Nominate your favourite Australian media and marketing posts of 2008

The Moggies Has a Logo

All good bloggers know (or are learning) that quality tends to win out over quantity when it comes to posts. One really thought provoking, well written posts can deliver more traffic, subscribers and attention than 20 ordinary posts.

The penny really dropped for me soon after I relaunched Media Hunter with a new look and format a few months ago. Rather than pumping out countless random posts and regurgitating facts and news from around the world, I decided to post less regularly, taking the time to identify poignant topics and research them well before tapping out the post.

It was a good decision. Two of my more recent posts (…The sound of a marketing and media revolution and A Turning point in media and marketing history?) have gone on to be the most read Media Hunter pieces ever (OK I am no Seth Godin, but I was happy) while another post on Barack Obama’s digital marketing strategy, A Web 2.0 President?, resulted in editorial coverage in Adnews thanks to Mark Chenery.

The point is that quality counts.

When Katie Harris asked readers of her Zebra Bites blog to send her some brain food and inspiration via links to the posts they were most proud of, I started thinking…..maybe we need to honour the best Media and Marketing Posts of the Year. A sort of Walkley Awards for Media and Marketing Weblogs.

Welcome to THE MOGGIES!

So, please submit your nomination for the best Australian media and marketing blog posts of 2008. It could be one of yours, or it be by someone else. The only conditions are that it be Australian, be media and marketing focused, was originally posted in 2008 and that is original work.

I will take nominations until midnight Friday 12 December (AEST) then shortlist the Top 10 posts before announcing the Gold Moggy at a Gala blog posting (pizza and beer for me) on Monday 22 December.

In true web style the winner will receive….no compensation or prizes but lots of kudos, links and well-deserved praise.

So over to you: What is your Moggy nomination for Australian Media and Marketing Post of 2008?

HOW TO ENTER (updated)

• Post a link in the comments of this post

• Email me at enquiries@stickyads.com.au

• Post a link on Twitter with #themoggies tag

UPDATE: 17 NOVEMBER - Experienced journalists and new media analysts Mark Chenery and Mark Jones have agreed to help judge the Moggies. Mark Jones is a technology and business journalist of over 10 years standing. He is the former IT Editor of Fairfax Media’s Australian Financial Review. Mark Chenery is the DigitalWatch writer for Adnews (until 12 Dec 2008) and has just announced his move to Austcare.

The two Mark and Mark will assist me in rating the Top 10 Australian Media and Marketing blogposts for 2008.

I recently posted that the economic crisis could provide a turning point in marketing and media history and based most of my commentary on observations of how the media would be affected at a critical time when emerging media and technologies were gaining a foothold in the marketplace.

Just over a month later I would suggest my observations were closer to realisation than I anticipated, and not just due to the economy.

In that time we have seen the first black man swept into power in the USA on the back of some amazingly effective groundswell marketing and fundraising that has re-written political campaigning forever.

And now the trickle of news indicating change was underway has become a torrent of commentary and press releases, especially in America.

Here are just some of the stories that have caught my attention in the last few weeks. You don’t need to read the entire articles, just the headlines, to realise that something big is happening:

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The Melbourne Cup was both the most talked about and watched program in Newcastle last week. Swapping the average day to day routine, for glamorous hats and the hopeful punt. Prime took first place on the leader board for having the highest amount of Novacastrians watching in dear hope they would score a small fortune, or for some lucky ones a large win! However unlike Bauer, NBN did take the win by more than a nose, leading the ratings game by 3.1 over Prime and a big 6.9 over TEN.

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National TV ratings: source David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

 The TV networks seemed to be in a carefree Melbourne Cup mood all week. As a result, they were taught a lesson about viewer loyalty. On Monday, Channel Seven rehashed its failed game show, The Rich List, and repeated its hit cop show City Homicide, with the result that Channel Nine won the night. On Wednesday, Nine showed a Will Ferrell movie instead of The Mentalist, and lost 400,000 viewers, while Ten replaced House with an extra episode of the cop show Life, and lost 200,000 viewers.

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Last weeks ratings game tells a tale similar to Primes most popular show, Pack To The Rafters. Prime again a clear leader on the board, takes 5 out of the 10 top most watched shows for last week. NBN coming in with a close 4 spots on the chart, however when it comes to what really matters - the numbers NBN takes out the ratings again for the week that was. What can we say though, a packed house full of relatable dramas and a tear jerker show about reuniting families that will break even the hardest soul, we just can’t get enough of. What’s even more brilliant to see though is that 9 out of the 10 most watched programs in Newcastle are Aussie. Oi Oi Oi. Read the rest of this entry »

National TV ratings: source David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

Channel Seven may be smug about its prospects of winning the year, but it’s the ABC that has the most to celebrate. Over the year so far (excluding the Olympics) it has averaged 17.6 per cent of the prime time city audience — up 5.5 per cent on last year, while Seven’s share (28.4) is actually down 3 per cent on last year (Nine is up marginally with 27.3, Ten is down 4 with 21.2, and SBS is up 1 with 5.6).

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The third radio ratings results of 2008 have given 1233 ABC a considerable lift in ratings against Newcastle’s commercial radio stations, increasing market share in the all important breakfast timeslot by 1.9%.

NXFM is still the ratings leader with a dominant 20.6 share down 1.9%. Stablemate KOFM maintains its second position with 18.4% up 0.1%. 2HD share dipped to 14.8 down 0.8% and NEWFM maintained its overall position on 6.4%.

The biggest loser is NEWFM breakfast, dropping a whole percentage point to 4.9% on the back of last months 0.8 increase. Guy Ashford has a big job ahead to challenge the market leaders.

Newcastle Radio Neilsen Media 3/2008 Survey Result

Station          Overall       Breakfast      Cumulative
NXFM                20.6 (22.5)     21.3 (23.0)       181000
KOFM                18.4 (18.3)     18 (18.3)          148000
2HD                  14.8 (15.6)     15.7 (16.3)       84000
1233 ABC          10.4 (9.2)       13 (11.1)          84000
NEWFM              6.4 (6.4)         4.9 (5.9)           81000
Triple J               7.1 (7.0)         6 (5.8)             57000

Source: Neilson Media Research

A year and a half ago, an online conversation between two marketing professionals in the U.S. and Australia evolved into a collaborative writing effort by more than 100 bloggers from nine countries that created a book called The Age of Conversation. The project raised nearly $15,000 for Variety, the international children’s charity.

Following the success of the first book, which was published in the summer of 2007, Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, organizers of the first project, are about to publish Age of Conversation 2, which compiles written thoughts on the role of conversation in marketing today from 237 marketing professionals who blog in the U.S. and 15 other countries.

McLellan, who heads McLellan Marketing Group, a Des Moines, Iowa advertising agency, has been writing a blog for more than two years. His blog, DrewsMarketingMinute.com, is among the 25 most-read marketing blogs. Heaton, who works for global software giant, SAP, writes ServantofChaos.com blog from Sydney, Australia, which is also a top 25 marketing blog.

The project has an unusual story behind it, involving online connections between people around the world who had never met each other face to face.

After McLellan had written about Wharton University’s effort to create a collaborative book, Heaton suggested online that they get a few fellow bloggers to try it.

“Three e-mails later, we had named the book and the charity. It just fell into place,” McLellan said. “The Age of Conversation was the perfect topic. The marketing industry is abuzz about how citizen marketers are changing the landscape, and these books capture that new phenomenon from a uniquely global vantage point.”

Through their blogs, McLellan and Heaton invited other marketing professionals to commit to writing essays about conversation. They set what they thought would be an impossible goal – 100 bloggers. Within seven days they had commitments from 103.

No sooner had the first book been published when the two began planning for Age of Conversation 2. The new book will be available on October 29, 2008 in three formats – an e-book, softcover and hardcover. All proceeds will again be donated to Variety, the international children’s charity.

Pricing for The Age of Conversation 2 is:

* e-book: US$12.50 ($10.00 going to charity)
* paperback book: US$19.95 ($8.02 to charity)
* hardback book: US$29.95 ($4.60 to charity)

Purchases can be made online from October 28, 2007 at www.lulu.com/ageofconversation.

A social media release is available at: http://pitch.pe/961

The second edition of the collaborative marketing book, Age of Conversation, is about to launch world-wide.

The brainchild of Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, the Age of Conversation 2: Why don’t people get it? has attracted contributions from 237 of the best marketing professionals from around the world. Leading advertising agencies, professional marketers, consultants and writers are represented in arguably one of the most impressive international marketing collectives ever assembled.

This year Newcastle is represented twice with chapters from both Gordon Whitehead and myself.

All proceeds from the book sales go to Variety, the Children’s Charity.

More details are about to be released, so stay tuned. In the meantime please meet the authors:

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Its turning out to be a tumultuous week in Australian media circles:

James Packer has jumped ship from PBL Media, quitting the group’s boards and effectively cutting his ties to the remains of the Packer media empire, including Nine Network and ACP Magazines.

SBS expects to be the first free-to-air television network to offer national metropolitan and regional audiences in a single advertising buy after revealing plans to split its signal in metro and regional markets from February.

The Ten Network is set to next month lay down the gauntlet to Fox Sports and its free-to-air rivals when it unveils that its high-definition channel will televise Australian and international sport 24 hours a day.