Change to Small Change

While newspaper proprietors are wringing their hands over the drop in circulation in the light of free access to news via the Internet, the Gold Coast Bulletin dips its toes into the 21st Century with it's 'Smart Edition'.

Using the same Flash driven technology that online retailers have been using for electronic delivery of catalogues during the past decade, the Bulletin is offering the full editions of its paper - articles and advertisements - but unlike the print edition which is $1 during the week, the electronic version is $2 per edition (You'll have to hunt around the help and support page to find pricing).

Is it good value?

Still, it's cheaper than back in 1981 when the San Francisco Chronicle was trialling 'electronic publishing'. Using a dial up modem it took two hours to download text only at a charge $5/hr - all for a 20 cent newspaper:

And The Price Is Criminal Too

WHEN the Hells Angels saw their "death head" logo on a Mambo sweatshirt, they reached not for the baseball bats of stereotypical bikie lore, but for their lawyers, in a bid to protect their intellectual property...

... The offending garments were a child's hooded sweatshirt and a sugar-pink mini-skirt.

Why would you put a bike gang's insignia on children's clothing?

It's a Joke Joyce!**

Some people are sensitive souls for whom the most minor criticism puts them in either a full-on rage or a state of morbid depression.

But you don't usually expect those people to have a long career in the soul destroying entertainment industry.

The exception is Stephen Fry:

In the realm of Twitter insults, it was at the far end of mild. “Much as I admire and adore the chap, they are a bit ... boring,” a Twitter user called brumplum wrote Saturday, speaking of the tweets of Stephen Fry, the British writer, actor and television personality...

...In any case, after brumplum sent his mildly critical tweet, Mr. Fry somehow found out about it, and it made him feel terrible. It made him feel so terrible, he tweeted, that he was considering quitting Twitter altogether on account of all the “aggression and unkindness around.”

When Mr. Fry’s followers heard of his distress, they tended to do two things: offer their support and criticize his perceived antagonist. And suddenly Richard from Birmingham, who says on his Twitter profile that he writes “one-line movie reviews, and more,” found himself the target of a stream of unpleasant, even abusive, tweets. Among the most upsetting, to him at least, were those from the well-known British actor and comedian Alan Davies. Mr. Davies, who is a friend of Mr. Fry’s and has more than 104,000 Twitter followers, called Richard a “moron,” and worse.

Oh dear.

It does underscore the less than polite nature of public discourse when it can be conducted under the veil of semi-anonymity of blog posts and tweets and it represents a strong reputation management risk for businesses as well as individuals.

Further more, in this particular case, it demonstrates there are high profile people who, shall we say. have a less than, ummm, robust personality and attitude to criticism, no matter how mildly phrased.

** If our site suddenly comes under a DDOS attack, then start looking at fans of Stephen Fry, the comedian of middling talent.

Better Campaigns Going Cheap, Cheap

Major corporations are looking for better bang for their buck with the global head of marketing for Kimberly-Clarke, Tony Palmer, warning agencies to deliver 'faster, better and cheaper'.

He says with wealth of media to cover, campaigns that meet the above three criteria are going to attract major clients as they try to shorten the 'non-working' time between creative approval and the campaign going live.

Instead of a big stick, Palmer points to a carrot:

He continued: “It’s not something to be taken lightly, we have to work out how to do it properly, it needs to be done in a way that preserves the agency. There is, I believe, a big opportunity for agencies to be smarter, get a percentage of the cost savings and actually turn something into a revenue stream that is not currently a revenue stream by working smarter.”

Very laudable aims and when done with an effective brief and creative in mind, it can work exceedingly well.

Business Communications Management has created numerous successful campaigns on a shoe-string budget, but even business owners need to be realistic.

After all NASA encountered very expensive and embarassing problems with their 'faster, better, cheaper' program of the 1990s.

Truth In Advertising...

Proof that business owners need to be careful about the promises they make - both real and implied.

The following story is also proof that someone, somewhere, will be willing to try it on:

AN Indian man claims he has been cheated by the cosmetics firm that makes popular deodorant Lynx after failing to land a girlfriend for the past seven years.

Vaibhav Bev has been using Lynx deodorant since 2002, in the hope the company's promotional campaign - which features scantily clad women throwing themselves at men - had some basis in real life.

Could other factors be involved?

But India's leading compensation lawyer Ram Jethmalani said: "There is no data to substantiate the supposition that unattractive and unintelligent men don't attract women.

"In fact, some of the bestlooking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys.

"I'd suggest the firm settle this issue out of court."

Hmmmmm.

While we're on the subject, Jacqui avidly bought Impulse body spray as a teenager but did not receive one flower as a result of using it, despite the promise implicit in this 1982 ad:

http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=impulse+deodorant&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=dF7uSqDxMqWO6APX0NDlCw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQsAQwAA

Perhaps there is a case to answer after all?

Are there any advertisements you remember where you experience failed to live up to expectations of the campaign? Write a comment below.

Leaving A Bad Taste

Apparently there's a saying amongst drug dealers 'don't get high on your own supply', but one might argue that The Foundry, creative agency for Jamiesons Brewery, sampled too often of their client's product to come up with a campaign for boutique company's raspberry ale.

The tag line was cute - 'anything but sweet' - but the creative execution of 'Ho White' naked in bed with seven sated dwarfs (nah, we're not going to use the image here) has raised eyebrows as well as sharpened the pens of Walt Disney's lawyers.

Unsurprisingly the campaign has generated swathes international publicity.

It's a cheaply executed stunt to generate cheap laughs but is that kind of shock marketing sustainable? Does it assist the client company in the long term?

We would suggest not, especially since one of the key marketing planks, the campaign web site anythingbutsweet.com.au has been hastily pulled down, leaving Jamiesons with nothing more than an amateurishly slap-dash, unprepossessing web site.

While Jamiesons are revelling in the publicity, not surprisingly there is nothing on The Foundry's web site boasting of the Ho White campaign.

The explanation by the agency to B&T Weekly seems surprisingly disingenuous considering the pedigree of their other clients. Surely they must have realised that Disney fiercely protects its intellectual property:

According to the reports The Foundry has had “a little bit of contact” with Disney over its ad. Although the campaign was due to have already launched, Simon Burrett, managing director of The Foundry, told B&T Today that the campaign is on hold as there are “adjustments we have to make”.

He would not disclose whether these adjustments are due to conversations the agency has had with Disney.

Burrett said: “I can’t comment on what conversations we might have had with Disney or anyone else. We have no intention of upsetting Disney. It’s a campaign based around Snow White the fairytale.”

Note to creatives, the Snow White story might very well be in the public domain but the physical rendering of the characters is distinctly Disney.