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Opinion
The keyboard warrior of Twitter
In this guest post, NBN staffer Scott Rhodie writes an unofficial, personal view on his experience with a hostile Twitter critic.Last night I had a strange incident. While on Twitter I noticed someone saying that Australia’s NBN is already outdated. I wrote a small note back explaining they were incorrect.
And their response? The lovely gentleman (whose Twitter profile says: ‘Father of 5 kids, Loving Grandfather of 10 Grandchildren,and 2 Great Granddaughters. love to give heaps to Pollies and Poofters’) said to me: “Go and lick Gillards C*** out U commie Prick”
What's in a name?
In this guest post, Moensie Rossier wonders about the power of names for brands and marketers.
Brands have been having a bit of fun with names lately, not to mention a fair bit of success. Interbrand just named a headhunting firm Cloak & Dagger. And ‘Share a Coke’ showed how much power there is in a name.
The Coke campaign effectively short-circuited the usual mechanics of communication. It undoubtedly stroked people’s egos. But, I believe, its success stems from the fact that it directly and automatically affected people’s behaviour, rather than doing so indirectly by shaping attitudes.
Best ads from Super Bowl 2012
The Super Bowl is all done and a team from North America won. But as well as some sort of sporting event, it’s the world’s biggest advertising showcase. See the best of them right here… and please tell us what you think.
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.
This murderous regime proudly brought to you by Oral B
Good ole smh.com.au.
They’re currently running a pre-roll ad for Oral B toothbrushes.
“There’s a revolution going on!” it burbles. “Millions of people are waking up and seizing power…” It then concludes “Join the revolution.”
So which video might you not put that ad in front of? How about a piece on the Iranian uprising? Or perhaps distressing footage of a shot, dying protestor.
Dr Mumbo’s correspondent concludes: “It would seem that Oral B sponsors or at least endorses the shooting of Iranian Protesters.”
Revolutionary marketing indeed.
(1pm update: The ad has now been pulled and repalced with a house ad.)
June 24th, 2009 at 10:04 am
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Comments
24 Jun 09
10:17 am
This is fucking disgraceful. It’s still live BTW.
Someone at SMH might have just lost their job.
24 Jun 09
10:24 am
speechless.
Similar issue with ‘leveraging’ the Iran coverage has been reported by @tiphereth and has now been picked up by Sky News and the Guardian.
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/smc/103334
Really… what are these people thinking?
24 Jun 09
10:26 am
OMG
24 Jun 09
10:30 am
I think it’s an honest mistake – one of the drawbacks of having ‘relevant and targeted’ ads served on your website by a third party, I guess. It’s probably the result of whatever ad server SMH use looking for keywords in the article and serving ads that it thinks the readers of the article would be interested in. It’s an industry standard practice that causes unfortunate problems like this from time to time.
Sure, it’s distasteful, but I highly doubt this would be intentional. Nice find though.
24 Jun 09
10:38 am
it’s just a bloody pre-roll everyone … it’s just another oversight … nothing sinister, just incompetence.
24 Jun 09
10:39 am
btw this whole mumbo jumbo around targeted/contextual ads is ridsculous … i doubt 2% of web ads outside search are targeted … let alone pre-rolls.
24 Jun 09
10:59 am
Ah, the joy of having a 100% buy out of all video pre-rolls, you get to have your ad associated with all sorts of goodness. It’s the same on ninemsn when you click on one of the videos they bring in from 3rd parties like stupidvideos.com: ‘Before you watch this video of some poor guy getting hit in the nads, have a look at this ad from our sponsor’
Whilst these are never ideal, nothing pains me more than the auto play videos with sound that most portals now sell – talk about user experience! Auto play should never have sound!
24 Jun 09
11:00 am
I do tend to agree with Lance that it’ll just be a pre-roll sitting across chunks of the site which is horribly unfortunate placement (although there’s a strong argument that with news stories those placements should have a human eye vetting them). It seems unlikely to be auto-targeted, and I’m certain they haven’t put it there deliberately!
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
24 Jun 09
11:35 am
Placement gaffes aside, the ad itself is dross, based on the most clichéd idea since celebrity endorsement.
Join the toothbrush revolution that isn’t… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
24 Jun 09
12:17 pm
As Tim said this is probably running across quite a few sites as a pre-roll today,1 out of hundreds of news stories, not to mention other sites across their network, making it almost impossible for the a human eye to be vetting everything. I’d also doubt that the news content teams would be communicating with the video campaign managers and sales execs who got it up there???
In a perfect world, controversy, political incorrectness, offensive content and anything that has the possibility to annoy or piss someone off wouldn’t run. Alternatively, we could come back to the real world and accept that coincidences happen?
24 Jun 09
12:46 pm
Hm, seems to be okay to me – no ad before the clip at http://media.smh.com.au/world/.....98561.html
I looked at the ad and the clip and I think your outrage and indignation is, to say the least, a bit over the top.
Viva la polemica!
24 Jun 09
12:53 pm
Hi Bob,
You’ve got the wrong link there – follow the one in the story above.
However, they have now pulled the Oral B ad and replaced it with a house ad.
But as you’re posting from within Fairfax, I suspect you already knew that.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
24 Jun 09
2:10 pm
I think its just an unfourtunate oversight – I dont think anyone at Oral B would sieze the Iranian riots, including a protestor being shot, and think that it would be a good idea to try and align thier brand through the revolution similarities.
Its an unfourtunate mistake and they happen – I dont think that anyones going to get fired over it…
24 Jun 09
2:59 pm
It happens in many other forms of media. Unfortunate.
Someone with foresight should have clicked, potentially the client or agency who would know they were running against news.
Not that hard.
Not sure the media owner can be entirely blamed.
24 Jun 09
3:28 pm
I doubt this is anything to sinister. It is just another quite funny example of how computer can get things wrong.
Just like the video on an online news site last week that feature an underwear show – placed next to an article about a rapist with an underwear fetish. The unfortunate placement was just a matter of both the article and the video having a similar keyword and being deemed as related by the content management system. Nothing sinister or intentional.
Yes to some degree maybe there should be some human checking to get over these hurdles. But lets be honest here, no-one other than us marketing/PR types go into a blind frenzy about these things. Most people just don’t give a hoot and move on to the next page.
Dave
24 Jun 09
3:29 pm
And speaking of human checking. Way too many grammatical errors in my last post. Reads like it was sub-edited by news.com
Dave
24 Jun 09
3:37 pm
pre rolls on major sites are contextual now? really??
so an advertiser could only run next to stories about football or mining or the recession?
really??????
24 Jun 09
3:48 pm
Yeah.
Expect to see ads for utes next to all PM stories.
And for toilet paper next to anything from A Current Affair.
24 Jun 09
5:10 pm
I think Godwin Grech may have the inside information on the placement.
24 Jun 09
5:20 pm
This was an unfortunate situation as the buy was across all news videos. Upon realisation of this we acted accordingly and took down the advertisement from the World News section.
We now feel this has been resolved and apologise if any offence was caused.
Best Wishes,
Paul Sigaloff – National Sales Director
24 Jun 09
5:23 pm
Hi Paul,
Thanks for letting us know.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
24 Jun 09
9:25 pm
Hi Paul
I don’t think you have anything to apologise for here.
Mumbrella seem to have been the ones taking advantage of an unfortunate ad placement to promote their own agenda.
It is outrageous of Mumbrella to conclude
“Dr Mumbo’s correspondent concludes: “It would seem that Oral B sponsors or at least endorses the shooting of Iranian Protesters.””
If they believe that is true they obviously do not understand how advertising and media work. If they don’t believe it is true then why are they saying it.
24 Jun 09
11:04 pm
@Anon 24.6.9 – I agree, particularly with this statement: ” It would seem Oral B sponsors or at least endorses the shooting of Iranian Protesters.” is an outrageous claim.
Dr Mumbo’s correspondent doesn’t give any indication that either they did or attempted to contact the SMH or the parent company of – or any subsidiary of – Oral B prior to publication to see if there was any truth whatsoever to the statement made that “Oral B sponsors or at least endorses the shooting of Iranian Protesters” as claimed.
Tim, you should unreservedly apologise for publishing this rubbish and find a new Dr Mumbo correspondent too.
Disgraceful.
25 Jun 09
8:37 am
Hi Rowan,
Thanks for your comments.
I suspect you’re perhaps misinterpreting what the person who pointed this out means. They do understand advertising and are in a position to know how it works.
But to the casual reader, not in the business, who doesn’t understand how advertising works, that’s how it could appear.
Which would be why Fairfax have taken it down.It was a very unfortunate placement that tended to link the advertiser with the content, and they’ve removed it.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
25 Jun 09
8:59 am
Excelent.
This article has always read: “Look, an oral B ad happened to appear in a contextually akward spot, that’s pretty funny isn’t it…Discuss…”
25 Jun 09
9:25 am
Tim, I understand how advertising works, I think it is you that has missed my point here.
My comment is not about where and how the advertising was placed on the SMH.
My point is about the wording on your website.
Currently mumbrella.com.au is claiming that “It would seem that Oral B sponsors or at least endorses the shooting of Iranian Protesters.”
Are you seriously suggesting that a toothbrush company is sponsoring or endorsing the actions of the Iranian government in the shooting of it’s own citizens to suppress protestors after an election?
Really? Is that what you’re proposing? Because that’s what your website says.
I doubt very much, and I hope you don’t believe, that OralB does in fact sponsor or endorse the shooting of Iranian Protestors.
25 Jun 09
9:53 am
Hi Rowan,
I’ll let you into a secret. I don’t think our correspondent really does think that Oral B is sponsoring the putdown of the Iranian uprising. I think he’s using hyperbole to make his point. I suspect that most folk would interpret it that way.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
25 Jun 09
10:29 am
Hi Tim
Thanks for letting me in on the secret.
I’ll let you in on one too, I don’t think so either.
I think it’s irresponsible to indicate/joke around as has been done, particularly when the situation is so serious.
Cheers
Rowan
25 Jun 09
10:56 am
Well said, Rowan.
What if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad subscribes to Mumbrella? This advert could be juts the thing that tips him over the edge.
It’s irresponsible.