When I grow up

Fark, this is awesome!

"Have my arse kissed by every media rep on the face of the earth"

That pretty much covers it.

Mediaworks TV says bye bye to Big Agencies

So this isn't breaking news by any means (not that it matters too much, as I don't have to suffer any consequences) however, I have a couple of questions about this relationship between Colenso & Mediaworks.

The telethon ad, the one that is a horrific rip off of the US Election '08 advertising campaign - was this an in-house idea or Colenso? I'm hoping not Colenso considering the comment on the NBR article "TV3 have been incapable of approving a decent advertising campaign, and you can't lay that blame at Colenso's door given the creative they've delivered for others." Sounds like some sour Colenso creative grapes to me.

It also sounds like Mediaworks were happy with their account service team... “Our current account service team of Angela Watson, Karla Fisher and Virginia Frankovich has been a pleasure to work with, and we thank them for their hard work.”

However, who is responsible for this:

It's phenomenal. Is this Colenso creative? Is it in-house Mediaworks (and when I say that I mean was it sent over from the States)? Seriously, who. This is awesome. Took me a second, but I laughed my arse off!

Confused - not that that's new

TVNZ's homepage takeover today is one of their own. I know I have seen this creative before, but I would have a clue what its for, and there seems to be no information on the page about what it is for either.

Considering that it's kinda my job to know these things, though my amazing powers of deduction I have concluded that this is for the Mentalist which premieres tonight. I think. Come on though, I work in the industry and am hyper sensitive to this sort of stuff, what about people who don't have a clue?

On another note - all you Wellingtonians - you coming to the Tweetup this week at Mighty Mighty? Please note, this is the new venue, there had to be a slight change of venue after we initially posted the invite. RSVP to the right. Hope to see ya'll there on Thursday.

Shh! Don’t tell Monica

What a crack up. I was out on Friday night and caught up with one of the guys from Stuff and his friends, all of whom I know. First thing one of them says to me is “I knew about what Stuff were going to do, and I was told not to tell you”. OK… That’s a little too cryptic for me late on a Friday night.

Following a little digging I realized what they were talking about was the stunt Stuff pulled in Auckland last week. I guess my question would have to be, why not tell me? If I was going to pull a stunt like that, creating some talk prior to the event, probably would have helped it out. There is this lovely little term, ‘embargo’ that is used by pretty much anyone who has time sensitive information, but need media coverage of some description. It means, “here, we’ll give you a heads up, but we need you to wait until this time before you publish” and it works well. Getting someone (even someone as insignificant as little ol’ me) to start teasing this information is going to get people talking. People talking is good, it means they care – goodness knows I am always more concerned when people stop talking about me.

I have to admit, the stunt itself didn’t wow me all that much, and while there was a little bit of buzz on Twitter about it, not enough for me to RT anything, or even bother to look at the video. Nice idea, try to get some energy around Stuff.co.nz going in Auckland, pull some of the Herald readers, just didn’t hit the nail on the head for me.

And this is why… Stuff rarely break stories, in fact most of the ‘news’ publishers are behind the 8 ball when it comes to breaking stories. If I look back at the big news events which have happened in the last few months, and where I got my information from, it was Twitter, not a news publisher. (This is where I have to admit that I do not follow either the Herald or Stuff on Twitter because it feels a little spammy to me, they tend to tweet a barrage of info all at one time – too much).

Bain trial – Twitter (@DanNews)
Michael Jackson – Twitter (@CNNBreak were first to confirm from those I follow)
Weatherston – Twitter (Can’t remember where this came from, a number of sources if I remember rightly)

The one thing I do know, is that from the people I follow, NOT ONE RT’ed or noted a major NZ News publisher as the source of their information for any of the events above.

So this ‘Consequences’ campaign, what irks me, is this ‘breaking stories first’ issue – to what lengths? Quite unfortunately Stuff got busted recently for the pre-writing of the Weatherston verdict - article written, with guilty verdict, well before the jury came back. So while they are pushing the idea of being the first to break a story, the question is, at what cost? NBR has put up a paywall on articles in an attempt to keep journalists (yeah, I know, that is a very long story, short – but it seemed to be the main reason that Colman was pushing), so is that what we can therefore expect from Stuff as well? They’re so busy writing stories in anticipation of what is going to happen, that in order for these journalists to keep their jobs, we’re going to have to start paying for this information?

It will be interesting to see what happens next. One question I do have though, what did OSH think about dangling someone from that building??

UPDATED 11/8: Tell you what though, I'll give Stuff credit for breaking the Iceberg story - possibly not story of the century, but they were able to answer the questions no one else have been able to this morning.

New Favourite Site of the Week 070809

So, this has been floating around Twitter for about a week (maybe over??) but I think it is great. Bitch.Co allows one to tweet exactly what is on their mind, anonymously. Man-alive people loving this site. It is not beautifully designed but it serves its purpose.
I know I am incredibly aware of who is following me on Twitter and what things may or may not be appropriate to tweet (unless I’ve had a few drinks in which case all censorship seems to fly out the window) even though sometimes I would like to express my exact feelings. Enter Bitch.Co, an anonymous way to pull the fingers to whomever you want - and if you want to be really anonymously nasty, you can call out Twitter users:

(please note, I sent this to myself – no one sent this to me)

People are really embracing this site too. I was following Bitch.Co for a little while but had to unfollow as I was getting too many tweets from them and it was killing my limit on TweetDeck.

Happy weekend all. If you're in Wellington, and gots nothing to do tonight, go and see 1995 play with Tiddabades & the beautiful Diana Rozz at Mighty Mighty. Quality gig action.

On a positive note today

I have previously been slightly critical of BNZ’s advertising, and to be fair, I think my comments about the crazy showcase and awful homepage takeover are still relevant. Really does not do it for me. However, what a nice little surprise I got this morning when I was reading the NBR and there was a bottom banner at the end of the piece:

Here is a close up.
I think this is great, which is kind of amazing as I am not a fan with this format, but well done BNZ. I think this is some spot on placement and messaging going on and I am impressed. Very well thought out. Making an assumption that a number of very busy business owners and/or decision makers that don’t have time through the day to read NBR and catch up on a lot of their news at night is a very smart one. Upstairs for thinking! My one thought would have been to maybe try to time target the message so it is even more relevant (like after 7pm at night maybe) but I’d imagine that it does drive a decent amount of traffic through the day also, so not that biggie.

In other, “while I slam them, they still have it” news…

I thought I was going to be able to make a grand retracting statement about Cadbury advertising, and that at least they get some of their products right even if the brand itself is a little confused and throw up this ad:

Which I see is Australian. That’s a pity. No grand retraction for today, however this ad does crack me up, the other one a little more than this, but this was the only one I could find quickly.

The Cadbury Brand Saga Continues

Who is behind Cadbury creative at the moment, because it is really not doing it for me.

I posted about the very weak 'glass and a half of facts' print ad that they pushed out through the main mets and Sunday papers.

I didn't bother commenting on the Old Gold eyeblaster takeover on Stuff because Lance covered it damn well. You can read his thoughts here. I love in the comments how Kirsty from Stuff says:
"we’re forwarding all comments about the ad to the advertiser which we generally do if we notice an
elevated number of complaints."
I take it there have been a few comments on this creative then??

Then today, flicking through Woman's Day, and I see this:

Who on earth are you talking to with this creative? Really? It doesn't fit with any other creative I have seen come out for Cadbury (anyone seen some TV or anything with this kind of idea?). Its just kinda weird actually. Is it a client as creative situation?

Totally baffles me. I used to quite like Cadbury, and their advertising. The 'wouldn't it be nice' campaign was lovely, and translated across advertising mediums. This, this is just strange, and most certainly doesn't make me want to buy Cadbury chocolate.