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Consumer-generated campaigns are PR's domain

Two weeks ago in The Australian, Clems' James McGrath and Patts' Ben Coulson seemed to concur that ads that really engage audiences will be all the rage at Cannes from June 15-21. Traditional advertising is apparently waning in effectiveness compared to consumer-generated or audience-participation campaigns. So, ...

The four day working week and how you can start living the dream

Let’s face it, many of us never stop working. My colleagues and I are intensely passionate about our ability to guide clients and consumers through today’s fragmented channels. However, coupled with day to day tasks, high level creative thinking can become quite overwhelming. I would argue that if we just took ...

Facebook is the butter of the new media world

I just got told I could write about butter and it would be interesting. So, here it goes: Butter is bullshit. I actually love butter, we all do (unless of course you’re opting for low-fat soy butter with reduced salt and Real Original Flavour™ in which case do us all a favour and switch to celery, your friends ...

Dear Connex, We hate you (Ignorance is NOT Bliss! - An Open Letter)

Dear Connex Melbourne Marketing Department, Leo Burnett Melbourne (Advertising Agency), Starcom (Media Agency) and the Public Relations company, It is time for answers. Why is it that companies are still ignoring online? Fare Evasion Day May 1st started off as a Facebook Event. It was embraced by 1,700 people. ...

What’s wrong with the AMI?

This post is the first in a series looking at the AMI. Click below to read the others: What's wrong with the AMI The Great AMI Debate: Round 2 The Stark Reality of the AMI The AMI Bites Back Marketing the Marketers: the UK perspective Bowll bites back: Geoffrey responds to the AMI You can read the full version ...

What percentage of your media budget are you spending online?

With the myriad of media opportunities available to the marketer in an offline and online world, the media channel budget allocation decision will be continually harder to make moving forward. Having worked first hand in media agencies that tackle these conundrums professionally, I can confidently say there is no ...

TechTips: What is Twitter anyway, and why the hell should I give a damn?

Tweets? A Twitterer? The Twitterverse? WTF!? It’s enough to confuse anyone, and considering how little time I have already, do I really need another way to communicate? Well, I guess that depends on what you want to say, and how you want to say it. Twitter is often called a micro-blogging service, but that doesn’t ...

We know where you live - mashing up direct mail

While digital printing delivers the ability for every impression (or page) to be different, it also unlocks conventional boundaries and enables other digital technologies to be integrated with print. If you can put it on paper, then you can print it, digitally. Take mashups, for example. While the term usually refers ...

Why brand USA is bankrupt and how to relaunch it again

I just arrived in LAX, after five hours talking with a philosophy honours student from Harvard who thought the population of the USA was one billion, China two billion and Australia one million. I walked down the bridge-walk and into the terminal. The first thing I saw was a picture of George W Bush. What is that ...

When the economy gets tough, good businesses keep advertising going!

With the question of Australia facing tough economic times being more about when, not if, there is much discussion about what this will mean to advertising and marketing communications spend. ...

Don't trust an advertising agency with your digital media

Social media has become a key component of any online venture these days. It's allowed for people to maintain and create relationships over the internet. So far, advertising agencies have used social media for people to create relationships with the brand only as long as it happens in the three months that their ...

Web smarts turning clients into ad agencies

News outta the US says that a new clutch of internet players are giving potential advertisers the low-cost opportunity of buying, creating and monitoring their own online ad campaigns. Just like online car sales ads have caused a shrink in newspaper classifieds, should ad agencies be even more fearful that their ...

Myer + Weight Watchers: a retail recipe for success?

When Wesfarmers wanted to buy my Coles shares last year, my mailbox seemed to be full every second day with various bits of paraphernalia talking up the acquisition. If they walk as good as they talk I thought, the revolution in Australian grocery retailing, that many people (including myself) had predicted  ...

Copy Corner: Rewriting is the key to writing well

When you write your first draft, the words very often just bubble out. There may not be a great deal of structure. That's fine for the first draft. When you move into the rewriting or editing phase, you check that there is a logical flow to your work. Plus, you delete unnecessary words to make the writing sparkle ...

Mystified Marketers

The dramatic online and interactive changes to the Australian communication landscape over the past decade have created a big problem for marketers: How do we take advantage of the new digital developments? Experienced marketers that know advertising, PR, DM and POS like the back of their hand, are often in the ...

Supre-sonic branding: the power of in-store music

What is it about the sound of brands that gets me going? Why do I spend so many hours loitering in shopping centers with my ears pressed against windows trying to gauge the soundscapes or lack of soundscapes permeating from within? The other day I happened to walk into the tween megsatore Supre, you know the one ...

SEM advice: who should you turn to?

I can’t count the number of times p3 clients ask questions about search engine marketing. If the client is new to the opportunity, I generally introduce the concept and once we get beyond the basics of paid vs natural search and the pro’s and con’s of investment in each, i’m then asked... “Who should run my search ...

TechTips: What is RSS anyway, and why the hell should I give a damn?

Sprinkled liberally all over this site you will find the strange codified initialisation RSS. For those of you already introduced to these three letters, you'll already know the power of this great little technology, but if you don't know your RSS from your RSL, this post should help to clear a few things up and ...

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