I know times are hard for the advertising world, but I’ve heard on the online grapevine that a Newcastle advertising agency have gone the full Monty, to attract new business. Well, it just doesn’t seem right.

Surely, a brand is what the customers say it is. So what does milky white skin say of a brand?

I just can’t imagine the creative’s at Peach Advertising dropping their Daks or the account directors at Enigma Communication running around Merewether Beach wearing just a smile?

As it turns out, I got it wrong.  It wasn’t Newcastle Australia, it was Newcastle-on-Tyne in the UK.

Newcastle Advertising Agency

Read the rest of this entry »

Has the City of Melbourne been taken to the cleaners paying $250,000 for a new corporate identity, or is the Premier of NSW Nathan Rees a tight arse paying a measly $4,600 for a new state logo?

[View with PicLens]

Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said the new logo reflected a modern, vibrant, cool sophistication, intellectual, creative and urbane city. Does it? For me, it looks like it was inspired by Melbourne’s controversial ‘Love or Hate’ Federation Square.

However, across the border in NSW, our much maligned premier is defending himself against critics for spending only $4,600 on a new State logo. A logo some people are saying looks like a lotus flower rather than a waratah.

In my book, a city’s or a state’s brand imagery has to designed for longevity. It has to collect positive associations in the minds of people. What should not happen is change for change sake, redesigned to satisfy a new mayor or premier or a change of Government or marketing manager or a drop in tourism. That is just wasting money.

What do you think of the new logos? Is Melbourne’s new logo a very expensive folly? Or is the NSW Government just a tight arse?

While most TV network executives were contemplating slashing their wrists with the news that Ad revenue was down $300m for the financial year 2007-08. The people at Channel Ten’s regional office in Newcastle were all dancing in the street with last weeks local TV ratings.

The following is a small snippet of an email I received from our local Channel Ten rep:

The ratings win continues for Ten, coming in 1st across all key demographics w/c 12/7 even up against State of Origin.

Here is a summery of the week:

• Ten was Number 1, People 16-39, beating NBN in 2nd by 7.1% & smashing Prime in a distant 3rd by 25.2%
• Ten was Number 1, People 16-54, beating NBN in 2nd by a minimal 0.2%, Prime came in 3rd by 16.5%
• Ten was Number 1, People 18-49, beating NBN in 2nd by 5.1% & Prime again came in a distant 3rd by 19.7%
• Ten was Number 1, People 25-39, beating NBN in 2nd by 12.4% & Prime in 3rd by a massive 27.7%
• Ten was Number 1, People 25-54, beating NBN in 2nd by 1.1% & Prime came in 3rd by 16%
• Ten had 12 of the Top 20 Programs for People 16-39, NBN had 7, Prime only had 1
• Ten had 11 of the Top 20 Programs for People 25-39, NBN had 8, Prime only had 1
• Ten had 9 of the Top 20 Programs for People 16-39, NBN had 9, Prime only had 2
• Ten beat State of Origin with the Top 2 shows in 16-39, 25-39, 25-54 (amongst other demographics)

How long will it last? And what will Channel Nine & Seven do?

Welcome to The Git’s Incomplete Guide to Newcastle’s Top Twits for July. I’m happy to say the list has climbed to a new high of 132. A new high which Australia’s cricket captain Ricky Ponting would love his openers to score.

In June, we had a little excitement with the emergence of a political heavy hitter on the twitter scene. Sadly, as quick as @GregCombetMP appeared he disappeared after only a few tweets. With a smile on my face, I suspect Greg Combet was a fake, then again he might have just got cold feet after speaking to his electorate.

I’ve also noticed some members of the local press have joined the conversation. Remember twitterers they are now listening – I think. Talking of the press, I am a little disappointed that our local representatives at ABC 1233 still haven’t dipped their toe. I suspect it’s a technology too far the presenters after I listen to one ABC presenter openly telling her audience that she had difficulty using her mobile phone. All they have to do is ask & we’ll respond.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Australia Marketing Institute has at last scheduled another event for the unloved marketer’s of Newcastle. Two events a year is not enough!

The ‘Strategic Perspective’ seminar brings together three speakers to present on differing aspects of strategic marketing. An artform that in my opinion is somewhat forgotten by many companies wrongly mistaking operational excellence and marketing tactics with strategic marketing.

I don’t want to give this event the marketing kiss of death, but I do hope these speakers don’t make the same mistake. I can’t wait to find out.

Al Ries and Jack Trout once made the point, “Strategy should evolve out of the mud of the marketplace, not in the antiseptic environment of an ivory tower.” I would like to make the same point to the AMI.

The Strategic Perspective seminar is planned for Tuesday 25 August 2009

Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you interested in the dark arts of digital branding and the performance of our top Australian digital agencies. You might be interested in the results of a GetSticky survey of some of Australia’s top digital agencies that were previously ranked by a panel of judges in July’s issue of the B&T magazine.

They assessed each site by usability, creativity, employee appeal & client appeal. However, GetSticky’s digital forensic team lead by Craig ‘Media Hunter ‘Wilson assessed the same sites using GetSticky’s new Inbound Marketing analyst tool called Web ANLYZR.

The Web ANLYZR has been designed to assess sites from a marketing perspective reviewing its on-site search engine optimisation; off-site search engine optimisation; keyword search scores; depth of presence; social media & traffic conversion.

Having a nice creatively flash site is one thing, but if it cannot be found by your target audience and then convert, it is basically useless.

“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does”Dr Steuart Henderson.

Compare our Web ANLYZR results against the B&T Magazines rankings at GetSticky.

I’d like to highlight some of the confusing terminology being used by today’s marketing profession. I say social media other marketing punters say social media marketing or the nice charity type marketer might talk about their latest do good social marketing campaign. Confused yet?

I thought marketing was all about differentiation.

What is Social Marketing? Well if you believe Wikipedia ‘social marketing’ is seen as using standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals. Its primary aim is ’social good’ while in ‘commercial marketing’ the aim is primarily ‘financial’.

Read the rest of this entry »

It staggers me the amount of business professionals that think of marketing only as selling and advertising. Then again, no wonder – every day we are inundated with people telling us how to market our business via television programs, newspapers, books, magazines, blogs, podcasts and sales calls. Someone is always trying to sell us the next big marketing fix.

It seems the marketing profession is dominated not by marketers, but with very loud advertising & pr people, graphic & web designers, copywriters, salespeople, tv & radio presenters, journalists, life & business coaches  and the scariest group, cardigan wearing accountants.

Therefore, it may be a surprised to these people that selling and advertising are only the tip of the marketing iceberg. Although these functions of marketing are important, they are only two of numerous other marketing functions and they are generally not the most important ones.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sourced: Adage.com

Marketers Expected to Put More Dollars Behind Search, Video, Social Media as Display Declines

Internet ad spending is forecast to keep growing despite the recession, but the mix of online spending is changing as display falls further out of favor with marketers, leaving online alternatives to fight for the marketing dollar.

According to a forecast by PricewaterhouseCoopers, total internet ad spending in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region will grow to $25.2 billion in 2013 from $19.4 billion in 2008. At the same time, online display will drop to $4.8 billion from $5.1 billion. In the U.S., display-ad spending is expected to drop to $4.4 billion in 2013 from $4.8 billion in 2008. Incidentally, display will decline over the next two years but start growing again in 2011 — it just won’t be enough growth to make up for the earlier drops.

So if total spending grows between 2008 and 2013, but display, responsible for a large portion of the online-ad outlay, does not, what will drive the increase? For starters, search, which is expected to see steady, continuous growth through 2013. Marketers are diverting more and more of their online spend to search, not just because of its accountability but also because of the increasing sophistication of search strategies.