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Upfront Thinking: Trust Digital

Working within a digital agency, nothing is more frustrating than partnering with clients that don’t trust the digital space and therefore don’t trust you. Some don’t devote time to digital and others don’t consider it when budgeting. Most of my colleagues working in this side of the industry are passionate about ...

The Olympic Brand – iconic heritage vs vacant brand promises, human rights atrocities and gutless politicians

How many of us branding folk would die to work on the Olympic brand? “Ah, not me. I’m busy that day, helping mum move house, starting my key-ring collection, that sort of thing.” There are enough people dying because of the Olympic Games as it is. After some limited experience with the Sydney Games, I am permanently ...

Searching for the right buyer

Last week I sat in a café biding time (working) before meeting a client in Sydney’s Martin Place. I sat next to the window to see if I could get my wireless 'broadband' to give me anything other than a snail’s paced connection, and ended up watching a Greenpeace staffer intercepting innocent passers by. This is ...

Scamming the scammers: the story of the Nigerian $40 million man

On a tour of the favela in Brazil early this year I was intrigued by the idea of community justice which was dealt out in these towns. If they found out that someone had murdered/raped/stolen from someone in the favela instead of going to the police, they would find them and the community would decide his fate. I ...

Online reputation matters, but can Aussie communicators be arsed?

In a recent ‘e-consultancy' survey of cross-sector international practitioners, 99 percent of agency, in-house or freelance PR and marketing types thought online coverage was hugely important. Another survey finds that 75 percent of journos use blogs and online sources for story ideas. Now, a few weeks back at ...

Do we need marketers?

Where will it end, this constant blurring of the lines between us and them, the smelly public. This blog is further evidence of our fundamental interdependence. We marketers write, they write. Who is they and who is us anymore? We are blending together into a mass of postulating self-connected human genome mass. ...

Copy Corner: Producing better emails

Emails are such a huge part of our lives these days, it’s worth thinking about how to do a better job with them. Here are a few things to think about. The salutation is an effective way to set the atmosphere. Think about the options such as ‘Hello’, ‘Dear’ or ‘Hi’ and decide what’s right for you in each case. Make ...

Drumming up support for innovative DM

I came home tonight to find my three year old drumming furiously to Coldplay’s 'Fix You'. “Who gave you the drumsticks?” – “HONDA” came the reply; “Does he live in heaven?” A quick rummage through the mail revealed an oversized mail piece bearing silhouettes where drumsticks had once been. Like most males of the ...

Very Able: Setting Sail

Welcome to Very Able; a blog that’s focused on applications, innovation and information related to variable-data printing in direct marketing. For those of you who don’t know me, I have a healthy interest in variable-data publishing (VDP). In my copious free time I spend far too much time exploring the wonderful ...

Be real or fake off

Anyone with a blog or that is posting to a blog will already understand that blogs need a regular, staple diet of home-grown organic produce. ...

Who's your fantasy blogger?

In recent years it's been pretty difficult to miss the meteoric rise of blogging, and it might not come as any surprise to many of you that the word blog was actually voted word of the year by Merriam-Webster in 2004. Dr Con Stavros looks for blogging inspiration from a couple of unusual sources. Q. If you could read ...

Social networks and anti-social activity

The next time someone approaches me asking why Hippo doesn’t have a Facebook application I swear to God Almighty I will end their ignorant little lives, throttled by network cable left over from an age that negated walking through the office, laptop in palm, smirks all around. All you traditional media types, listen ...

Sponsorship issues facing the 2008 Beijing Olympics

To the legitimate sponsor, ‘ambush’ is a dirty word. But there are ways to fend off an ambush attack and even turn it into a positive for your brand, say Dr Francis Farrelly and Dr Pascale Quester. As the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach, and as athletes work to attain their scientifically scheduled peak physical form, ...

New media and its impact on branding

New media is increasingly putting branding in the hands of consumers, says Jacqueline Burns. The year is 2007. The era is the Age of Conversation. Having survived several decades of mass media-channelled monologues, brands are at last engaging in two-way dialogue with consumers. Whether brands like it or not, new ...

Good and Bad Blogs

Many of us in the media world are simultaneously drooling over the digital dialogue and doing bugger-all in our own backyards. Martyn Thomas looks at the abundance of bad blogs and recommends a few of the best. There is a danger as digital networking erupts that many of the companies who set themselves up as communication ...

Guerilla Guide: Managing your marketing career

Geoffrey McDonald Bowll explores the freedom that can exist when marketers own their own business I’m on a boogie board. Crashing into my 11-year-old as he spins around on the wave next me. He banks left then slams into me again. This time my sunglasses fall off and I have to slip into the surf to find them. With ...

Kiely: Analysis of customer service response

This story began with a letter from Michael to Geoff Dixon, CEO of Qantas, expressing his disappointment about the lack of personal space allotted to cattle class travellers on international flights. After receiving a rather dismissive response from the company’s customer care centre, Michael continued his pursuit of a personal response from Mr Dixon…

Successful internet branding

Linda Hayes takes a look at some of the best (and worst) branded sites on the web. My favourite website is www.pedigree.com.au. This might not be unusual, except for the fact that I don't own a dog. And I will not be buying a dog in the near future. So why do I like it? My daughter wants a dog and we regularly go ...

Prose and Cons: Presidential race, blogging, brand battles

Con Stavros explores the marketing battle for the American presidential race, blogging regulation and brand longevity Donkey vote Prose & Cons loves a big marketing battle. It doesn’t matter if it’s Coke versus Pepsi or Channel Nine versus Channel Seven, when the big boys get the marketing machines rolling it ...

Jingles: Consumer learning through sonic branding

The catchy jingle is making a big comeback for marketers of both old and new brands looking to find an enduring way to connect with consumers, writes Michael Burrows. I grew up in an era (in the not too distant past) where you could sing along to nearly every brand. Walking along the supermarket aisles, my mental ...

Profile: David Jones

Two years ago Euro RSCG was facing a bleak future. Sam Gopal chats to David Jones, the adrenalin fuelled force that has breathed new life into, and changed the fortunes of, one of the world’s most innovative agencies. It’s safe to say that at some point in our lives, we sit down with the old faithful pen and paper, ...

Prose and Cons: Monocle, Gillete and General Motors

One-eyed view Tyler Brûlé has graced this column before as the global style-setter of Wallpaper* founding fame. Brûlé travels the world nowadays overseeing a respected trend spotting and branding empire. His latest, much publicised, venture is Monocle, a magazine best described as an eclectic mix of current affairs, ...

Out of home advertising: ready, aim, fire!

I’m not the type to initiate gratuitous banter with strangers. I’m the rude girl in the elevator feigning some urgent text message to avoid talking to you about the weather. I’m the one in the checkout queue staring at the fluorescent lights like a vacuous zombie to block out your screaming baby. And I’m that snob ...

Guerilla Guide: Briefing ad agencies

The inimitable Geoffrey Bowll delivers the inside line on briefing ad agencies. I’m sitting in a city café and it ain’t as simple as ‘white with one’ anymore. Skinny cap, soy mocha, skinny soy latte in a mug with the handle facing south. So many variations. People have too much time, too little to do. Here I am ordering ...

Retro marketing: campaign pitch

Marketing explores the evolution of the ‘campaign pitch’ from July 1997 to July 2007 THEN Marketing circa July 1997: the pitch John Allert, of Allert Corporate Communication, blames the campaign pitch for lowering the status of design, claiming that by charging nothing (or at best the cost of materials) for ideas ...

MySpace vs Friendster: The curse of complacency

Friendster was the MySpace of yesterday, however it fell behind due to its arrogance and complacency towards users. Will MySpace follow? In 2001, a US entrepreneur came up with the idea of creating a website that would echo the real-world way people meet – through their friends. In August 2002, the site went live, ...

Kiely: Species fear providing a marketing opportunity

Michael Kiely explores the post 9/11 emotional response of Species fear and how marketers can satisfy a new need. Franklin D Roosevelt said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” He was right. I detect a potent form of angst in our society that none dare speak of out of fear of its corrosive potential for the ...

Prose and Cons: advertising to children, sports marketing and fashion branding

Childish blame The Simpsons were at their best in the early days of the cartoon franchise when their satirical barbs and humorous social commentary had an edge, sadly lacking in recent years. In a season two episode, which first aired back in 1990, a campaign led by Marge Simpson against animated cartoon violence ...

Creating and retaining consumer emotional attachment to brands

Brands that turn their backs on their consumers’ emotional bond to them do so at their own peril, writes Karl Treacher. Do people call you ‘big rig’? Do you tell yourself that you eat because you are unhappy and you are unhappy because you eat? Well, this isn’t an article that will help you understand why you have ...

Guerrilla Guide: Selecting an agency

The inimitable Geoffrey Bowll delivers the inside line on how to go about selecting a creative agency I’m sitting spinning on my ‘director’s’ chair, drumming my fingers, scheming up something evil I can suggest to a client, to rip more precious lucre from their customers’ plastic accounts. And I’m wondering what lunch ...

Guerrilla Guide: Professional stereotypes

What else could I do? I’m at a Networx function, sipping a beer and chatting with Frank Chamberlin, who also writes for this esteemed publication. We’re talking about the pitfalls of penning a piece without a decent brief, when I notice to my right a woman who is staring at me. Being a well-brought up boy, I put ...

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