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While I’ve been Interstate, web designer pal David McDonald sent me this case of suspicious Social Media marketing. Surely NAB (no strangers to social media flak) couldn’t have buggered up a fresh attempt to ‘engage’ online stakeholders? Maybe it was their expert social media agents, Loaded?  I’ll investigate this in more detail later. hat tip, David. Go Cheryl Gledhill, savvy IP-sleuth-ess (read her comments!). If its a shill, this is further proof why Social Media ‘Marketing’ is a somewhat flawed premise even in spirit. http://www.moltn.com/blog/2008/10/09/nab-tries-to-pull-a-swifty/

Media and blog reports are castigating the Spanish mens and womens basketball teams for appearing in press ads - stretching their eyes to simulate Chinese facial features - for a Spanish courier company called Seur. For the record, I love Spain, especially Andalucia; genuinely warm and friendly people. Forget the PR angle (if you possibly can) for a minute; was this the full stretch (sorry) of Seur’s creative agency capabilities? In Scotland, I was (unfortunately) frequently exposed to this kind of casual racism but thought it was being stamped out worldwide? Perhaps Spain’s soccer coach Luis Aragones was the Creative Director? He’s also not a racist.

(Thx to Fairfax for use of pic)

Over at O’Dwyers’ PR blog, reports confirm that J&J has climbed down over its ‘hiding to nuthin” attempts to sue the Red Cross over its use of the (coughs) Red Cross logo. While J&J maintained the legal battle was justified because it hadda protect the sanctity of its trademarks, their climbdown comes after a New York judge tossed J&J’s trademark claim (over the Red Cross emblem) last month
http://www.odwyerpr.com/blog/index.php?/archives/262-Johnson-Johnson-Eats-Crow;-Settles-Lawsuit-with-American-Red-Cross.html

Over at Marketing magazine, I’ve stirred up a mini-hornets nest over my assertion that PR is best placed to lead the way in campaigns that use Consumer Generated Content; not everyone agrees…do you?

A stripped, buffed and top-hatted person of seriously challenged height, strutted along a bar top freely dispensing shots of Jagermeister alcohol directly down patrons throats, in a Melbourne bayside bar. At a time when the whole of Australia is alarmed over problem and binge drinking, do you think this might’ve been a bad judgement call by the brand and its promo agency (who remain un-named in media reports).
Jagermeister Brand Manager John Howells is named, says no-one at Jager had knowledge of the promo, promises to investigate after this particular shetland pony has bolted, and agrees that while not illegal, this could be seen as irresponsible. He don’t say??

If this was such a great promo idea…maybe the agency would like to identify itself??

Fancy yourself as a highly creative communicator??

Melbourne daily freesheet MX is offering creative agencies the chance of free advertising space by sending in their most “outrageous” creative ideas which could be published FOC.
MX is hoping raise its own profile as an idea vehicle for running more risqué creative ideas, as these ideas will fit in with its main target demographic of Gen Xs and Gen Ys. The promo push is supported by a natty campaign by Melbourne ad agency Smarts. Nice campaign with PR extendability, guys.

Melissa Cavanaugh writes me from the mediabistro forums where she’s just posted this piece. Melissa tells of how a North Carolina agency manages to portray its client (TharpeRobbins) as ludicrously hypocritical, by announcing their commitment to environmentally sustainable operations with a really wasteful mailing, replete with eco-unfriendly plastics, styrofoam and excess packaging! Melissa says:
“I just got a FedEx, marked urgent, from a company in North Carolina called McNeill
Communications Group. So I opened (and discarded) one medium FedEx box, transported
from NC to New York. I removed (and discarded) some packing paper that was securing
a cardboard box. I opened (and discarded) the cardboard box to find a plastic box
wrapped in styrofoam. I threw out the styrofoam and opened the plastic box to find
more paper packaging, a plastic bag of styrofoam peanuts, a plastic swizzle stick,
and a three-page press release. The title of the release? “TharpeRobbins Celebrates Earth Day by Leading the Way with Environmental Initiatives.” The gimmick is that the styrofoam peanuts dissolve in water. My jaw just dropped. Read more

Just back from the pre-opening press preview session at the Melbourne Motor Show, where a cohort of media shuffled from marque stand to marque stand to get their PR toplines and media info. While the schedule typically featured a brief press briefing by car company CEOs, there was a large element of brand theatre or brand experience, designed to engage and excite the attending media. Australasia’s leading brand experience agency (ABT, an associate and client of mine) invited me to see a variety of high impact “immersive” presentations that helped engender a more emotional ‘buy-in’ from media audiences attending. Gold stars to Holden for their awesome, testosterone-pumped unveilings and silver to Peugeot for a nice, winsome ‘uplifting’ 308 launch featuring a girl in a red dress with a 100metre long aerial train.
Holden’s brazen Coupe 60.
(c) GM Corp

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