-
Opinion | Features
-
The media consolidation is coming - and the deals have probably already been done
The coming wave of media consolidation could push Ten into the arms of News Corp, Seven into bed with Fairfax Media and Nine with WIN, predicts Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes
A long while back, I had lunch with the father of an English Premier League footballer. He confided that his son would be replacing my club's top striker.
None of this had appeared in the transfer-obsessed tabloid sports pages. And nor did it for several months. But the transfer eventually unfolded in exactly the way he told me it would.
It was eye-opening to realise just how far in advance top level deals are stitched up. -
Banning booze ads will just make marketers more creative
As the calls for stricter regulation of alcohol advertising to protect children heat up Mike O'Rourke argues changes to advertising will do nothing without changing behaviour at home.
Hi, my name is Mike O’Rourke and I ask my kids to pass me beers. I drink alcoholic beverages at home, and yes, I have also been guilty of asking my kids to go to the fridge for me. And when we have guests I angst about what wine we’ll serve as much what food we’ll eat. And the rhetorical discussions with my son over whether I should get 2 bags of ice or just the one (the answer’s always two).
Like most Australian families, alcohol plays a large part in my home life. -
Why stupid is normal – when smart people make dumb choices
Ashton Bishop and Gary Wilkinson argue how the actions of former BP chief Tony Hayward during the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis should be a wake up call to stressed marketers and those that work with them.
In 2010 after over 455 million litres of oil had already poured into the Gulf off the Louisiana coast and millions of litres more continued to escape every day, Tony Hayward, the CEO of oil giant BP, and the public face of the environmental disaster, decided to take part in an exclusive yacht race off the Isle of Wight. There was outrage. Social media, already heavily critical of BP’s poor response to the catastrophe, got worse. -
What is the most effective method for charity fundraising?
Recent pieces on Mumbrella around charity street fundraisers have stirred debate about the pros and cons of the practice. Here Angela Brooks looks at what the statistics show is the best way of fundraising.
Following Mumbrella’s recent stories on the pro’s and con’s of ‘chuggers’, I thought it may be of value to reveal what the statistics show is the best fundraising strategy for charities and how to secure more out of the Australian hip pocket. The results will surprise many. -
Answering Adam: Why advertising spin does harm consumers
In response to Adam Ferrier's article on whether advertising spin is actually OK, TV luminary Nick Murray argues it is not.
As Adam Ferrier correctly points out in his wonderfully provocative article the ABC's consumer affairs show The Checkout takes aim at brands which charge more for products marketed by preying on desires and fears in nearly every episode. I make TV shows including The Checkout, so I thought I'd give a non marketer's perspective.
-
Analysis: Where has it gone wrong for Ten?
After starting the year with improved ratings and an air of optimism audience shares have declined severely for Network Ten. Megan Reynolds spoke to industry insiders to find out where it went wrong.
Secrets and Lies was one of the most anticipated dramas of the year, which has already been picked up by production companies in the US and UK, launched to 403,000 metro viewers on Channel Ten last night. While those numbers may be disappointing for executives in the Pyrmont offices, they are higher than it has been getting for established reality show The Biggest Loser and the revived So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD).
In the week after the Winter Olympics Ten's total network audience share dropped from 18.8 per cent, to 14.4 per cent. This included the main channel's worst-ever rating night, where it took just 6.4 per cent of the audience.
-
Answers for Adam: Is advertising spin actually good?
In his regular column Adam Ferrier poses a question to the industry. Today he asks is advertising spin as bad as it is made out to be?
Advertising is bad right? We coerce people into buying stuff they don’t need. Further, as TV show The Checkout points out (most weeks) we sometimes just put a descriptive word like ‘Baby’, or ‘Premium’ on a certain product, and then charge more for exactly the same thing. For example, all shampoos are basically made of the same stuff – so why are some priced at $3.00 a bottle whilst ‘Premium Salon Quality’ alternatives (at product parity) cost $30 (or more)? -
Mumbrella360 - how you can be involved
The industry is once again being asked to get involved in this year's Mumbrella360. Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes explains how
This is the fourth time we've done this. It's the moment to fire the starting pistol on Mumbrella360.
In the next few days we'll be announcing at least one big new thing for Mumbrella360. But the most important thing remains the same - once again we're inviting the industry to join us in curating the conference. You're reading that invitation right now. -
Why the new DrinkWise campaign is a fail
A new campaign by DrinkWise aimed at encouraging people to drink responsibly actually does the opposite, argues Joel Egan.
Clemenger BBDO Melbourne's new campaign, ‘Drinking - do it properly’, is stylish, cool and well executed which ticks all the boxes for them. But I can’t help thinking that DrinkWise could be left picking up the pieces. -
Reinventing the news model in the digital era
On Friday night Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull launched Morry Schwartz's The Saturday Paper at a function in Sydney. This is an abridged version of his speech. Just a few years ago in 2008 the president of France Nicholas Sarkosy said: "democracy can not function with a press permanently on the edge of an economic precipice." -
Can Big Data predict the Best Picture Oscar winner?
With many struggling to provide insights from Big Data Bryan Melmed puts his money where his mouth is by using it to predict the winner of the Best Picture Oscar.
Can big data insights predict the winner of Best Picture at Sunday’s Oscars? We think it can and we are betting the farm on 12 Years a Slave. And this is how we figured it out. -
Building Chinese relations with kids TV
A new co-produced children's TV show between the ABC and Chinese state TV may show where the future of co-production lies.
Filmed over six months across freezing winter and the heat of summer on a set the size of a football field, located outside the city of Zhou Zhou two hours south of Beijing Hoopla Doopla posed a number of challenges for the Australian and Chinese production teams working on it, not least the language barrier.
-
Personality differences: Trolls and cyberstalkers aren't the same
In this cross posting from The Conversation Troy McEwan looks at what motivates bad online behaviour, and the best ways to handle it. The recent death of television personality Charlotte Dawson and the possible role that online abuse played in her struggles with depression shows how damaging this behaviour can be. -
The challenges of reporting on Myanmar
In this interview with Mumbrella Asia editor Robin Hicks, Melbourne-born journalist Jessica Mudditt talks about the challenges of reporting on a country that is – in fits and starts – loosening its grip on press freedom after decades of oppression. What’s the hardest thing about reporting on Myanmar?For me, it’s the lack of data available. Previous military regimes appear to have had zero interest in obtaining information about the people of Myanmar (other than for intelligence purposes!). A census hasn’t been conducted in more than 30 years, so even something as straightforward as the total population of Myanmar is merely an estimate, and the estimates vary quite a lot from organisation to organisation. And because Myanmar was a closed country for so long, the research that would normally have been amassed by civil society groups such as INGOs simply didn’t exist until recently. -
Charlotte Dawson: A media death but a normal illness
The death of Charlotte Dawson says a bit about the media spotlight but more about the realities of mental illness, argues Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes. It was a strange, sickening feeling this afternoon watching Charlotte Dawson on video. I hadn't seen it since we published the interview just over a year ago.
-
Why this is NOT the Twitter election
If you read the last few days’ papers, you would think that the Twitterati will decide the outcome of the election.
I’ve almost suggested as much msyelf.
But actually, we’re only half way there. This is not going to be an Obama-style social media-led uprising.
Social media has two potential types of influence on the outcome of an election – firstly, accelerating and magnifying the news cycle, and secondly – and potentially more powerfully – activating the advocates.
The first part is now just a fact of communications, but the second relies on planning and engagement from the political parties. They should have got serious about that months ago – this time round, the major parties have left it too late.
So inevitably there will be some gaffe that goes crazy on Twitter. The speed with which Gordon Brown’s Bigotgate blunder spread on Twitter was a classic example in the UK election.
But less so the planned, focused use of social media demonstrated so well in the election of Barack Obama.
Where social media – Twitter, maybe, but more so Facebook – becomes a huge potential tool is in not just getting getting out the vote, but turning these supporters into an informed and engaged army.
In the US, Sarah Silverman’s The Great Schlep persuaded engaged young Jewish people to travel to Florida and talk to their grandparents about voting for Obama. The state swung from Republican to Democrat.
But that kind of engagement relies on creating your army long before the battle is called so they are already listening when you need them. It’s a bit late to raise your army as you are already charging into battle.
When the PM only started tweeting a fortnight ago and Labor only embedded social media capabilities into its own website a week ago, that’s far too late.
Even chucking up an ad on YouTube and hoping it goes viral and gets you some free media will only get you so far. Particularly if it’s boring, and especially if the song is as bad as this one for the Liberal Party:
The best any party can hope for this time is to not make a mistake that kills them when it gets sucked into the Twitter news accelerator.
Next time round, they may be able to use social media in a positive way. But they’ll have to start now.
Tim Burrowes
-
-
Email Newsletter
Latest Jobs- PR SAM – Popular Creative Agency! – 1-2 Global Accounts! – Wellington’s Recruitment
- Communications Specialist – APAC – IN HOUSE! -
- SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER – DIGITAL
- Marketing Manager
- front-end Digital Developer
- Senior Account Manager $75K to $80K
- PR SAM or AD – Great Consumer & Corporate Mix! – Two Key Brands! – Wellington’s Recruitment
- Media Director – Strong Manager for offline planning and buying – $110k
- Digital Media Manager
- PROJECT COORDINATOR – HEALTH PROFESSIONAL PORTAL
-
RSS
Comments
19 Jul 10
3:44 pm
Agree Tim, its all too broadcast and same-same. Neither party is talking back to any of the voters and debate rages on all the social channels they’ve set up with no responding. It all smacks of social for social’s sake. I’ve done an analysis of the net sentiment Liberal vs Labor up until last night, and there’s not even a point between them. http://www.digitaltip.com.au/i.....h-fitness/
19 Jul 10
4:04 pm
Dude… the song sounds like “stand up Australia, stand up, for RE-ELECTION.”
19 Jul 10
4:21 pm
Obama’s campaign laid out in the easy to understand detail how social media can help to get a rank outsider elected to the most powerful political job in the world.
Surely it’s not that hard for even half aware pollies and/or their parties to get the potential power of social media. AND that it should extend beyond some lame tweets and even more lame YouTube videos.
The UK election and now, seemingly, the Australian election demonstrates that political decision makers don’t get it and perhaps feel that what happened in the US was an aberration and it won’t work here.
Hopefully, we’ll be blown away by a candidate that does get it and does do a meaningful job of leveraging social media in this election. If nothing else, it’s a pretty good way to stand out from the pack.
19 Jul 10
4:27 pm
Check out ninemsn for people response to the question..Tweetrace – Which party Really gets Twitter? http://news.ninemsn.com.au/nat.....home-state
Seems like only Kate Ellis has any understanding, yet ninemsn users think the Libs have a better understanding. Hmmm! What does this say about the 9msn audience????
19 Jul 10
4:35 pm
Come on Bob Brown, get on Twitter, at least you talk sense.
19 Jul 10
4:39 pm
That Sarah Silverman clip is hilarious. I laughed embarrassingly loudly at my desk and everybody looked at me.
19 Jul 10
4:40 pm
Spot on Tim. Build your community before you need it. This applies to brands as much as it does political parties and dare I say both are as guilty as each other i.e. wanting instant results via one-way blasting of messages.
Genuinely engaging people and building trust and respect takes time and considerable effort (both on and offline) so little wonder the major political parties aren’t yet ready to take full advantage of the social web.
19 Jul 10
4:52 pm
But but but…don’t both parties have advertising heavyweights advising and handling their campaigns?
And surely those icons of the advertising world would know how to build communities using social media?
19 Jul 10
5:00 pm
Tim, landed in Sydney Saturday morning from London and had to chuckle about the whole “Twitter election” the TV networks were wanting us to believe.
I blogged about this at http://lc.tl/auelection and compared the hype to what happened in the UK for the recent general election.
Andrew Grill
I’m here for 2 weeks so will be able to see first hand if my theory is correct.
19 Jul 10
5:05 pm
As I outlined on Twitter earlier today, http://twitter.com/martinwalsh/status/18892804463 the fundamental difference in Australia is that the politicians and political parties don’t have a strategy; they simply have a checklist and then hope for the best. And, hope is not a strategy!
The politicians and their consultants do not understand that Social Networking is NOT Social Media Marketing. You will never succeed if you simply have an approach of ticking a checklist of social networking sites.
I also see lots of people from time to time comment about the Obama campaign but they are misinformed and keep perpetuating the myth that Obama succeeded because of social media.
The Obama campaign succeeded because of email first, mobile second and social media marketing third. It was strongly supported by ATL and therefore it was a great 360 degree marketing campaign which used digital marketing in the most effective way to support the campaign goals and objectives. The team who led the Obama campaign has stated this on numerous occasions but it keeps getting lost in translation.
Social technologies are not simply Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. It is blogs, forums, communities, product reviews & ratings, RSS, chat & WIKI’s, social media newsrooms, social media press releases, social bookmarks and widgets to name a few.
As Tiphereth points out social influence marketing is about engagement and conversations. Social Influence Marketing is not just another monologue broadcast channel and yet so many marketers (and politicians) continually treat Twitter and Facebook as an RSS feed to broadcast yet more messages.
We’ve moved on from the Conversational Marketplace pre 1949 to the era of Mass Marketing Advertising circa 1949 to 2000 we are now in the current era of Conversational Marketing 2001+. But it seems a lot of people cannot grasp the fundamental changes in consumer behaviour underlying these new rules. If you don’t understand your target audience, where they are and how they use the social technologies then you will fail.
I won’t even go into the art of storytelling and content but simply stories sell, facts and figures don’t and this is particularly true across digital marketing.
Lastly, influence is not about the number of followers a person has or the volume of their tweets or status updates or blog posts. True influence by its very nature is the power of that individual to influence another person’s behaviour or opinion. Sadly way too many people are also using the wrong KPI’s to measure social influence marketing and are spending way too much time on speaking and or engaging with the wrong people.
This failure to understand the power of digital marketing and social influence marketing is probably the single biggest lost opportunity of this election.
19 Jul 10
7:13 pm
TWEET OFF! How dumb of prime media promoting another media over their own.
No wonder more people spend more time online than watching TV or reading newspapers. Think about it. Your client spends $10,000 for a spot in ACA and then ACA tell their audience to go online for more about this story. No wonder clients are leaving TV and Press advertising in their droves. FREE TV, newspapers and radio need to take a good look at themselves. Or they wont be here in this form in 10 years tiime. So then you can forget about your kids becoming news readers and reporters. They will be boring BLOGGERS on Twitter with no income.
19 Jul 10
9:27 pm
@Carole Ann Goldsmith – he is on twitter @SenatorBobBrown
20 Jul 10
10:00 am
@martinwalsh couldn’t agree more. My blog post with an example the social media “gurus” missed. http://jimboot.com/the-twitter-election. @tim I agree I dont think the parties will harness the power of online but individuals may.
26 Jul 10
2:48 pm
What election…
27 Jul 10
8:00 pm
I really think the social media buzz , especially twitter is a bit too hyped – I mean Kevin was all over twitter and look what happened to him – people vote for whos making the best policy decisions NOT on their twitter skills.
30 Jul 10
8:03 am
The usual content of Twitter hashtag streams like #auselection are pretty ignorable but where it does come into its own is when politicians appear on tv programs like #qanda or in a #debate and you get immediate feedback on their performance. Similarly the #insiders tweet stream attracts are a fair selection of larrikan commentators. Journos admit they monitor (and participate) in the tweet streams and this can in turn feed into their articles the next day so in this sense I would say Twitter has an impact. Facebook I would say has had 0 impact.