Week in review: Beer bans and hoaxes; Facebook pulls in serious adspend; TV’s terminal list; Hack attacks

So who had a good week, and who had a bad week?

Like Santa Claus, we’re totting up who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.  

From dunces corner to Singing Corner

First into our new dunce’s corner, the senior management from Carlton Draught beer, who canned a perfectly good set of ads for a second time. Which was a pity as we’d only just spotted their resemblance to 1980s British children’s TV. And we’ve been humming the jingle all week.

Hack of the week

Joining Carlton in a bad week, Sunday Telegraph columnist Ros Reines. Not only did Reines lose her double page column on the prime inside back page slot to younger colleagues, but MTV celeb Ruby Rose finally hit back after a series of print attacks, arguably besting her on Twitter.

Sour grapes of the week?

Another attack, albeit with less explicable timing this week, was from ex- CommBank marketing boss Graham Ford. Seven years after leaving the company, Ford took a shot at CBA’s new (well, two years old) marketing position – labelling it shallow and lazy and calling for US ad agency Goodby, Silverstein to be fired.

Marketing move of the week

One of the biggest strategic shifts revealed this week came from Jetstar – shifting 40% of its budget into social media and digital and away from its traditional (and more expensive outlets). It was, I argued, probably a good move for Jetstar but not necessarily for the majority of brands.

Best brands on Facebook

Still with social media, The Conscience Organisation’s Julian Cole published some interesting stats on branded Facebook groups. Top of the pile was Pringles Australia with 260,000 fans and what he reported as a whopping $500,000 spend on Facebook ads. Let’s just repeat that. Half a mill. Taking social media seriously yet?

Most outlandish claim of the week

Commercial Radio Australia issued a new report claiming that digital radio has overtaken internet radio, just months after launching. What the report didn’t mention was that this was only as a means of listening to radio stations in the local area. One suspects that isn’t what most internet radio listeners do. They’ve got devices called radios for that.

Quote of the week

I spoke at a PRIA’s event in Sydney on Thursday night. Also on the panel was news.com.au editor David Higgins who touched on the paid content debate and quoted a sign on a colleague’s desk:

“You ten year free trial is coming to an end”

TV’s terminal list?

We started to worry for the future of Ten’s The Circle. With 50,000 viewers things don’t look healthy

TV’s hot list

But the networks finally began to show their hands for their big guns. Masterchef is imminent, and it looks like Nine may be scheduling Underbelly 3 against it on Sunday nights. Nine also revealed that it’s bringing back The Block.

Stunt of the week

Heineken tricked hundreds of footy fans into sacrificing a derby match to go to a classical concert, then let them watch the game anyway.

My favourite posting of the week (for painfully obvious reasons)

Digital agency Amnesia posted an analysis of the relative traffic from Mumbrella, AdNews and B&T. Modesty forbids me from sharing the results here. But you can read it on the Amnesia blog.

Have a good weekend.

Tim Burrowes