Marketing news

Nutri-Grain has reached top position, equal with Billabong, as the brand most Australians associate with being a sports sponsor, according to results from the Sweeney Sports Report covering the 2008-09 Summer. Almost one third (30 percent) of Australians recognise the breakfast cereal producer as a sponsor of sport, ...

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released details of action taken against the electronics wing of Harvey Norman, following evidence that the company breached the Trade Practices Act. The ACCC took action in 2002 against three companies in the Harvey Norman group, two Harvey Norman corporate ...

Ipsos Mackay has released a report that has found consumers feel inundated by advertising and that recession themed ads were viewed with differing attitudes, depending on perceived authenticity. The report examined consumer response to the contemporary advertising landscape, which techniques are seen as unpopular, ...

Australian retailers must learn from the mistakes of their US counterparts if they are to reach and retain consumers online, according to Paul Marshall, executive director of Salmat DigitalForce. Presenting at the Retail World Summit, Marshall warned retailers risked market share if they failed to synchronise across ...

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A change to publishing rules will allow publications bundled with other items to be counted as paid sales. The change to circulation recording regulations will allow magazines and newspapers bundled with other items to be counted as paid circulation, provided the price is greater than the stand-alone price. Before ...

Starcom MediaVest Group has won a Gold Media Lion at the 2009 Cannes International Advertising Festival for its Mars ‘Strauchanie’ campaign. The campaign revolves around Strauchanie, played by comedian Peter Helliar, receiving a personal Mars ‘sponsorship’. The sponsorship saw Strauchanie appear throughout the 16-week ...

PMP Limited’s CEO, Richard Allely, has detailed a ‘transformation’ plan that will ‘re-energise’ the company and position it for an improvement in market conditions. Allely, who was only made CEO recently, has told the Australian Stock Exchange that phase one changes driven by volume declines resulting from the economic ...

Canadian Club whiskey has announced its exclusive liquor sponsorship of the Australian premiere of film Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt. “The worldwide buzz surrounding Sacha Baron Cohen ...

Bluefreeway, a digital and interactive marketing communications group, shareholders have overwhelmingly supported Independent Print Media Group’s (IPMG) offer to privatise the group. IPMG has been a substantial shareholder in the group since 2008. Michael Hannan, group managing director of IPMG, explained the company's ...

ninemsn has trialled a live stream of Channel Nine TV show TODAY, in preparation for an ongoing live webcast of the show. Channel Nine says the move will increase its audience reach and further enhance ninemsn’s video offering. ninemsn head of news, sport and finance, Andrew Hunter said: “This is unprecedented ...

The Australian team selected to represent the country in the Young Lions Media Competition for creative talent at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, have won the prestigious award. Lauren Cassar and Tristan Burrell from Universal McCann beat out teams from Belarus and the US, who came second and ...

Facebook has announced that international advertisers will be able to purchase their ads in specific local currencies. More than half of Facebook’s users are located outside the US, with a significant portion of the social networking giant's advertising dollar being drawn from non-US locales. Over the coming weeks, ...

Virgin Blue has adopted a ‘Redundancy Refund’ policy for travellers who have suffered involuntary redundancy in the current economic climate. The airline indicated that the Redundancy Refund promise has been put together ‘to make life a little easier for guests who have lost their jobs’. It is primarily aimed ...

The winners of the Promo, PR and Direct categories have been announced in the first of four awards ceremonies at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Australian agency CumminsNitro Brisbane took out two Grand Prix awards for PR and Direct, both for the ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign. The Direct ...

Apple has announced ...

Online property site Domain.com.au has launched a free iPhone application through the Apple iPhone App Store. The app, which Domain says is the first of its kind in the country, will be directed at users who are searching for properties Australia-wide. For real estate agents and property vendors, the app aims ...

Pizza Hut has announced the launch of a permanent pizza range aimed at families, as the economic downturn begins to affect them at base levels. Pizza Mia, which offers medium sized pizzas at $5 each when three or more are purchased, is likely going to attract families looking for affordable food options as the ...

Figures released today show New Zealand hosted 1,001,880 Australian visitors between May 2008 and May 2009. Taking advantage of these statistics, Tourism New Zealand is launching a new online campaign, ‘Thanks a Million Oz’. Offering a “Millionaire’s Holiday” (eight nights in luxury New Zealand lodges, complete ...

After an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigation, Craftmatic, a door-to-door therapeutic bedding company, admitted to employing unconscionable sales techniques. Targeting elderly, sometimes housebound, residents, Craftmatic admitted to engaging in high-pressure sales tactics and distributing ...

BBC Worldwide appoints new executive vice president. Luke Bradley-Jones, former executive vice president (EVP), digital media and business development, has been appointed EVP, managing director for BBC.com (the international version of the BBC’s online offering). BBC Worldwide’s director of strategy and managing ...

A new report, Retailing in a Recession: The Opportunities for Outsourcing, looks at which business processes retailers are outsourcing and why. Falling sales, rising costs and financial pressures mean some retailers are battling to keep afloat. Outsourcing offers cost reduction to certain core processes.  The ...

In a climate of dissolving traditional media, The Big Issue has celebrated its 13th Australian Anniversary with a readership of 128,000. A new report has shown, for every dollar spent on The Big Issue a $4.50 benefit is transferred to Australian society. These benefits include alleviation of taxpayer funds directed ...

Since 2007 @DellOutlet, Dell’s Twitter presence, has generated USD $3 million in revenue for the PC giant. Using the platform as a way of offering customers coupons, deals and refurbished products, Dell has generated USD $2 million revenue as a direct result of @DellOutlet activity. However, a further USD $1 million ...

On June 28th, Fairfax will relaunch Sunday Life, a lift-out magazine distributed in The Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age. The relaunch strategy includes a new design, larger format and a fresh editorial direction aimed at intelligent women. Featuring in-depth coverage of issues that impact on busy women’s lives, the ...

Fairfax Media has announced the relaunch of past-masthead National Times as an online version only. Set for an August unveiling, nationaltimes.com.au will present Fairfax’s major political, policy and current affairs discussions in one place. Fairfax said it represented a significant journalistic expansion by the ...

The ACCC has slammed AMV Holdings Ltd, a UK-based premium mobile services company, for ignoring earlier warnings and deceiving consumers. Published in Dolly, Girlfriend and TV Hits, the company’s adverts have been deemed misleading by the ACCC. Singled out for their busy layout, targeting of youth and inadequately ...

Deloitte’s online services arm has won a Best Tourism Webby for Australia.com. ...

The annual Roy Morgan 'Image of Professions' survey has rated nursing as the most ethical and honest profession – though journalism and advertising rate at the bottom of the list along with car sales. Nurses came in at 89% followed by pharmacists (84%) and doctors (82%,) and school teachers (76%) have been consistently ...

The Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) recently released the 2009 Australian Mobile Advertising Guidelines. Consulting with the Mobile Marketing Association, carriers, publishers and content providers/aggregators, AIMIA produced the guide in line with international standards, while accounting ...

MySpace Mobile’s m-site will begin targeting its advertising based on gender, age and eventually postcode. The social network’s mobile initiative receives 340,000 unique visitors per month accessing 85 million page impressions. The average time spent browsing an m-site is significantly higher than standard web browsing ...

Following the release of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing’s report, ‘Weighing it Up – Obesity in Australia’, more than a dozen organisations representing the advertising, marketing and media industry in Australia and New Zealand have voiced their support. The informal network ...

Companies of all sizes have begun to engage customers and prospects on social networking services, according to a report released by market analysis firm Datamonitor. The report, ‘The Rise of Social Networking and Emerging Channels in Customer Service’, indicated that much of that activity has been pure marketing, ...

Australian newspaper industry body, The Newspaper Works, has initiated an open tender process for measurement of newspaper readership. The move aims to provide advertisers and publishers with the best metric for Australia’s biggest advertising medium. The Newspaper Works (TNW) CEO, Tony Hale, explained, “The global ...

Twitter users with large followings, such as actor Ashton Kutcher or CNN, can start earning money from posting content on the micro-blogging site after a UK technology company launched a subscription service called Super Chirp. According to a report from Brand Republic, Super Chirp, created by software firm 83 Degrees, ...

Australian online retailer dStore makes a bold move from digital to physical with twelve stores planned for the Brisbane metro area. Andrew Cooper, CEO, found that certain customers research online but still buy on the high street. dStore hopes to capitalise on this demographic, with a prototype physical store open ...

Foster’s Group has launched a marketing campaign for its 31 vineyards and two wineries, in an effort to sell $800 million worth of the nation’s unwanted wine assets. Industry experts predict more could be sold as the wine industry struggles under the triple whammy of the high dollar, oversupply and tough export ...

The F word just got groovier with an office aiming to mirror the objectives and perspectives of Facebook itself. In renovating the ex-cube farm, designers and architects O+A mirrored the company’s flat structure with an open-plan design. Facebook staff are seated in groups, with their execs seated in central areas; ...

Unhealthy food and alcohol advertising is the subject of a massive push by the federal government to be banned. A report that appeared in The Australian suggests that even one the advertising industry’s most senior advocate says advertisers, agencies and the media have just six months to reduce the amount of advertising ...

Twitter is introducing verified accounts to clamp down on ‘brand-jacking’ – the impersonation of celebrities and brands on the popular micro-blogging website. This announcement comes as Twitter fights a lawsuit filed by Tony La Russa, manager of US baseball team the St Louis Cardinals, who complained about an account ...

The Virgin Blue Group of Airlines is the first Australian operator to join a growing list of airlines and international non-profit The Climate Group, (collectively, the Aviation Global Deal Group – AGD), working to develop a way of tackling aviation emissions as part of a global deal on climate change. The AGD Group ...

Time Warner has revealed that it intends to separate its AOL brand, effectively making the internet giant an independent, publicly traded entity. Currently Time Warner owns 95% of AOL, and Google holds the remaining 5%. In the third quarter of this year, as part of a prior arrangement, Time Warner is expected ...

Last week Microsoft and ninemsn launched its latest search offering, Bing, phasing out Windows Live Search. This time the sights are set directly on Google’s legacy, with a $100 million campaign. Tapping the zeitgeist, the campaign harks to the GFC, internet celebrities and anxieties about bad information leading ...

According to a new Juniper Research report, the global downward trend in advertising has not affected mobile's rise-and-rise story. Titled 'Mobile Advertising: Delivery Channels, Business Models & Forecasts', the report predicts $5.7 billion growth in mobile advertising by 2014, with the favoured delivery method ...

Ogilvy has announced that it will be rolling out a service pioneered in Australia that advises business on how to go green. The new Ogilvy Earth offices will appear in Asia, the United States and Britain, with its expansion plan coming at a time when most ad companies are cutting back – though the agency maintains ...

A survey released by virtual world Habbo has revealed that over half of teens say that brands do not influence their purchasing decision – but familiarity with brands is key. According to a report from Revolution magazine, The Global Habbo Youth Survey (GHYS) Brand Update 2009 found teens have complex and often ...

Des Speakman, the CEO of Whybin\TBWA\Tequila, has announced that the agency’s managing director, Tim Knight, is stepping down from his position to pursue ‘other opportunities within the industry’. “Tim has done a great job and he leaves us with a strong, well integrated Tequila\ that benefits from an enhanced reputation ...