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Opinion
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.
How reliable are radio ratings?
In this guest posting, Jason ‘Jabba’ Davis wonders how accurate radio ratings can be, since the data is collated from handwritten diaries.
So, the radio ratings season gets underway tomorrow. After a well-earned break, Australia’s commercial radio stations will renew their obsession with figures to see how many of us are listening. Are they winning or losing the ratings war?
The much feared radio survey is the only way to measure the success or failure of a station’s playlist, talent, promotions or even good old Black Thunder crosses. With six-figure salaries riding on the make-or-break nature of ratings, just how accurate are Australia’s radio survey results?
One-eyed Willy’s rich stuff: brands as movie heroes
I have just spent an entire day on a plane. I can’t sleep on flights, even after heavy sedation. So I watched seven films, back to back. Most of the new ones were truly awful and I couldn’t finish them. So I watched an old favourite, The Goonies. I have probably watched this film more than 200 times since I was a kid. But this time, with work in the back of my mind, one thing stuck out – how much brands were the stars of the film.The gospel of participation is making brands forget about mass reach
In this guest post, Simon Lawson argues that brands are becoming obsessed with getting consumers to participate, rather than remembering to deliver mass exposure.I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of brands are wasting significant amounts of time and money on ineffective marketing. Large sums are being put behind tactics which end up being too small to have much chance of influencing total brand preference.
Vegemite’s Cheesybite neck-and-neck with none of the above
About the same number of people who took part in the public vote on the new name for Vegemite’s disastrously launched iSnack 2.0 did not like any of the names on offer as voted for the winning Cheesybite, Mumbrella can reveal.
When Kraft announced the winner earlier today, it said that 30,357 people had voted for a name, with 36% choosing Cheesybite. This would amount to about 10,900 people.
But in the online vote, as well as six names, a seventh option had been to say that none of the choices appealed. But this option was not included in today’s announcement.
However, after questions from Mumbrella, the company has said that a total of around 40,000 people took part in the weekend’s online vote, with approximately 25% not choosing any of the six names on offer. This would also amount to roughly 10,000 people.
Although he declined to share the exact numbers, Kraft’s corporate affairs head Simon Talbot insisted that Cheesybite had still come out just ahead of those who did not like any of the names.
He said: “It came out in front, just. Otherwise I’d have thought that we would have had to go back again.”
October 7th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
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Comments
7 Oct 09
12:08 pm
It’s not surprising. Whenever you put names in front of focus groups there are always one or two ‘don’t like any’ attitudes in the group. It’s human nature to be afraid of something new.
7 Oct 09
12:10 pm
I bet you that had iSnack2.0 been in that list, it would have won. Aussies love a battler.
7 Oct 09
12:24 pm
I suspect they will be changing it again, Cheesybite is way too close to Cheesymite, which means that Bakers Delight will be after them – if McDonalds can go after MacJoy and win (amongst others), then what hope a single letter change?
7 Oct 09
12:33 pm
Needed preference voting perhaps? Could’ve had a run off…
7 Oct 09
12:58 pm
I’m still gutted “#vegefail” wasn’t an option.
7 Oct 09
2:08 pm
Hey Kraft, Stop asking everyone else to do the work – make your own decisions, come up with your own ideas and grow a f*cking spine!
7 Oct 09
2:17 pm
Good point Clinton.
I believe the gutsy Aussie name ‘Tim Tam’ was not popular when introduced.
It’s lame name doesn’t seem to have been a sales problem at all.
7 Oct 09
3:08 pm
Kraft..Still a crap name
7 Oct 09
3:31 pm
I’m going to start up a bakery chain. I’ve got the perfect name: Maker’s Delight. 36 per cent of my friends really liked it!
7 Oct 09
3:40 pm
That’s very very close to Bakers Delight’s product ‘Cheesymite’……. Bakers Delight will be all over that and rightly so. I predict a third re-brand from the Kraft masterminds.
7 Oct 09
3:44 pm
Just another example of companies paying peanuts by not investing in a professional branding process and getting monkeys in return. Where is the originality ? is Kraft just another follower? They took the recipe of cheese and vegemite that the customer invented, chose a first name that was an adaptation of the Apple i pod and now are ripping off Bakers Delight ! What do the shareholders of Kraft think about the amateurs in the Marketing Department ? The only professionals in this pathetic branding saga is the PR company that’s being paid to minimise the reputation damage.
7 Oct 09
3:54 pm
I think Kraft wanted “Australia” to contribute to the naming of the new spread..but it seems a number of “us” are pretty thick like Vegemite and come up with lame names like iSnack 2.0
With Cheesybite…I can picture the cheese but what about the bite?
7 Oct 09
3:56 pm
I’m astonished about how truly ignorant many of you are.
in case you hadnt noticed, the iconic product ‘vegemite’ predated Baker’s Delight’s vegemite-containing product ‘Cheesymite’ by a good half century or so
it is Kraft that could have taken action against BD but obviously chose not to because its brand benefitted from the association/reinforcement
to suggest that BD would now have a cause of action against Kraft when it was the original intellectual property thief is ridiculous. If BD was stupid enough to make a peep, Kraft’s lawyers would tell them to cease and desist with the name Cheesymite in a heart beat.
“those b*stards at kraft have counter-claimed against Cheesymite
7 Oct 09
4:03 pm
Sven – that really depends on how much you can defend the ‘mite’ of Vegemite, which they cant, because it was a response to Marmite, originally a British product, the Aus/NZ rights of which were then bought by the Sanitarium outfit – 15 years before the ‘invention’ of Vegemite
Honestly, its the ones that throw the ignorant label around that really are the ignorant one. Next up, the ignorance of those that call other ignorance accusers ignorant….
7 Oct 09
4:09 pm
back to school, Dickens
irrespective of the truth of your historial assertion, and without going into the legal detail, Kraft dont need to defend the originality of ‘mite’ – only that Baker’s Delight with its Cheesymite product sought to benefit from the association with Vegemite – which shouldn’t be too hard considering that the baked good contains…er…VEGEMITE
7 Oct 09
4:15 pm
Well Sven, I would say that Kraft might have the right to stop BD using Vegemite in their product, but they have no say on the use of the phrase Cheesymite
The answer is that the lawyers will sort it out, but there is little doubt that the trademark ‘Cheesymite’ and the ‘Cheesybite’ alternative are too close and no responsible business would put it out there.
Do you work for them Sven, or the PR company? Personally I am now awaiting the long overdue Marmite action against Kraft
7 Oct 09
4:16 pm
Sven – you’re a tool. That’s about as strong an argument as a chocolate tea-pot.
7 Oct 09
4:24 pm
Helen – you’ve turned up a sandwich short to this bush lawyer’s picnic.
7 Oct 09
4:52 pm
Vegemite isn’t that original a name either – Marmite preceded that. So who knows which company mite have rights over the mite bit!
7 Oct 09
5:01 pm
i am off to trademake it now before anyone else does
7 Oct 09
5:02 pm
erm, trademark
7 Oct 09
6:24 pm
Do you not think that before Kraft announced the new name there would have been some serious consideration of a) if Bakers Delight are likely to take action and b) where Kraft would stand if that were the case?
I may be foolish for saying so after this iSnack 2.0 business but I would like to assume that Kraft would give it a little more thought than that, particularly seeing as this is round 2 of the naming game.
I’d put money on the fact that they will get away with this.
7 Oct 09
6:30 pm
oh come on Nitro. How can you defend those dumb-arse middle aged marketing fools when it’s far easy to be a 20 year old undergrad non-achiever who can snipe anonymously?
7 Oct 09
6:34 pm
To quote the Simpsons; “I’d have called it a Chuzwazza”
7 Oct 09
6:41 pm
Yeah well.. maybe they were considering milking it again more for what its worth. My comments here http://greatstrategy.blogspot......-said.html
I kept wondering… did Bakers Delight seize the moment and start putting up a sign saying something like “Try the now-famous Cheesymite”. Maybe they need some help from the PR team behind Vegemite.
8 Oct 09
11:04 am
Who cares what it’s called, most tourists will still call it ‘shit’ or ‘eeeeeergh’ or ‘ewwwwwwwww’ or ‘grosssssss’ or ‘aaaaaaaaaaghhhhhh i can’t feel my legs, i can’t feel my legs!!!!!’ anyway.
8 Oct 09
9:22 pm
this is why monkeys shouldn’t be in marketing. and why kids shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
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