I just love this little video. Its nothing to do with media, but plenty to do with marketing, focus and passion. We could all learn something from this guy. Highly recommended.

Hat tip to Australian Anthill, where I first came across the video.

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by David Dale

AUSTRALIA has made an enormous evolutionary leap over the past ten years, and we should be proud of the way we’ve matured into sophisticated, discerning consumers.

That’s one theory, anyway. Cleaning out a mouldy filing cabinet last weekend, I came across a way to test if the claim is true — a fat document, sent out to journalists exactly ten years ago, with these words on the cover: “RATINGS REPORT – NINE SHINES IN 1999″. It’s Channel Nine’s 60 page analysis of trends in television at the end of the 90s. I can say with absolute confidence that Nine will not be sending out a report anything like it this year.

Since we’re only a week away from the end of the 2009 ratings period, it’s possible to find some illuminating differences between the way we were and the way we are. Check out these ratings charts, and see if you agree with the comparisons I make afterwards…

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Which media will cross the digital divide?

It seems to me a that significant divide has opened up due to the digitisation of media.

The most obvious gulf is between the media who have embraced the digital future and those who haven’t. Think Huffington Post / Rupert Murdoch.

You see new media is more than just about electronic distribution and speed of production. Its more than pixels verses print (or radio waves or TV signals). New media has thrown the game wide open. Its hard to regulate and won’t be controlled by a handful of powerful owners.

New media involves an entirely new approach. It is challenging and mocking old media business models and embracing social media philosophies.

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The Newcastle Ratings, week ending August 29

Note: These ratings results are compiled using the combined resources of SC TEN, NBN & Prime’s weekly AGB Nielsen Media Research reports.

This week the ratings have done a turn around in Primes favour. Not for first place in the ratings game. No, every week that goes to NBN without fail at this stage and so it seems ABC is catching up and getting comfortable in second place. But, this week Prime has beaten SC TEN to secure third place is this Newcastle ratings race!

This is evident in the Top Ten Most Watched Programs for the week. Although Prime only has two shows that even make the list, with their numbers (percentage of viewer’s) just scraping in to make the cut, averaging around 80%. SC TEN’s top programs aren’t even in the same genre of percent, its highest rater ‘Rush’ misses out with an average 78%.

Read on to see the results…

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National Ratings, week ending August 08
Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

After a strong start, thanks to Meryl Streep and Shaun Micallef, it’s back to business as usual for Channel Ten — or no-business-as-usual, to be precise — now that its 7pm drawcard has vanished. The week ended with the prime time audience shares thus: Seven 28.7 per cent, Nine 23.8, Ten 21.5, ABC 17.1, SBS 8.9 (thanks entirely to cricket).

Time for your prediction: how will Australian Idol go this year? Will the removal of Kyle lift its popularity, or had it passed its prime in any case?

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*File under totally unrelated stuff*

I have just taken my first ever run in a pair of Vibram Five Finger shoes. They look crazy, generate funny stares and comments from passers-by and…..are amazing.

Vibram Five Finger Shoes

The theory behind Vibram Five Fingers is to simulate barefoot running and return us to the way humans were meant to run.

The introduction of bulky, heavily padded running shoes about 30 years ago has led us to develop an unnatural, heel-first running style. With Vibram Five Fingers there’s no way you can run that way, its simply too hard on your heels.

They say it takes a while to adjust to running in Vibram Five Fingers and that you should start out slowly. So I did.

My first run was just 3 km on mixed terrain. I started on a crushed gravel bush track, progressed to looser, rockier path then finished on bitumen so that I could test how they feel on different surfaces.

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My agency, Sticky, has been hard at work for the last year developing and steadily releasing a raft of digital products and services specifically for Australian businesses. Most of this work can be seen at our GetSticky site.

First came our highly optimised & user-friendly websites which have delivered wonderful results for new clients.

That was followed by our comprehensive Inbound Marketing System to help marketers improve their traffic, inquiries and sales via their websites.

Then in April we launched Web ANLYZR as a free web analysis tool. Already we have reported on hundreds of sites with Web ANLYZR and learned a lot about the issues most businesses face with their websites. Its been amazing how many substandard sites there are.

Last week we launched v2.0 of the Inbound Marketing System – a substantial upgrade with all the latest developments.

Now we are preparing to launch ANLYZR Pro – a comprehensive Search Engine Optimisation and Inbound Marketing Analytics package. We have been beta testing for the last 4 months and are happy to say the results have been fantastic.

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National Ratings week ending 11 July
Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Another shocking week for Nine, with bits of its audience stolen not just by Ten but by SBS, which snapped up the cricket and sent Kerry Packer spinning in his grave. Nine was almost saved on Saturday when Ten failed to attract many to its footy, but the prime time audience shares ended up this way: Seven 27.5 per cent, Ten 23.1, Nine 23.0, ABC 16.1, SBS 10.4.

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Its #ManWeek in Australia thanks to TripleJ and ReachOut and I was tagged by Gavin Heaton to write a post about my experiences. However being a fairly typical Aussie male who rarely shows emotion or talks about personal issues, I thought I’d deflect attention by writing about media and how males are represented.

Growing up in the 70′s and 80′s Australian males were presented a homogenised and stereotypical version of the Aussie male. TV characters were knock-about, stoic, courageous blokes. Our movie heroes were Crocodile Dundee, smart but naive, Mad Max, stoically seeking revenge, or the Bryan Brown-style blue collar mumbler.

Our sportsmen were of a similar ilk. Solid, hairy and dependable. Think Ray Price playing league, Dennis Lillee hurtling down the cricket pitch and Pat Cash on the tennis court. Tough, hard-working heroes.

This was the role model for guys growing up in Australia and what we were regularly exposed to in the media. Its a lot to live up to. And clearly for many Australian men, it was too much to live up to. Australia became a world leader in male suicide and depression.

These days, however, a fragmented and hungry media delves into every nook and cranny of modern life. Our role models and heroes lives are laid open for all to see. No news is off limits.

Now I must explain to my two young sons why Andrew Johns takes drugs, or what the hell his brother was up to in New Zealand. That’s not easy. I also have to explain why a guy called Bruno is mincing around with a new form of stereotyping. A leading TV character today is not the tough Aussie bloke, but a confused and creepy school teacher called Mr G.

The hope is that this warts and all exposure of the male species, while confronting and unavoidable, may lead to a generation of males more at ease with themselves. It hopefully leads to guys being able to open up about their problems and being able to reach out to someone. Hopefully it means that young men today will be less prone to succumbing to the pressures of living up to the simpler stereotypes of yesteryear.

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Over at the GetSticky site we have posted our Top 7 internet marketing tips in response to the large number of questions we are asked by business owners trying to improve their internet marketing. We’re sure these are the standard questions asked of all good internet marketers. The post addresses the questions: “How do I get onto first page of Google?”, “How do we get more traffic to our website?” and “How do we turn website traffic into sales?”

We’re pretty sure that if most businesses spent some using these 7 internet marketing tips they would see a big improvement in their online marketing, and that’s before getting really serious about a professional inbound marketing strategy.

If you like the post, please Digg it. Thx

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