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WEEKEND PRESS: Does The Tele hates adland?; NRL pulls ad; Columnists discover Twitter

A roundup of media and marketing stories you may have missed over the weekend…

The Sun Herald made a bizarre, and somewhat prominent, blunder today, running a half page ad for St George Bank on page 2, which begins “On this National Day of Mourning…”. The day of mourning for the bushfire victims actually took place a fortnight ago. It looks like the ran an old ad.

The paper also reports that the National Rugby League has pulled its ad campaign featuring Manly Sea Eagles player Brett Stewart after serious allegations were made against him. The ad sees a boy playing in a park morphing into him.

Bonds’ PR disaster is continuing with beleagured owner Pacific Brands’ sponsorship of Melbourne Fashion Festival under the spotlight in The Sunday Telegraph.

Somewhat bizarely, considering the line of business it is in, the paper makes clear that it considers sponsorship and advertising to be anything but a legitimate part of the company’s business following its moves to outsource production. It points out disapprovingly: “Pacific Brands also shows no sign of easing up on its huge advertising expenditure” and then goes on to list some of its endorsement deals. The paper reports that “expensive public relations company” Cato Counsel has been appointed to handle the crisis.

Indeed, the Tele really does seem to have fallen out of love with the marketing industry (you may recall that Friday’s edition told readers that John Singleton was right to view media planners as coke -snorting idiots). Today it also attacks a tactical ad from Tourism Fiji that uses the phrase “Not that’s my kind of stimulus package” as “brazen”.

Still, if the holiday doesn’t go well, Nine will be on hand to capture the moment, reports the paper. It flags up new show Trouble In Paradise which will be showing everythign that can go wrong during holidays.

Twitter is becoming a major obsession of columnists. Mia Freedman (a three week veteran of the social networking tool) uses her column in the Sun-Herald to extol its virtues as a means of stalking celebrities, while Annabel Crabb writes in sister title Sydney Morning Herald of politicans’ less-than-brilliant interaction with Twitter, with the honourable exception of fake Stephen Conroy.

Meanwhile Real Stephen Conroy, the digital minister will soon have a new buddy. The Oz carries an ad for a deputy chairman for the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

But the only must-read media piece of the weekend comes from Nick Tabakoff, with an insightful, and sympathetic,  look at James Packer’s finances.

And, The Australian’s Gary Hughes has produced yet another must-read first person piece about his experiences of the bushfires, with a moving diary of his first days as a survivor appearing in the Weekend Australian Magazine.

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