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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 »
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.