This week’s BRW magazine has another perceptive column by Neil Shoebridge, this time regarding the recent Cannes Advertising Festival awards. Shoebridge observed that this old-school ad-fest rewarded new marketing thinking this year.

The grand prix award in the film section…was not given to a television commercial, the usual winner in that category. It was given to Carousel, a short film and interactive website created by the Amsterdam office of digital marketing agency Tribal DDB to promote a new, extra-large TV set from Philips.

Australian ad agency CumminsNitro’s “best job in the world” promotion created for Tourism Queensland won grand prix awards in three categories…which made it the first campaign in the festival’s history to collect three of the main gongs. “Best job” relied heavily on the internet, word-of-mouth and media coverage to capture consumers attention.

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From The Herald in Newcastle

NEWCASTLE’S Greater Building Society has scored an international coup by securing Jerry Seinfeld to be the face of a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign.

Seinfeld has only represented two other organisations in his career Microsoft and American Express but the Greater is said to have won Seinfeld because he liked their campaign concept.

Under the deal the American comedian and television star will appear in television, radio, print and web advertisements for the 250,000-member financial institution over the coming years.

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I’ve been reading Neil Shoebridge in BRW for  years and admire the fact that he always tells it like it is. In the current issue of BRW he is doing just that. His piece, “Advertising shift permanent” will be bad news for traditional media owners who think that things will bounce back post-recession.

Shoebridge notes that executives in FTA television and newspaper, who have suffered most from the advertising downturn,  believe that the good times will return soon and that the worst is over.

But speaking to marketers and media agency executives, Shoebridge reveals that the drop in ad spending is part of a much greater shift, rather than the economic cycle.

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Television in Australia is suffering from too much clutter - originally uploaded by arnisto

Is television advertising under threat in Australia?

Earlier this week Robert Morgan, executive chairman of the Clemenger advertising group, wrote an excellent piece for The Australian. He argued that TV in Australia is suffering due to advertising clutter.

Morgan observed that in the early days of TV advertising

Each show had three breaks of one minute each plus an opening and closing billboard, and between programs there would be one 20-second commercial and one 10-second — roughly half of the bombardment we get today. The thought of a competitor being within half an hour of your commercial was absolutely out of the question.”

Today its much, much worse. TV is extremely cluttered and its competing with a plethora of entertainment options.

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How do you see the current economy? Do the tumultuous ructions in the media and advertising industries intimidate you or excite you?

In the agency world there currently seems to be two camps; those trying to survive and those looking at new opportunities.

Most of the industry news in 2009 has been about layoffs and dwindling ad-spends. Talk of the four-day working week has been rife and many advertising types have moved to reduced hours or 9 day fortnights.

While the bad news has dominated, I suspect there are several smart agencies who have seen the opportunities the current climate presents to reinvent themselves and the industry. They may not be generating much talk at the moment, but as the economy bounces back you will see them emerge from the shadows as the new power-players.

Why? Because there has never been a more important time foster innovation in advertising, media and marketing.

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Last night’s episode of The Gruen Transfer stirred up a hornets nest of discussion after one of the advertisements for The Pitch segment was not shown as it was deemed offensive by ABC management. Instead, host Wil Anderson introduced the acceptable commercial by the other “contestant” in the segment and advised viewers that if they wished to see the censored commercial they could visit a website.

You can view The Foundry’s withdrawn commercial here.

The topic of the brief for the segment was to create an ad to “END SHAPE DISCRIMINATION” against fat people.

A statement from ABC’s director of television said:

The episode was reviewed the following day and the decision made that the broadcast of The Pitch segment would breach ABC Editorial Policies.

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Here’s an example a consumer brand utilising some creative thinking and alternative marketing  to reach their younger target demographic.

In 2007 V Energy drink launched V Raw as a way to bring V’s brand personality as a creative inspiration to life and  allow young Australians to engage, create  and participate with the brand. The core concept was to create a dream job program focused on industries notoriously hard to break into – music, fashion and design.

Since launch, V Energy Drink has placed over 80 young Australians in their dream jobs through the V Raw program, helping them find ‘where they fit’ in creative industries.

However the current economic climate is making it harder for young creatives to get their dream job. Rather than step back, V Energy drink has increased their investment on the program, adding new features to inspire and motivate consumers to follow their dream.

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Digital Video Recorders seen as biggest threat to TV advertising effectiveness

According to a recent study, Advertising in the DVR Age (available on www.DVRresearch.com), advertising executives believe DVRs represent the greatest challenge for TV advertising in the next three years. The study was conducted by the DVR Research Institute and was be released on May 1.

Surprisingly, these research results indicate that neither the advertisers nor their ad agencies are confident they have the information they need to make adjustments in advertising strategy to address the impact of DVRs. This is despite agencies identifying DVR’s as the biggest threat to the effectiveness of TV advertising, ahead of the Internet

Nearly 75 percent of the respondents “somewhat” or “completely disagree” that they have all the relevant information about DVRs and their impact on TV advertising.

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Newcastle and the Hunter Valley will be promoted to the nation as an ideal place to do business following the launch of the Hunter Advantage initiative last week. Here is how The Herald newspaper announced the initiative:

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Last week Aston Kutcher helped boost his Twitter follower count with 1133 billboards around the US. While most of us will never be able to garner that sort of promotional support, one enterprising Australian company has cropped up with a novel promotional idea.

Sticky Twits is the brainchild of Sydney-based Doug Garske. He says

Sticky Twits was born out of a few Twitter nuts who wanted to post their Twitter URL offline as well as online. So a designer, a signage guy (with a really cool hi res digital printer) and a marketing guru made some stickers with their Twitter URLs and stuck them on their cars, computers, office windows, wives, children, and thought, why keep all this sticker fun to ourselves.

My mail today contained a package from Sticky Twits with sheets of MediaHunter Twitter stickers (try saying that three times quickly).

Sticky Twits - mediahunter

So, why not support a local entrepreneur and wear your Twitter handle proudly. Stick one on your car, stick one on your laptop, stick one on a billboard (maybe not).

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