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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 »
Tourism NT uses “Abo” as paid search term
The government-funded body in charge of tourism in the Northern Territory is using Google paid search around the racially offensive keyword “Abo”, it has emerged.
When Google users search on the phrase “Abo”, they see a sponsored link inviting them to “An experience you will never forget. Experience Aboriginal culture in NT.”
The ad links to the Travel NT Northern Territory tourism site.
It was spotted yesterday by blogger Brett Nicholson of Melbourne agency Next Digital. He wrote:
“My initial reaction is to blame it on incompetence. Sure, Aboriginal culture represents massive opportunity for Tourism NT and it’s clearly a focus for them but I still think this is inexcusable.”
Mumbrella has requested a comment from Tourism NT.
3.10pm update: Tourism NT has yet to comment, but the paid keyword search appears to have been removed in the last few minutes.
5.35pm update: Tourism NT has yet to comment to Mumbrella, but the Age is reporting that the organisation has blamed its media agency MPG
May 11th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
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Comments
11 May 10
1:08 pm
What a conflict! PPC or PC? I guess PPC won this time. Seems like an opportunity tourism NT could have taken a miss on. Tisk Tisk.
11 May 10
1:16 pm
I guess they didn’t expect the DKI to pass it through as the headline of the ad…
I wonder who first discovered this?
11 May 10
1:18 pm
Someone’s getting fired…
11 May 10
1:19 pm
If someone types in the word ‘abo’ would you rather they are delivered to a website supporting appropriate aboriginal related content or a race hate website which could be the other option…………..
11 May 10
1:20 pm
You have to really wonder… their analytics must have suggested a whole bunch of words for them and they have just ticked accept all… *oops*, my bad…
nice spotting Brett!
11 May 10
1:25 pm
What is Brett doing searching ‘abo’ in google anyway?
11 May 10
1:27 pm
Too much political correctness. Next you’ll have someone shouting Aussie is a racist and derogatory term. Common sense is dead, long live common sense.
11 May 10
1:34 pm
I guess you have to walk a fine line between driving traffic to your site by going after the relevant key words, and encouraging their use by doing so. Like it or not, “Abo” is a relevant keyword for the site, just because it’s ignorant people are using it doesn’t mean that the site isn’t what they are looking for.
11 May 10
1:57 pm
I try to assume the best of people before making rash conclusions and certainly before publishing an article without getting feedback from people who’s throats you’re jumping down. Has anyone considered it might have been a move to catch a number of spelling options and misspellings e.g. aborigine, aboriginal, aboridginee, aborijinal, etc? How about getting a response before making inflammatory remarks?
11 May 10
1:58 pm
I’m confused; it may stem from cultural misunderstanding but isn’t “Abo” just an abbreviation for Aboriginal? like Jew for a Jewish person. Jew isn’t derogatory.
11 May 10
1:59 pm
This is political correctness gone mad. Crossing off Next Digital from my list next time I need such a service.
Searching abo or abos and you also bring up Wikipedia hits as first results. It’s not as bad as made out, Wikipedia listing ‘abo’ as a ‘once casual’ term.
I’m sick and tired of the media not doing any investigative reporting and simply being reactionary and making whinging news – which is also very cheap to produce. This is not the fault of mUmBRELLA, this is the place for media & marketing discussion, but in the wider, mass-media is where my big beef lies.
11 May 10
2:05 pm
Did they also have Flagon, Goon, Bogan, Sh*thole..etc?
11 May 10
2:05 pm
It is relevant term to include in their campaign but using keyword insertion so it features is where they have gone wrong.
11 May 10
2:05 pm
So who is looking for clients? Brett..you typed it..racist is as racist does. Also could not agree more with Jo
11 May 10
2:07 pm
In the Google results it contains a section for “See results for: Aboriginal”. Could this be something as innocuous as Google acknowledging the relationship and delivering AdWord hits based on it, presenting them as a hit for the original term? Certainly a search for “computres” suggests I might mean “computers” and returns a bunch of AdWord-targeted results.
11 May 10
2:07 pm
I just typed “abo” into Google and it refers to “ABO Blood Group System”
Clearly they are targetting health tourists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....oup_system
11 May 10
2:07 pm
maybe they’re talking about the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra?
11 May 10
2:13 pm
I didn’t even know Abo was a racist term until I moved here to Aus. As most words are shortened by Aussies, it would be natural for tourists from outside of Australia to assume Abo is not racist, just the shortening of Aboriginal
11 May 10
2:13 pm
I’d wager that this isn’t incompetence or malice at all.
When you bid for something on google using broad or advanced match it’ll show your ad on queries that it thinks is related to the concept of your ad.
They were probably buying “aboriginal” or “aboriginal culture” and the matching technology (not ureasonably, it’s just an algorithm, it doesn’t make value judgements unless someone builds a constraint on it) thought “abo” was a related term.
If you look at the google search results for “abo” you’ll see that it’s a query that may be about a few different things according to Google – the ABO blood group system etc. It’s just a mistake and there’s no real need to blow it out of proportion. Everyone who has ever used google adwords has made this mistake, just not in such a public and wrong.com way.
11 May 10
2:14 pm
why is abo an offensive term? Geez, you can tell that there’s been a real market slowdown – we have nothing better to do than sit and make stories out of google search words…..
Slow news day mumbrella?
11 May 10
2:19 pm
Firstly I don’t get NT ads with “abo”, only with “aboriginal”. Maybe they already fixed it?
Secondly is it possible that this issue occurred due to some fuzzy logic within Google? (Similar to when it suggests alternate or corrected spellings of search terms).
11 May 10
2:19 pm
My first thought is that the ads are being served based on substring matching. “abo” is the first three letters of several variations of relevant keywords and typos of keywords, seems more likely to be a boring technicality than an intentional effort.
11 May 10
2:26 pm
“Abo” is an offensive and derogatory word. Shame on you for calling it too much political correctness! How about from now on, the “indancurry” user is referred to as a stupid curry-munching f*ckwit? Oh don’t be offended now, after all, it’s just common sense.
11 May 10
2:26 pm
Reminds me of my experience in the 1970s when a subtitle “Abo. spokesman” popped up as a subtitle on an ABC-TV program. I complained to Aunty who replied – in all seriousness – that “Aboriginal” wouldn’t fit. I didn’t bother to tell them that they could have tried smaller type but, thankfully, I never saw “Abo” again.
11 May 10
2:33 pm
Mikey – that’s out of line, for someone replying to attempt to starnd up for political correctness your blatantly racist response speaks volumes…
11 May 10
2:34 pm
Yep, on my first search, from about 35,500,000 results “The ABO blood group system is the most important blood type system (or blood group system) in human blood transfusion.” (Wikipedia).
Or it could be Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (www.brandenburg.com.au).
As an aside, I love Wikipedia.
Abo may refer to:
ABO blood group system, a human blood type and blood group system
ABO (gene), enzyme encoded by the ABO gene that determines the ABO blood group of an individual
Abo of Tiflis (c.756–786), an Arab East Orthodox Catholic saint
Adaptive Binary Optimization (ABO), an image compression algorithm
Indigenous Australians, as the offensive (once casual) term “abo”
Ābo, the anglicized Japanese name for the Pokémon Ekans
Bankon language, also known as Abo, Abaw, Bo, Bon
American Board of Optometry, a licencing and certification foundation for Opticians and optical providers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abo)
11 May 10
2:40 pm
Yes
“What is Brett doing searching ‘abo’ in google anyway?”
“If someone types in the word ‘abo’ would you rather they are delivered to a website supporting appropriate aboriginal related content or a race hate website which could be the other option…………..”
11 May 10
2:46 pm
The old offensiveness of this word has passed into history. It has plenty of common usage amongst kooris, oops indigenous people, and whites in close contact with them. It can depend upon the individuals and the context of course but it’s become a bit tongue in cheek, in the way you might dare to call a girl a sheila for a minor stir. It’s not a big deal.
11 May 10
3:03 pm
Who cares…? Don’t see what the big deal is here.
11 May 10
3:04 pm
This is most likely the result of an automated bid/keyword management system. I dislike such systems because they enable lazy advertisers to do stupid things more quickly and in greater quantity.
Regardless of politics, the term ‘abo’ would make a poor keyword for Tourism NT on a pure search marketing basis. Not only is ‘abo’ ambiguous (to most of the world, it refers to blood types), it offers an almost unintelligible connection between searcher expectation (‘common language’) and site content (‘brand language’). What you end up with is a term that would drive expensive, untargeted traffic with a high bounce propensity.
Even if ‘abo’ were a PC term, it would be a bad keyword.
Which comes back to the automated system problem. The example is a generic ad with ‘Abo’ dynamically inserted into the title. Most certainly, no human would have even seen this – it’s set-and-forget advertising that relies on machine interpretation of natural language for ignorant clients with a large budget (i.e. the government).
It’s a shame to see tax dollars being spent with such little oversight.
11 May 10
3:08 pm
Great pick up by Brett – being an SEM manager for a number of years I have seen similar incidents like this (unfortunate as they may be) – it ain’t the worst and the SEM agency has done well by picking it up and adding the word as a negative
11 May 10
3:15 pm
Your terms – abo – do not have enough search volume to show graphs.
11 May 10
3:16 pm
Bored of the racial too and fro’ing now…but on topic I really want to visit the NT after seeing this: http://tinyurl.com/yegbepb
Tourism NT could have a whole new target market for tours
11 May 10
3:21 pm
Have you ever tried to spell Abodiginal? It ain’t easy
11 May 10
3:22 pm
Awesome response by Judd… Bang on point!
11 May 10
3:31 pm
Two concerns: one, I find this hard to believe. How do you know someone else might not have set this up in an attempt to discredit them
In the event that it is linked to their Adwords account, could be a case of Google or a third party program suggesting related keywords and someone simply hitting “select all” without actually looking at the list. A level of blame to be sure, but I’d find it hard to believe that they’d be that stupid as to type it in themselves as a keyword.
11 May 10
3:41 pm
I blame South Australia.
11 May 10
3:48 pm
Anyone who suggests that the word Abo is not offensive is a complete idiot, but we know that this was an accident. Poor technology. Maybe even an idiot or as per usual an inexperienced teen at the wheel, but not intentional and they should not be treated as if they are serial killers.
Does anyone have the name and contact number for the person at NT Tourism who looks after their search?
11 May 10
4:12 pm
Tell our indigenous friends to get a life
11 May 10
4:15 pm
Well this has definitely polarized many but there’s two debates going on here…
Firstly, whether the term is derogatory or not. I happen to think based on my experience with its use in Australia that it is, though I understand others may not agree.
The second, is around the actual implementation… There’s no doubt Google’s DKI and the keyword match type are involved, which looks extremely bad for Tourism NT… I’d love to hear their response.
People do make mistakes and the important thing is we learn from them.
For anyone interested I was actually searching for another government body whose acronym differs by one letter.
11 May 10
4:36 pm
Pretty damn lazy on ABC’s part – lumping Abo in with other search terms and leaving an auto keyword title replace ad. Reeks of too much automation.
Not to mention the obvious: what person searching Abo wants to experience Aboriginal culture? Quality marketing right there.
11 May 10
4:40 pm
I agree we do sometimes get too PC, but in this case, it’s fair enough to suggest that this needs to be removed.
The reason why is simply that Aboriginal people don’t like being called Abo, especially by non-Aboriginals. I’ve seen it before and we (well, anyone who’s been in Oz long enough) can probably imagine it being received negatively by Aboriginals anyway.
@ Ben – couldn’t agree more. If it’s deemed a relevant keyword, by all means use it to attract people searching for that term, but don’t repeat it in the ad.
I suspect this is a case of carelessness on Tourism NTs part. All they need to do is change or remove it (seems like they already have), apologise to anyone that directly expresses offense taken, and move on.
11 May 10
4:41 pm
WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!??!??1
11 May 10
4:42 pm
And now this article is ranking number 3 for the same term. This is Google’s “freshness of content” algorithm at work. Google also taking signals from inbound links to the article and no doubt social media chatter too.
11 May 10
4:53 pm
CJ. Would you have made such a brazen statement using your real name? I thought not. Coward.
11 May 10
4:56 pm
You’d have to be living under a rock to not know that Aboriginal people don’t like being called ‘abo’.
It’s always been a pejorative term so cries of ‘political correctness’ are unjustified.
I too hope that this is just an oversight on Tourism NT’s part.
You’d think Google’s suggested keywords for paid ads would actually be words that companies would confidently want to be associated with.
11 May 10
5:02 pm
Four hours later and still no comment from Tourism NT. Seems to me if this was a simple mistake they’d have said something by now.
11 May 10
5:02 pm
Well thanks to this article, Tourism NT are now ranking naturally for “abo”, so they no longer need to pay for the ad. Good SEO work!
11 May 10
5:03 pm
Did the marketing person select ‘Abo’ or did Google?
When you search for ‘Abo’ Google says ‘Did you mean Aboriginal’, so I suggest that Google will also give this suggestion to you when purchasing adwords or vice versa… It could be a very honest mistake when picking adwords and selecting other keywords to use in the campaign that Google reommends…
Who would search for Abo anyway and why? Mind you I bet people search for Pom, Bogan, Ranga and all sorts dont they… lets face it habits are never PC. Are marketeers allowed to target societies habits?
11 May 10
5:28 pm
C’mon guys, worse things are happening in the world than to worry something like this.
11 May 10
5:39 pm
The Aged has picked up on this very webpage now. Rather passé by now, but then this is media outlet that made a big deal out of what a only few hundred twitter users saw at the time (Catherine Deveny tweets)
11 May 10
7:12 pm
@ Mia
“You’d have to be living under a rock to not know that Aboriginal people don’t like being called ‘abo’.”
My Aunty lives under a rock in Coober Pedy and she says it’s very nice.
11 May 10
10:00 pm
by saying the word aboriginal,you are classing yourself as not of this continent, AB MEANS NON IN LATIN,JUST LIKE SAYING ABNORMAL,ABSTRACT,AND SO FORTH, AND IT’S THE ABNORMALITY OF A WHITE MAN THINKING!!!
11 May 10
10:14 pm
The internal NT geek responsible for the SEO probably thought ABO was a wise choice – in the NT (and a lot of other places) it’s sadly pretty common.
11 May 10
10:42 pm
This is just Google “broad-matching” a term that is incomplete (i.e Aboriginal), in its system’s viewpoint.
* Search for “toyot” and you’ll be servered with Toyota search ads
* Search for “metho” and you’ll be served with cleaning solvent search ads
Google gets paid when users click on PPC ads, so it’s going to presume a user meant a correct search term wherever possible to increase impressions of ads, and thus clicks, and thus revenue.
Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance … or computers, or commerce.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon’s_razor
11 May 10
11:15 pm
NT Tourism should say sorry
12 May 10
9:02 am
Brett Nicholson, frankly, is an idiot. I am so tired of smug self-righteous whiteys thinking they are protecting the sensibilities of poor black folk by carping about pathetic irrelevancies, and in doing so, inflaming unnecessary racial tension and diverting focus from the serious issues like aborignial health, justice, and a full inclusive apology to all indigenous Australians. Rod is very right. There are many valid reasons why anyone with tech competancy might have included the abbreviation ‘abo’. I see nothing at all racist is what Nicholson ‘discovered’, but plenty that is disturbing about him having trumpeted about it. Wake up, Nicholson, Next Digital should sack you.
12 May 10
9:27 am
I have to agree, if anything at all, this post from Nicholson has merely highlighted his ignorance of Google, resorting to sensationalism when on reflection it’s easy to see how Tourism NT are innocent in all this, and it’s simply a side effect of Google’s relationship engine.
12 May 10
9:49 am
“G” and Tom, I wonder if you’re missing the point slightly?
Surely it isn’t about whether Google automatically gives you this option – it’s about appearances to the public. And part of an agency’s job is helping their client manage risks. Type the word “Abo” into Google News this morning (or pick up the papers) and you’ll see they’ve failed in that.
Understanding the technical reason why it happened doesn’t make the problem go away. Attacking Brett Nicholson for raising it (in entirely sensible terms, by the way), is arguably pretty idiotic in itself, G.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
12 May 10
10:24 am
Beyond the line and behind the act.
Is this really any more racist than calling all British people Poms or Kiwi’s sheep shaggers? Telling Irish Jokes or saying that all Tasmanians are inbred?? Where do we stop with generically labelling races???
Do you get offended when you are overseas and someone calls you skippy, tells you to bowl them a tinny under arm or to show them your manacle marks?
12 May 10
10:31 am
Perhaps you have a point, Mumbrella – but if what we’re suggesting is correct then the people responsible for the AdWords (in this case, the responsibility appears to lie with MPG) seemingly have a higher level of diligence required than they may have previously realised.
Perhaps such agencies will now need to maintain a blacklist of words they don’t want a brand associated, as well as a whitelist of words they do, and ensure that the brand is not associated with those keywords – something that it certainly seems (given ‘abo’ no longer references Tourism NT) that Google is capable of doing.
A lesson for all agencies, and perhaps another entry for Brett’s blog?
12 May 10
11:44 am
Newspapers know enough about online marketing to have been able to pick this boring technical issue for what it was. They chose not to let a good headline get in the way of the truth.
Now every indigenous Australian who checks their email or picks up a newspaper today will have to think about racism again. What a waste of a good day.
Tim – if you are justifying your publishing of the story on the grounds of imcompetence rather than racism, why didn’t your story mention the media company who placed them on behalf of Tourism NT, or how automated adword campaigns are generated. Admit it, you jumped on the headline like everyone else.
12 May 10
11:59 am
I typed in ‘coon’ then clicked ‘i’m feeling lucky’. Imagine my shock and disgust when I was directed to a cheese website.
12 May 10
12:24 pm
I use ABO all the time when I meet foreign born Aussies; its an abbr for ‘Australian Born Overseas’. Breath in, breath out.
12 May 10
12:58 pm
How did Brett even find that?! Nice spot!
12 May 10
1:06 pm
won’t somebody please think of the children
16 May 10
11:37 pm
@ mikey 11 May 10 2:26 pm – I am replying just to get something off my chest. Here’s to you, a boorish, self smug, narcissist – get out and have some real education in the big wide world and then talk about political correctness, you racist pig. I have seen enough of the world to be taken in by your stupid outburst …
18 May 10
9:58 pm
As mentioned by Tom, this ad has most likely been served due to using broad match and therefore should not fuel an attack at the NT Tourism for being politically incorrect or their agency for being incompetent.
4 Jun 10
1:27 pm
Wow! Some ignorant comments here. The reason it is not acceptable is because it reinforces that ‘derogatory word’ as an appropriate description. It says to anyone searching for Aboriginal culture, that even tourism accepts this lazy offensive word. Hell!! If it gets more hits, why not? Right?
idiots.
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