expecting anything different…then fool you. If you wanted something else, as people have said, Australian Story was on the ABC.
17 Jul 12
1:48 pm
I’d say the reason ABC’s Australian Story beat out The Shite was because a lot of people wanted to see Warney (who did the intro) talk sensibly on camera for once.
17 Jul 12
1:54 pm
I don’t understand how people that work in the media can be so subjective when looking at a program like this. It never professed to be deep or intellectual television but yet so many people are complaining that it’s trash. How is this trash different to the other trash that is produced and shown all over the world. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and the show has an audience who will watch.
How about we look at it objectively and congratulate the producers on its actual production merits and for gaining an audience that it did? Look at the attention that it’s created. When has a show on Australian television received so much attention by every single media outlet?!
17 Jul 12
1:54 pm
I’m dubious about FOMO – I think people use that as an excuse because revealing the real reasons they watch these shows – schadenfreude, sneering at others – would portray them in a negative light. Much easier to pretend it’s for a more sociable reason.
17 Jul 12
2:01 pm
OH NO I HAVE FOMO!
17 Jul 12
2:23 pm
Come on Marcus, the media likes nothing better than talking about itself. So putting that aside, what exactly are the “actual production merits” of this show?
17 Jul 12
2:54 pm
Umm, the hashtag for the show was #theshiretv
17 Jul 12
2:57 pm
Hi Frankly,
You’re right in saying the ‘official’ hashtag was #theshiretv, but a larger number of people used #Theshire.
Cheers,
Cathie
17 Jul 12
2:57 pm
This is such a “Mumbrella” piece. Oh, the show lit Social Media up so it is therefore a success! Comments on Twitter and facebook do not equate to advertising revenue and brand traction in this case.
Is it possible that social media was aflame because people watched it, hated it, vented about it and will never watch it again? Highly likely.
A strange world we live in indeed where an organisation would court this kind of attention. Is it the first instance where a t.v network has deliberately tried to make a terrible show to court attention?
Facts are that it didnt rate that well despite all the hype in the world. It will rate worse next week and the week after that God knows because the carachters are shit and the stories are bland and people hate it.
17 Jul 12
2:59 pm
why not provide analysis of both?
17 Jul 12
3:10 pm
@Frankly, life is short and deadlines are tight.
We used an aggregate. But here’s a breakdown:
27521 : #theshire
9947 : #theshiretv
480 : #theshite
(bear in mind these may have been used within the same tweet)
Data from Trendsmap.
Cheers,
Cathie
17 Jul 12
3:11 pm
Tiki , perhaps the best point made so far. Its commercial TV, its been made to rate and ratings = revenue. Regardless of talkability ,Social media phenomenon etc etc its going to drop in ratings and its not going to help TEN fix their current diabolical situation. See SMI data!!
17 Jul 12
3:22 pm
Can someone please tell me how the ‘success’ of a tv show is now measured? If this rubbish is deemed successful somehow purely by the number of posts on social networks, even if 90% of them are negative, then following that logic a 1 hour show of people being executed by various means could very well become the most successful tv show Australia has ever (not) seen?
17 Jul 12
4:12 pm
The Shire serves as further proof that Australia is a good few years behind cultural trends overseas. Jersey Shore was first aired in the US in 2009 and The Only Way is Essex was first aired in the UK in 2010. Just as The Shire gets started, Jersey Shore is planning for season six while TOWIE is about to start screening season six. I can’t wait for the Aussie TV geniuses to come up with “Pawn Stars – Gold Coast”.
17 Jul 12
4:30 pm
The saddest thing about all this is the gullibility of Australian television audiences. Is it any wonder that programs made here are so bad? People wonder why we’re downloading Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Newsroom and other quality shows from overseas. It’s pathetic that an idea like this can even be commissioned, let alone make it to air. And the more we label this type of programming “an unequivocal success”, the more we stifle creativity and ideas that could actually enrich us rather than enrage us. Those responsible for putting this on television are no less vacuous than the character within. Mark this as the day Australian television really fell behind the rest of the world … and I didn’t even watch the programme.
17 Jul 12
4:31 pm
c’mon guys, yes hype around the show is great, but it was so goddamn boring. And poorly produced. No advertiser is going to go anywhere near it, and people will forget about it in two weeks and it will fade away into oblivion…
17 Jul 12
5:44 pm
First Sylvania Waters and now The Shire. It is clear there is a real hatred of southern Sydney on the part of TV executives.
Notably they never make shows about the Northern Beaches.
17 Jul 12
6:23 pm
Surely the headline to this article should have been – The Shire, a thin line between love and rate.
So close, mUmbrella, so close.
17 Jul 12
6:29 pm
The new Big Brover BRO – excellent trashy trash !!!
17 Jul 12
6:45 pm
I don’t think it’s a success at all. Rated under 1 million, for one thing. I’m in all three key demos, as are the vast majority of my Facebook friends, and all but one that actually tuned in last night has said they won’t be watching next week. Sometimes, negative feedback really *is* negative. I personally found it boring. No outrage, no fascination… just boredom, and I turned off after 10 minutes.
The idea that being number one on twitter meaning the show is a hit is just wrong. The revamped YTT did the same thing, overwhelmingly negative feedback just like with The Shire, and it limped away with it’s tail between it’s legs halfway through the season.
17 Jul 12
6:54 pm
Shire’s, Shores, Hills, Essex now Valleys!
http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/the-.....-is-coming
There not going away!!
17 Jul 12
6:56 pm
http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/the-.....-is-coming
17 Jul 12
6:57 pm
insert valleys….
17 Jul 12
7:12 pm
I knew it. I knew it! This wasn’t the real Shire. It was western suburbs by the sea. This was also confirmed by ACA.
17 Jul 12
9:25 pm
I hope Warburton is happy with himself.
There’s a social responsibility issue here and this is sadly missed with the majority of commentary.
Forget the originality for a second, this is socially bad TV (or anything for that matter).
And these girls are someone’s daughters. Worse still, someone’s their mother and father. So sad and I hope they’re proud.
18 Jul 12
10:55 am
Shire-t
18 Jul 12
11:19 am
WTF – No, it’s Shite.