Getting that first agency job

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday November 7, 2013

The hardest part of an advertising career is getting into your first agency. There are hundreds of bright young people who would love an advertising job, but only a small number of vacancies each year for newcomers.

For any kind of work, you need your basic skills - a degree in English or psychology, or at least some impressive VCE results. Media and account service will look for some evidence of maths ability. Computer skills need to be more than adequate these days - so many agencies are rooms packed with hunched hackers. So you need to make yourself good - a bit of an expert. If your inclination is artistic, study graphic design and computer graphics.

But most importantly, you need a real vision and desire to get involved with marketing. Agencies have tended to value selling ability, street smarts and flair, over purely academic honours. They don't give points for meekness. And you'll never get a start-up agency job through a search site - by the time you see it on your screen, it's gone.

So your first and most important selling job will be persuading the agency's general manager or creative director, that they want to give that precious spare seat in the office to you.

Some of the most seriously determined door-knockers are those who signed up for RMIT's three-year advertising studies course. In their determination to meet the prospective employers, they now run an annual "RMIT Pitch Night", a type of speed-dating game where agency and client management meet third-year students, eat sushi and browse their portfolios. They have gained sponsorship from the likes of Greys, George Patterson Y&R, Ogilvy & Mather and marketing magazine B&T, for the most recent event.

Like speed dating the students have a limited time to speak with industry guests, impress them with their work and personality, and hopefully get that important "let's talk" phone call in the morning.

Back in the 1990s, the late Seth Prokop devised a brilliant RMIT advertising short course. It would take about 30 keen students and over the first two months they were lectured on the various components of an agency, what each job involved, and a basic understanding of marketing.

Then for the last two months they had to form themselves into "agencies" with designated titles: managing director, media manager, creative director, art director, research manager.

They were then given a brief. One was the setting up of a national pizza chain; another time it was launching a new pasta sauce - with Heinz participating as the "client". Each agency received the same brief and had to develop a full campaign, with the same allotted "budget".

The amount of work those kids put into their agency was amazing. I had delivered some of the lectures and was part of the client's judging panel. I was highly impressed by the quality of research they carried out, the creative ideas they developed, the bright media innovations, the professionalism of the documents they produced.

They learned so much, not by sitting receiving lectures but by being a functioning advertising agency. They also learned the torture of being in a competitive pitch with not very sympathetic clients and hostile competitors. And for all but one agency, there was the pain of failing to win.

Not all of the kids got their agency job, but a surprisingly large number of them did. They were able to approach the pavement-pounding, door-knocking weeks ahead with a determination and confidence that got them noticed, and often opened a door.

You want lamb leg and veggies along with your cookbook?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday October 31, 2013

Late for birthdays, gifts for interstate, seeking a title that's hard to find - bit by bit we have all come round to using Amazon a few times, if not often. But can you see it supplying the meat, Weetbix and veg?

Give it time and that day will come, is the claim, as Amazon.com looks to expand its huge retail business into more areas, across markets and around the world. Already it sells toys, electronics, computers and phones, movies, fashions, cosmetics - its growth is constant.

Last year it lost money, but that has never slowed Amazon's development - for years it continued to grow without making a cent. No it has always looked to its promise, as articulated by the boss Jeff Bezos, and he has expanded the company beyond belief.

They have now spent the past five years establishing and growing the home-delivery grocery business in the Seattle area and just expanded to Los Angeles. San Francisco is promised to follow soon. Warehouses and investments are rumoured around America and the UK has also been primed. No doubt Australia is not too far down the target list.

Of course, mail-order groceries are nothing new down here. Coles have a very sophisticated nationwide system as does Woolworths. And here we have the advantage of the stores and supply chain already fully functioning. Here all the delivery developers had to do was tap in to the supermarket giants' sophisticated existing networks.

Even this took time and a lot of lesson-learning. Groceries are a very tricky commodity. The profit margin on food is much smaller than on clothes and electronics; they have short use-by dates after which everything must be thrown out; and delivering a basket of groceries is not as simple as dropping off a parcel of books.

However they all see the lessons from overseas, to know that online groceries are a huge growth market. In the UK they are far bigger and better established.

The business is making some $10 billion in sales now, and is expected to double that by 2016. France, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland are a little later on the wagon, but they too are expected to double their growth in the period.

World-wide researchers IGD announced the projections last week, with Britain being closely followed by France, now growing the sector. Joanne Denney-Finch, chief executive of IGD, sees the figures indicating fundamental changes to the way people shop: “Online retailing in food and consumer goods is growing at a phenomenal rate across Europe."

She points out, "Technology is empowering people, fundamentally changing the way they buy groceries. Online shoppers are becoming more demanding and the divisions between online and bricks and mortar stores are blurring."

In the US, mail order goes back to the beginnings of the young nation, so online grocery is no surprise. One of the first entrepreneurs in the country was the great Benjamin Franklin - yes the one with the kite - who sent out catalogues of scientific and academic books.

Right now, Amazon has some formidable competition before it, with equally deep pockets - especially Walmart. They have been trialing for the past two years, using their huge existing stores as regional warehouses for the service.

With so much global focus on the sector it is no longer a fringe activity, this is a market repositioning in action. So I can guarantee it will soon enough touch you and me. If it hasn't done so already.

How many clicks and tweets make a double page spread?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday October 24, 2013

So you think that designing an advertising plan for your products is a difficult business now? Well take a grip of your computer because the way things are headed, working out an advertising schedule is going to need tertiary mathematical skills.

You might remember how simple it was. "I'll have three flights of TV commercials and two press ads a week for the next three months." The ads were made by your agency and you watched closely to see if they were working or not.

Well it doesn't happen that way any more. Now there are tweets and clicks, banners and mobiles, the mechanics of a viral campaign, and the arrival of the "complex native ad ecosystem". Baffled? So is everyone, and a huge new marketing industry is being born out of it.

"Native ads" describes the vague cross-over between advertising and editorial. We are used to this in "advertorial", common enough in all newspapers, supporting the car or property pages. But here you clearly know that the display ad on the page is paying for the supporting copy up above. It probably says "advertising" at the top of the page.

Native ads are different, perhaps more subtle. With mobile media or search engines, they respond to the key topics you're looking for. They don't necessarily hit you with a bright product ad, but perhaps an answer to the question you haven't even asked yet.

It may be an article by a journalist, sounding very reasonable. This is where the card-carrying journalists raise their hackles. Most, yours truly included, were taught the 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not mix editorial with advertising". But the intelligence of technology has made that line hard to draw.

Arif Durrani, head of media at Britain's Campaign Magazine, sees native ads as the way which will make digital media work. "Display ads, not least those large banners on most websites, have failed", he insists. "They have failed to capture the attention of readers. They have failed to generate enough revenue for publishers. They have failed to provide enough traffic for advertisers."

He points to the launch of BuzzFeed in the UK and now Australia, as an indication of trends. This on-line magazine was not taken too seriously - until it started to stack up the numbers in the US and attract the big investors, more than $46 million to date.

Just last month Forbes magazine quoted BuzzFeed's global audience at 85 million, and growing fast. That's a lot of viewers for cute cats and endless "top 20 lists". But now they have hired real journalists and started reporting political news, covering the election and the Washington shut-down.

News Corp was among the first of the major media to dip its toes into the digital sea. By erecting pay walls around The Australian and then the other papers, it had a lonely time until all the competitors came rushing to follow.

But the online dollar still doesn't cover the "rivers of gold" that the old newspaper model supplied. So are native ads the way to go? How many clicks does it take to pay for a double page spread? How does sponsored advertising retain credibility?

The younger publications have little problem bending the rules - they didn't write them in the first place. Whereas the establishment are more cautious. There's a flood of questions in the minds of the world's media execs, there are no easy answers. Just some hard maths for the rest of us.

Memory Is a High Rating Topic

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday October 17, 2013
It's not often that non-sport TV programs get seen and discussed by older men. But in the past few days I've noticed one that has become the topic of the tea-room, the boardroom and the garden fence. It has hit an underground concern that is troubling our increasingly aging population.

The program is Redesign My Brain presented by Todd Sampson on the ABC and last Thursday it shot the station to third place, with the program beating The Beauty and the Geek, Law & Order, and Big Brother. Nationally it drew 865,000 viewers.

Now why is such a minor local documentary pulling in so many over-40s men, and women too, and getting them all to talk to each other? Perhaps it is the realisation that many of us are no longer as smart and as quick as we were.

In fact both men and women decline 3.9 per cent in brain function between 45-49. And by 65-70 men have lost 9.6 per cent in mental reasoning power, women 7.4 per cent. So after the umpteenth time of misplacing the car keys or going out without the shopping list, Mum and Dad are getting a bit concerned.

Well they are not alone. The world-wide trend in "brain health" is booming. Books, software, pills and vitamins, foods and exercises; a research group called SharpBrains estimates that the brain training software alone was worth more than $1 billion in 2012 and will reach $6 billion by 2020.

It seems that after all these years of working on our abs and our biceps, our attention is shifting up to the control room. This has been spurred along by a more intense research of what happens when we do apply an exercise regime to the grey cells. And although the scientists don't all agree on quantities of improvement, they do agree that there is one.

A number of training programs have emerged, with the kind of exercises that Sampson has been demonstrating. The seriousness of the perceived market is illustrated by multi-billion dollar drug company Bayer partnering brain-trainer Cognifit, and Merck picking CogState. Like many analysts, they foresee a time when brain training exercises are as much a part of your daily health routine as taking the vitamin pills and fish oil.

Does brain training ultimately make you more intelligent? There's still a lot of debate about that, but there's no argument that it makes you better at what you train for. Sampson was taught to memorise a whole pack of playing cards. You or I could barely manage seven cards in a row. Reaction-recognition helped him rapidly spot things with his peripheral vision. Like any bodily function the rule is "use it or lose it".

It makes us wonder about our children, too. In these days of instantly-accessed information they no longer spend hours at school training their mental arithmetic. They no longer need to spell, the computer does it for them. And if you cast back to great-grandad's time, they no longer have to memorise The Boy Stood On the Burning Deck and recite it to the class.

But perhaps these redundant skills did more for the brain - and the person - than just handle a few facts and figures. Are we risking their brains going marshmallow like their fast foods and canned-laughter TV?

Redesign My Brain is on ABC tonight at 8:30, watch it and make up your own mind about your mind.

Do you have to be so boring when you speak?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday October 10, 2013
Be careful where you sit in the auditorium because if you fall asleep, the speaker will notice you from the lectern and, well, it would be awfully rude wouldn't it? But staying awake can be so hard when the speakers are so very very boring.

I've attended a lot of company briefing and capital-raising presentations in recent years, sometimes as many as a dozen companies giving their spiel, one after the other at a conference. And forever I am waiting for someone to say something interesting.

Scientists are the worst. Geologists, chemists, engineers, doctors. They seem to have homogenized their work, to reduce all talks into a 30-minute monotone.

The PowerPoint slides all look the same, the tables and charts are baffling, the information merges in your head with the presenter before and the one after. Why are they so boring?

I asked an expert. Tanya Makin of The Presentation Group has taught universities and business leaders for over 20 years and routinely breaks open the clammed-shut presentation styles we see.

"It's high anxiety," she explains. "They feel they need to say everything they know about the topic." They think they are writing an essay or delivering a lecture, and think they will be judged by the quantity of information they deliver.

The speaker needs to understand that information is taken in differently between what you see, what you hear and what you read. "If you put up dot points, they will assume you want them read - and not listen to you," says Makin.

She encourages her students to watch David Attenborough. He doesn't use PowerPoint slides. "I suggest what I've named the Documentary Model. You make your points by telling a business story."

"Most scientific presenters fail," says Gary Lewis of the Geological Society of America, "because they don’t realise that most people don’t want to be blasted with five syllable jargon, acronyms and complex charts and graphs."

His advice is to find the one message that you want your audience to take away. Make that the focus of the talk. Certainly there are other factors in the story you are telling - the documentary - but keep pulling the attention back to the main message.

As Makin puts it, "Remember the story of Lassiter's Reef. What you are imaging is a prize you are looking for."

Before writing your presentation, spend some time watching TED.com. If you don't know it, pay attention because I'm about to repair a gap in your knowledge and intelligence.

TED.com is a forum for ideas. Its web site holds thousands of talks by the smartest men and women on this planet. They are each just 18 minutes long and cover every conceivable subject - geology, astronomy, fashion, art, medicine, music, education - and speakers include Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs, Tony Robbins, Isabel Allende. You get my drift? It's a must-see for the smart.

Then, feeling inspired, turn back to your own notes. Imagine the story you could tell, the excitement you could generate - the feeling you really have inside you. They can read the charts and tables in the take-away notes you provide. Your talk needs to create the thrill.

Practice it in front of your bedroom mirror, pace, wave your hands, tell jokes. Then after dinner, go and do it again. Try it on your spouse. Drag a few from your team into the boardroom or canteen and try them too.

Once you're confident, you'll be starting to communicate. And maybe your talk won't put anyone to sleep.

In the world of beer, brewing is a craft

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday September 26, 2013

We all have a sometimes wish that our hobby was our job. With some of us that does come about - certainly among that growing band, the craft brewers.

If you like an occasional beer you can't have helped but notice the growth in the range of beers available these days. There is a definite change happening in the beer market - at a time when, recently, it was declared that wine is close to overtaking beer as Australians' favourite plonk.

Today's wine drinker is more discerning about the quality and style of the wine. And in turn, it is quality that increasingly motivates the beer drinker, buying less but creating a rapid growth of mini breweries, local pub brews, and craft breweries.

It's a world-wide trend with craft brewers in the US taking some 10 per cent of the beer market. In Australia it's closer to 3 per cent but growing, as it is around the world. There are now craft breweries in Canada, Japan, China, Cambodia, Spain, New Zealand - and of course, Britain and northern Europe have had their "brewpubs" for centuries.

This growth of hand-crafted beer is also an understandable development from the beer hobbyist movement. I well remember my old dad and his interests. "Your dad's down in the cellar making beer, I don't expect to see him for a couple of hours," my mum would explain when I phoned, knowing that he would emerge safe and sound and in a very happy mood.

He was not alone, and sometimes this turns into a passion that eventually becomes a job. But when does a hobbyist turn into a craft brewer?

"It's all about the content not the brand," says Guy Greenstone. He's landlord of St Kilda's The Local Taphouse, a hotbed of beer making and savouring. "It's about having a passion for the product."

When Guy and his business partner Steve Jaffares put on a talk and sip fest called The Great Australasian Beer Spectapular in 2011 they so overfilled their pub that for the next two years it was held at the Royal Exhibition Centre, attended by fans and brewers from around the world.

"This May we got 12,000 people and 90 specially brewed beers. For next year we expect over 100 new beers - and I don't know how many people," said Guy. They have created a new event for Melbourne's calendar, turning the Exhibition Building into a big elaborate beer hall for three days.

Is there any clash with that other great beer celebration, Oktoberfest? Other than being half a year apart, Guy thinks not. He sees Oktoberfest as a celebration of beer culture and history, whereas the Spectapular is focussed on the making and quality of beer.

The rebirth of beer is not unnoticed by the big brewing companies, who are launching products that look more home-made and varied in styles. Together, they may be what saves beer - which has been steadily falling from 75% of alcohol consumption in 1962 to 41% in 2012.

Justin McPhail of Bendigo Beer said it was a sign of the times where big breweries are no longer as dominant, and that craft breweries signalled a rebirth of beer. “I think it’s the end of bland beer that’s been around since the 1970s,” he said.

New York brewer Garrett Oliver sums up the movement. "Real beer is made by people, not by machines," he says. "The difference with craft beer is that when you're talking about a brewery, you know whose beer that is. It's a very personal thing." Almost a hobby.

Your Dick Tracy moment has finally arrived - well almost

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday September 19, 2013

Dick Tracy, your time has finally come. Since Chester Gould gave his comic-strip character a phone on his wrist in 1946, generations of youngsters looked to the day when this would happen in reality. Not just youngsters.

Well, this year we now have watches that talk - a rapidly multiplying new gadget category, the smart watch. But is it Dick Tracy's phone yet?

This month Samsung released its Galaxy Gear computer on a watch band, and loudly crowed that it has beaten Apple to the punch. Certainly it was the sensation of Berlin's IFA Show and has been making headlines around the world. But is it really a smartwatch yet?

Well yes... and no.

Yes you will have a computer on your wrist that will make calls, converse, take messages, check the weather, play music, take photos, make appointments - most everything your smart phone can do. Except that it will be your smart phone that's doing the key telephony functions.

In order to operate, the Gear needs its mothership, the Galaxy Note 3 phone, within range. The actual computer in the watch needs mother to make a call, so it's not really a smartphone watch, it's a very nifty Bluetooth channel.

However if you are fed up with seeing the multitude around you - in street and bus, at work and leisure, every five minutes when they are not asleep - pulling out their mobiles and squinting at them - well that may change a little.

When you wear it, any activity will register as a buzz on the skin, and you can check for some key event with a flick of the wrist, like you just want to know the time. To further the illusion, there is a range of watch faces to choose from.

Released almost simultaneously was Sony's elegant effort, the Smartwatch 2. It's prettier but lacks some important features like voice control. As with the Gear, it relies on its mother phone.

The belle still missing from this ball is an Apple. Everybody is expecting a watch, especially after the underwhelming response to their new phone releases. Maybe they can crack the standalone phone barrier?

Now Steve Jobs - gone almost exactly two years ago - would know how to pull this rabbit out of the hat and make it look like it was his idea in the first place. Because this could herald a whole new marketing category.

Look beyond the square, clunky half-dozen models currently appearing and give them a few years to mature. The Swiss took the quartz crystal watch (they were part of the development process along with the Japanese) and revitalised their ageing watch industry. Swatch has since become the biggest-selling watch in the world.

With open-channel software like Android and a flood of apps that has already started to pour in, smart watches won't be restricted to just a few brands. Perhaps a few years from now we'll see the President having earnest conversations with his Rolex watch, or the glamorous movie stars parading the red carpet with their jewel-encrusted Cartier phone and watch.

Careful management will handle any obsolescence - just as with your computer, the updates can flow in constantly with barely a murmur.

Meanwhile that elegant watch on your wrist will respond to voice commands, write down your memos, take pictures, play pedometer when you jog, monitor your GPS position, provide an instant street directory. All that and phone calls too.

Yesterday Samsung announced the new phones’ release in Australia. The Galaxy Gear will be available in a fortnight at the Samsung Experience store. But be prepared – it’s $369 and you’ll need the Galaxy Note 3, another $999, to operate it.

Australia's world famous furry fashion statement

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday September 12, 2013 

Around the world it's Australia's best known, most recognised fashion brand. Ask the stylish from Los Angeles to Moscow, from Cape Town to Beijing about the home of their favourite footwear and you'll be told "Australia".

Except that the product is not Australian owned, or made, or always using our materials. I'm talking about the boots and shoes from UGG Australia. All that's Australian is the name.

The story is complex and is 50 years old or 2500 years old depending on where you want to start.

The piece of sheepskin sewn into a boot shape is one of mankind's oldest forms of footwear, even found on a Chinese mummy from 500 BC. But it was the surfin' seventies that gave the bogan ugg boot new charm, when they were picked up by surfers to keep their feet warm between rides, on winter days.

Soon they spread to the surfers of California and one day in 1978 an Aussie surfer called Brian Smith set up Ugg Imports to bring the boots into his adopted town of Santa Barbara.

The boots were a hit with the good vibrations crowd and by the mid eighties "Original Ugg Boot UGG Australia" was selling the boots from the ski slopes of Aspen to the night clubs of Manhattan.

They were photographed on famous feet and the celebrity magazines went mad. Popular with actors, actresses and famous-for-being-famous celebrities like Paris Hilton, Kate Moss, Jennifer Aniston, Leonardo DiCaprio and the Hollywood crowd. Then Oprah Winfrey told the world how she could not survive winter without them and sales boomed.

In 1995 Deckers Outdoor Corporation bought the company and has the name registered in 130 nations around the world.

The name UGG has been a lawyers' picnic for years. Deckers has fought a string of companies in America and Europe to keep it trademarked. In most places they have succeeded - except Australia. Here ugg is legally accepted as a generic name, it's the Australian word for a sheepskin boot. And attempts to rule otherwise have failed in the courts.

This is why every market stall and souvenir shop in the country is stuffed with sheepskin boots labelled "UGG Australia", usually followed by a brand name or manufacturer. However if you try to sell those boots overseas, by internet or mail order, you have to make it clear that this is not the "real" Deckers brand.

The problem for Australian consumers is identifying the quality shoe. There are Deckers Uggs, Aussie uggs, Chinese uggs and placky uggs. And on the web page they all look much the same. So if you are buying, make sure you have a trustworthy supplier.

With winter ending here, we prepare to store ours in moth-proof boxes for the summer, but the chilly winds are moving to the northern hemisphere. There the trendy young are hunting out the new season's range and colours to protect their toes from the coming cold.

Did I mention that they're a big business now? Last year their sales were over $1 billion. So as you'd expect, this is the time for a new big advertising campaign for the season.

Like the Nikes and Adidas and other sporty footwear they feature a handsome, famous footballer. But you won't find him at the MCG, this is Tom Brady, quarter back for the New England Patriots and a hero-worshipped three-time winner at the Super Bowl.

He is spearheading big-money moves to push UGG higher into the fashion sphere, last year opening the new Madison Avenue Ugg For Men store. His fashion credentials are well supported by his wife - supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Yes she wears Uggs too.

Saving damsels isn't healthy

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday September 9, 2013

The heroine is overtaken by a fainting spell and falls into the lake, sinking to a watery grave. Suddenly a great splash as the hero, fully clothed, dives in and raises her unconscious body to the surface. It's a key moment in the movie I was watching on DVD at the weekend, and as usual these days it was accompanied by a "making it" documentary that takes you behind the scenes.

The director and his stars remarked how expensive the filming had been. As well as the massive camera crane for the water's-edge shots, they were hit by a long list of health and safety regulations. A couple of weeks in advance they needed laboratory tests of water quality. Four frogmen stood next to the crew in case anyone got into trouble. They had an ambulance on site, with nurse and doctor. The actors wore wetsuits under their costumes, and stunt doubles stood by in case it needed a re-shoot.

My mind drifted back to the Yarra in the 70s and my first solo commercial. We needed a cheap ad for the Toppa Twosome ice cream and could only afford a cameraman, production assistant, two actors and "who's going to direct it?" "You."

The script was basic: couple in a rowing boat, young man falls in, his girlfriend dives after him and pulls him out (these were the days of women's lib), they dry off on the bank, in the sun, eating ice creams. All to the wonderful Smacka Fitzgibbon singing, "Nibble on a Twosome, Toppa Twosome, when you come out with me..." an adaptation of Tiptoe Through the Tulips that Smacka and I wrote on his kitchen table a few nights earlier.

Notice: no ambulance, doctor, nurse, frogmen, stunt doubles or wetsuits. Health and Safety Rules? What for? Ah how the world has changed.

Not that I have anything against making the workplace safer and healthier, far from it, enormous strides have been made. But with the developments a whole process has been added, a machinery that sometimes seems a little... excessive.

Already throughout this election we have seen politicians of all genders and persuasion trying hard to not look like dorks in their hair nets and safety wellies but somehow, try as they might, they do.

There's a fallacy that politicians persuade themselves, that they look more manly in hard hats and orange vests. Nope.

Earlier this year it was discovered that the new health and safety laws had overlooked Australia's overseas super-spooks, ASIS. So it was an offence for our spies to do outside work - like following villains - without their fluoro vests on. Now that's one-up on James Bond's tux.

But for true bureaucratic pettiness you can't beat the Brits. Recent times have seen sack races banned from school sports because children might fall and hurt themselves. Dodgems were forbidden from bumping each other. Remembrance Day poppies had their pins removed - in case someone stuck it into themselves rather than their lapel, presumably.

Again, let me say, it's quite right we have regulations to protect our workplaces. I remember in years past seeing very dangerous machinery - presses, guillotines, power saws and the like - with inadequate protection that would never be allowed today. Quite rightly.

But perhaps we can leave a buffer in there for some common sense. Not like a town in England where after their annual "community day", local workers would bring down the flags and bunting. This was stopped because of health and safety concerns - you wouldn't want someone falling off a ladder. The workers were the local fire brigade.

The agony and the selling lesson

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday August 29, 2013

A few months ago, losing my mobile phone turned into an agonising experience - that became a deep le

sson in selling.

Shopping for a new one, I spent hours on hours questioning the internet, visiting phone stores, talking to salespeople, asking friends, because I wanted to "get it right".

Lots pointed me to an Apple iPhone, but too often their own were patched with sticky tape over the cracked screen or looked scuffed, and I was warned they were fragile. Besides, I liked the sound of the Android system. But the HTC or Samsung felt too big and Blackberry were launching a whole new platform, and I've learned to not be the first in anything new in computing.

Can you see what my problem was? Not a lack of choice - it was having too much choice, making my head spin.

Choose: durability versus ease of use; long battery versus loud music; old faithful Nokia or born-again Blackberry? And of course every brand sported half-a-dozen model numbers.

Then there were the dealers themselves. Telsta or Optus, Vodaphone or Virgin, Dodo or Lyca or Boost? And by the way do you want broadband with that?

In the end I confounded everybody, including myself, with a Motorola Razr. It was small but strong - Gorilla Glass screen, Kevlar case - I liked the idea of a bullet-proof phone. I'd had Motorolas in the past without problems, so it ticked a lot of the boxes.

But revealing to me was the sales process. I felt that all the way from the manufacturers to the dealers to the sales staff, nobody grasped the degree of confusion in customers' minds. The vendors live with, and understand, all the maze of details - phones, systems, plans, pros and cons - so why shouldn't we?

Here's why, in a quote from the guru of marketing, Steve Jobs. The man made billions following this simple philosophy: "People don’t know what they want until you show it to them."

Forget all that you already know, wipe the slate clean and look from the position of the customer. Here I'm not just talking about mobile phones. It might be cars, or fridges, a house or an evening dress. Choice can be an agonising process, and as a good marketer your job is to help the customer handle the pain.

Don't leave them struggling through a jungle of vines and branches, gasping and confused. Find out what the customers is looking for. Take the time to listen closely, ask questions. Get them to picture what they want - giving a little guidance to the process. Don't hurry or push, a good sales assistant is never in too much of a hurry to give you full focus.

Then lead them into your grove, point and say, "This is what you need, isn't it exciting?". If you read them right, they'll say, "Yes!"

Take a lesson from Jobs. He did this again and again with the iMac, iPhone, iPod, iPad - each a basically simple product that said, "I am the answer to what you need".

If one of the many phone salespeople I met had done this with me early in the piece, I would have meekly followed and the process would have been completed in hours, not days.

It's the same when you create any marketing campaign. Think yourself into the position of the customer entering your shop (or office or web site) for the first time. What do you see? What don't you understand? From that initial point of view, you can build a campaign as big as you need.

It's your office: who cleans the cups?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday August 22, 2013.

You're the boss and you walk into the office kitchen and the sink is full of dirty cups. What do you do?

You can't call your secretary to clean things up - a) you don't have a secretary any more, you have an "administrative assistant", b) she or he is far too grand and well-educated to risk their manicured fingernails in a dirty sink.

You can't shout at the nearest employees because in this modern, post-feminist egalitarian world, the wrong words can see you in jail or sued for squillions. So what is the modern kitchen etiquette?

Once there were tea ladies who'd push their trolleys round mid-morning and afternoon bringing beverage and biscuits to your desk and whisking away the dirties. But they have long been sent to their retirement villages.

They were replaced by "café bars", with finger-burning plastic cups that did not need washing. Then people started bringing in their own mugs, but were always too busy to clean up afterwards. So the grot grew.

Nowadays you also get microwaves, stoves, elaborate espresso coffee systems - but still too few people to wash up afterwards. The cleaners blow through like dervishes in the night, changing the garbage bags and waving the back-pack vacuum wand but coffee cups aren't in the job description.

So what's the tea-room etiquette? One idea I spotted in my travels was a kitchen notice that said you were responsible for your own cup - but if there happened to be another in the sink, do that one at the same time. Not all the dirty cups, just yours plus one more. If everyone did that the area would be kept clean, with minimal anger directed at the slobs. (However many notes you pin up, there will always be slobs.)

The other problem area is the bathroom - especially in the smaller offices where men and women share. Inevitably there's the Dragon Lady who marches up and loudly declares, "OK, who used the toilet last and didn't flush properly? I know it was a man because the seat was left up." The men in the room bury their heads behind their computer monitors, muttering "It wasn't me!"

She has a point though. Look back before you exit. And don't be afraid to use the provided brush on stubborn stains, that's what it's there for. Etiquette.

Wash your hands and if you have paper towels, give the hand basin a quick wipe around. Like they used to ask you to do on aeroplanes.

Finally, notice when products are running low, whether it be the tea bags or coffee or toilet paper. Replace the empty ones from the store in the cupboard, or make sure, a few days before, that the cleaners know they have to bring in fresh supplies.

The point is, if you noticed it, take responsibility for it. Don't just ignore it thinking that "someone" or "management" or "admin" will fix it, because the chances are they won't, or they'll take a week to notice.

Where there once were office managers or department administrators, as often as not these jobs have gone with the great middle-management purges and redundancies of recent years, leaving the workers to look after their own space.

You may not be the boss, but you spend a third of your life working in your office or factory, it's as much your home as the one you pay a mortgage on. So take responsibility for it, keep it clean and tidy - own it and observe the etiquette.


ray@ebeatty.com

The hackathon: growing ideas worth millions

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday, 15 August, 2013.
Can winning ideas be pulled out of the air? Can creativity be grown? Well I've got a new word for you to learn: the Hackathon. In the decade since it was coined, the idea has started to take off, big-time.

The word is a combination of hacking, as in computers; and marathon. It's a lot of people working to solve certain computer problems, in teams, for a set period. Sometimes they tackle specific problems. Sun Microsystems invented the name for a conference that worked on applications for their Java program.

The idea spread through north America and Britain. One spawned a company called GroupMe in 2010 that was sold a year later to Skype for $85 million. (See? Suddenly you're interested.) Another created Nitobi, sold to Adobe for a secret sum.

Some run a contest for a weekend, some a week, with several groups competing and judges selecting a winner, usually presenting a prize or a development grant. If you participate, don't expect much sleep - bring your sleeping bag - and be ready to live on pizza and Coke for the duration.

Success is driving the idea into wider circuits, outside the programmer arena. In June this year the City of Palo Alto put on its Civic Hackathon and attracted 5000 participants. They called it, "An event where technology, entrepreneurship and innovation come together to help shape the future of our community." The city’s downtown was transformed into City Camp Palo Alto. Families came to view the latest in robotics, take part in art activities, enjoy food and live music.

Individual companies are looking at hackathons as a way to improve thinking and relationships, and maybe come up with some ground-shaking ideas. All for the price of a few pizzas.

A group called London Green Hackathon ran a weekend last year where they developed programs on "Energy efficiency in buildings","Real time carbon emissions", "Kindle energy dashboard", and the like. The last reprogrammed a Kindle reader to download freely available data from the active power grid, and give you a real-time analysis of energy use nationally, or within an area, or just at your home.

In June Melbourne University participated in GovHack, a 48-hour hackathon mining the vast amount of government-funded data available in the public domain. Over 900 participants hacked away for 48 hours, developing analytical programs that made sense of these databases.

So for example, we have huge quantities of information about transport, biological data, immigration, trade, tourism and more, gathered by governments and organisations over years. Only a small amount of this data is used, we could learn so much more if it was examined from different angles.

This is called "data mining" - digging fresh understanding out of these mountains of raw information. This is what they worked on in the hackathon, designing programs that found new answers from the data, by asking the right questions.

This weekend will see Melbourne's first Create 32 Hackathon, hosted by digital shop Visual Jazz Isobar. The focus will be on near field communications (NFC) applications. This is the new data transfer link you get when two mobile phones touch each other, for example. A fast-growing field itself (another you have to get your head around).

But groups with other interests can come along and participate. VJI Managing Director, Konrad Spilva, said: "These events allow brands to reach out to a different market and community to solve a business problem."

It will be held at King Street's York Butter Factory building on Saturday and Sunday, with a prize of $12,000. There may still be room, so if you're interested chase them up.

ray@ebeatty.com

Cars need their nourishing slice of pie

Melbourne Herald Sun, August 8, 2013.

"Guten tag", "guten nacht". Yes it's "g'day" and "g'night" from our friends at Opel. In less than a year the German brand made its debut into Australia with a modest advertising splash promoting a range of five models. But by the end of last week, they took their leave.

It seems the Australian public did not respond to the cars in terms of sales - just 1530 cars sold between 20 dealerships. They suffered a classic Australian marketing problem - too much competition in too small a market.

Our appetite for cars is immense - just last month Australians bought 88,000 cars. But we attract all the manufacturers from around the world. The British and Europeans, the Americans, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, even Brazilians. Not to forget the Australians. Even the record highs in the dollar exchange rate could not stem the inflow.

But in the end, each vendor's slice of the pie left others severely undernourished. Such was Opel. Just a few months earlier, Hyundai Australia had dropped its i45 sedan, and models quietly slip off the pages of dealers' catalogues around the industry.

Much noisier is the departure of a manufacturer. We have too few of those. Ford has announced the longest farewell since Melba, telegraphing its departure in late 2016. But for all concerned it's better than a midnight flit and a note for the milkman.

Mike Devereux at Holden has also been making warning noises, about the consequences of a decline of government support. Industry Minister Kim Carr has come waving $200 million at them on top of current subsidies, but at the same time $800 million in fringe benefit tax breaks is being pulled out from under.

With the election now in swing, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is talking tough, ready to slash the $500 million in existing industry subsidies, presumably also pocketing Senator Carr's $200 million - but leaving the tax breaks in place.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, this shell game has been played in Australia since before you were born.

Of course, through much of last century the subsidies were not so obvious as they were provided by high tariff walls. A mixture of import taxes, incentives and barriers encouraged motor manufacturers to make or assemble cars here. It was a very cosy, if at times confusing, relationship. And it made cars in Australia extremely expensive.

But it was an industry. Ford Australia had five plants. Australian Motor Industries had Standard Motor Company and Mercedes Benz, Rambler, and Fiat tractors. BMC had Austin and Morris. There were Chrysler, Peugot, International Harvester, Leyland, Renault, Rootes, Pressed Metal Corporation - most of the Land Rover was made and assembled here. Volkswagen, Willys Motors, White Trucks - the list goes on. Car and truck making on an industrial scale.

No doubt some of you, or your mums or dads, worked for one of the names mentioned here. At some time, the whole country was involved.

Of course, General Motors is still manufacturing, still demanding subsidies, as is Toyota. Will they still be doing so at the end of the decade? A lot of decisions will be made, a lot of lobbying - and no political party is immune.

Car makers were huge factories that built cities around them - think of Detroit, Dagenham, Wolfsburg, Turin, Geelong. These days they have had to be nimbler, more strategic.

So it is with Opel. Try it in a market, measure the sales, pull out if the results don't come in. If you were one of the Opel buyers, you're safe. General Motors promises that service and guarantees will be met through Holden.

ray@ebeatty.com

Who's the Richest In the World?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday August 1, 2013

I'm always fascinated by these "Richest Person in the World" lists. Let's face it, they are pretty meaningless - if someone has $1 billion or $40 billion, it does not make much difference from my perspective - or yours either, I imagine. It's still a hell of a lot more than we will ever possess.

But on the other side of the coin, imagine losing it - like Eike Batista, who lost $33 billion over the last year. Yup, this Brazilian entrepreneur was pushing towards the world's top last year, now he's down to 100 on the Forbes Richest 100 list.

Of course it's all figures in a computer, just how much anybody actually owns. Look at a character I've featured before, Ingvar Kamprad (add an E and an A to those initials and you'll know who I mean). He passed from the top of the list to the - well - lower middle. Then he was worth $42 billion and is now a mere $3.3 billion. Not that the money has gone - it is now tied up in complex trust arrangements in Luxembourg and legally not his, though I'm sure they'd provide him a room if he ever needed it.

These rich do enjoy giving their money away - and seem to end up with more than they started with. Take Bill Gates, the world's most generous philanthropist. His world-girdling Bill Gates Foundation has now given out more than $28 billion, yet Forbes reports him as the world's second-richest person at $67 billion. So you can't even throw it away.

By the way I'm quoting US dollars here because with such stellar figures, a few cents in the exchange rate won't really matter to you or me.

The richest man once again is a Mexican, Carlos Slim Helu. At a net worth of around $73 billion he has held top spot for three years and his communications empire, based in Latin America, is rapidly expanding into Europe and the United States, so expect to be hearing more of him.

In retail, do you make money out of lots of low-cost sales, or less high-cost items? Well looking at the rich list, both are true. Number three is Amancio Ortega, the Spanish grandee of Zara. His fashionable, timely, but affordable stock has generated phenomenal sales around the world. From New York to Tokyo, Sao Paolo to Sydney, it seems every smartly-dressed woman has contributed to Ortega's billions, even some well-known royals.

But the higher-priced items can also make you rich. Liliane Bettencourt stared as an apprentice mixing perfumes in her father's factory at the age of 15; now at 91 she ranks as richest woman in the world, with some $30 billion.

Her empire, L'Oreal, is the biggest cosmetics company in the world and controls brands like Yves Saint Laurent, Armani, Lancome, The Body Shop, Ralph Lauren - far from the cheap end of the market.

The truly luxurious brands also come from France. Bernard Arnault is boss of LVMH, which you have to roll out with a rich French accent: Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. There is a little dispute about whether his wealth is $30 or $40 billion - no-one is readily offering a ledger for outside scrutiny.

The richest person in Asia is Li Ka-shing of Hong Kong. Worth $31 billion, he is the world's largest operator of container terminals.

Americans round off the list - oil and engineering brothers Charles and David Koch of Kansas; Larry Ellison of Oracle; and of course Warren Buffett, the magician who can seem to make any upward or downward stockmarket trend create him ever more billions.

ray@ebeatty.com

Raising the Dead to Make a Pitch

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 25,2013

In his latest TV commercial Bruce Lee looks you intently in the eyes and advises "Follow your instincts, it's the most honest path." He dips his hand into a pool of water and lets it trickle through his fingers, "Be water, my friend".

This philosophy might be a little startling - after all the 90 second ad is promoting Johnny Walker Black Whisky to a Chinese audience, and is spoken by a renown teetotaller. Even more startling for a piece shot a few months ago, Lee has been dead for 40 years.

No, this example of raising the dead is done through the magic of computer graphics - with such skill and precision that you will have to look at it a couple of times to work out that it is in fact not real.

It took Joseph Kahn nearly a year to make and he is very proud of it. Which is really saying something - Kahn has made music videos for all the greats: Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Christina Aguleira, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and almost every star of that magnitude.

His key piece of practice in CGI was the video for Kylie's All the Lovers. You know, the one with hoards of near-naked couples making love in the middle of New York and ending in orgy pyramid nearly as high as the surrounding skyscrapers. He's obviously not a man for simple solutions.

But computer graphics are going to bring a lot more spokespeople back to life. In Britain a superb commercial for Galaxy chocolate features Audrey Hepburn. Once again painted in CGI, this is the young, beautiful, sparkling Hepburn of Roman Holiday, as heart-melting as she was in life. Set to the music of Moon River, just in case you neglected to sob.

The animation was a long, hard process for the creative team and not surprisingly the most difficult part was getting those eyes right. But they do, which diffuses some of the anger at her ghost being brought back. It was done, incidentally, with the permission and support of her son.

Perhaps thinking about the range of colourless celebrities featuring in current boring ads, it's not surprising that directors would search back in time for interesting personalities.

For last year's J'Adore perfume campaign, Dior enlisted four of them, one living, three dead. Charlize Theron needed every ounce of her beauty and presence to match up against her co-stars: Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe. Just to add to the glitter, this over-the-top French commercial was shot in the Hall of Mirrors, in the Palace of Versailles.

But the process doesn't always work. When an American agency resurrected popcorn king Orville Redenbacher, who had spent a lifetime pitching his wares, it cost a fortune in CGI. Except... they didn't pull it off, and his attempted jollity was plain scary. It earned him the title: "Orville Deadenbacher - The Popcorn Zombie."

In fact, presenters can be a poor way to advertise your product, unless you have the right match between the speaker and what he or she is selling. Digging up a ghost adds some novelty value to the pitch, but that doesn't last long.

What you really need is an outstanding product, and a compelling reason to buy, within a clever commercial. Then whether you use a famous person or not is a factor - but it does not overwhelm the message. In fact, surveys have shown that celebrity endorsement is unimportant in whether the ad reached the viewer or not.

As researchers Ace Metrix observed in one report, "Creative components—not celebrity endorsements—drive positive responses from viewers and resonate across demographics."

ray@ebeatty.com

It's like everybody wants a baby

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 18, 2013
Once more the world is thinking babywards, as the prospect of a future king (or queen) rises before us. As I write the royal baby is knocking at the gates, by the time you read this the world will have its answers. Or else a lot of gamblers will have lost a lot of money because the favourite date was yesterday, July 17.

Yes, everything is bettable - the date, the sex, the name. But this is just the tip of an industry that is particularly flourishing at the moment.

Many women are hearing the alarm of their biological clock and responding to the call they may have put off throughout their twenties. A stroll through Chapel St, Toorak Rd or Chadstone reveals the number of well-heeled older mothers, who are pausing their careers to put a few years into pushing elaborate baby rigs to some very expensive baby shops.

The researchers at IBISWorld have been adding up the cost of babies, individually and in total. You won't be surprised to know it's not cheap, General Manager Karen Dobie calculated $3037 per child. Being as so many of these mothers may be returning to work after parental leave, you more than double the cost when you add childcare, to $7098 annually.

This childcare sector amounts to $6.6 billion, shelled out by working parents. No wonder all political parties have targeted it as an important election issue. Too many unhappy voters see their second income go straight out in child minding fees.

Even the word "second" is debatable in these times of single mothers, and fathers, separations and divorces, same-sex parents, all struggling to meet the bills. Without even being faced, yet, by the costs to come at them once school education starts.

Not of course that this is a problem for William and Kate, nor for those yummy mummies in their designer track suits. They don't have to be royal for their baby to command luxurious treatment.

This year Australians will be spending big for the nursery furniture and toys, nappies and clothes - but also feeding their babies a regal selection of organic foods, dietary specialties, the finest imported foods. Adding up to a considerable $11.3 billion industry, grown 15 per cent in the past five years.

Nutritious and healthy food ranks high for this well-educated segment. IBISWorld have identified a surge in premium baby food. Says Ms Dobie: "Mothers are breastfeeding for shorter periods due to their busy schedules and lifestyle pressures."

In other words, get back to work, where the money is, but ensure the baby's well-being by giving it expensive care and healthy food. "This is driving sales in alternatives, organic infant formula, milk-free and gluten-free ranges", Ms Dobie said.

The other beneficiary of these older mummies is the fertility industry. The brilliance of our researchers and surgeons has attracted a prosperous flow of patients both local and from overseas, to some of the best IVF clinics in the world.

As many as one in six couples suffer fertility problems and seek medical help, with services reaching $550 million a year - a 110 per cent increase from five years ago. Last year there were 40,000 IVF cycles performed, delivering 12,200 babies. Among women aged 40-44, 15.1 births per thousand are IFV assisted.

So far royal babies have made their way into the world without external prompting, as will Princess Kate's.

Though it's a fair bet that she will not go on to emulate her great- great- great- great- great grandmother-in-law, Victoria. On top of ruling the Empire, she delivered nine times.

ray@ebeatty.com

When the electorate bought Kevin '07, they refused to accept a substitute

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 11, 2013 

It's the story of the year, I can't ignore it because it is classic marketing and the biggest purchasing decision any of us will make this year. What is the marketing campaign strategy  behind the coming Federal Election?

No I'm not being cute when I call it marketing. There is a product, up against an alternative purchase; the items have been carefully crafted by hundreds of experts, every feature and offer is extensively researched. Then there are huge investments made into the promotion of the products, their presentation and distribution. And in every corner are planning teams of the very best ad-folk in the country.

You are being sold a political party through marketing just as thorough and scientific as sells your breakfast cereals or a new motor car. More so, in fact. Every few days a new factor is examined, a new poll unveiled.

So what has been happening over the past six years, why is there so much opinion and agitation about a topic that is not usually at the top of Australians' conversation list?

It was the fault of the Kevin '07 campaign. This was a very well produced and executed blitzkrieg that propelled Kevin Rudd's smiling image into every home in the country. You weren't voting for a party, you were voting for a man. And by the time polling day had arrived, his statements had become writ.

Only they weren't. The GFC clobbered the economy, threatening recession and collapse. Panicky measures were set in train and the Murphy principle came into its own. Things went wrong, rosy promises had to be scrapped. It looked like Kevin '07 was a dud and the electorate was disappointed.

Ruling factions in the ALP panicked at the falling opinions. Rudd was an undiplomatic diplomat toward his fellow members and they had no patience to re-educate him, so he was tumbled. Julia Gillard won the party room - but not the electorate.

They had bought Kevin '07. They were robbed and were angry. Fanned on by a loudly hissing and booing Opposition, they demanded that they be given back the product they had bought.

We only have to cast our minds back a couple of weeks to recollect the anger in the high street, office, workshop. I believe Gillard is one of the most intelligent women in the country, but this had nothing to do with smarts, it was pure emotion - 'We wuz robbed!'

In the end even the hard men of Labor could not withstand the battering. They crumbled and fled the party. Caucus restored Rudd - and listen, can you believe the calm? It won't last long of course, but the silence is deafening.

I've been out talking to people in the high street over the past weekend and suddenly they're not mad any more. It's almost as if the first half of this year is already being forgotten.

Now we have a level playing field again, the two main parties battling the major issues with loud noises from the cross benches. Once more the parties are up on the market shelf, offering their alternatives to the customers. This time, the selling is not going to be as emotional or irrational, and perhaps people will talk to each other and listen in turn.

Then we can make a sound marketing decision, having been sensibly thought through. Which product are you going to pick off the shelf, and will you be happy with your choice? Remember that if you get it wrong, you can't take it back for three years.

ray@ebeatty.com

In Japanese business, the samurais rule

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 4, 2013
A career in Australian advertising inevitably means, at some stage, working for a Japanese corporation. Be it autos, electronics, machinery, watches, graphics, audio - they have created themselves as the technical miracle of the last half-century.

But something that long puzzled me has just been revealed. Let me tell you a story.

Our huge Japanese client called us into a meeting to show their latest product. A wonderfully designed machine that the engineers were proud of.

"Lovely. Who is going to use it?" we asked.
"Everyone," was the reply.
"No," we persisted, "what was the marketing reason for this product, what do you see as its niche?"
"Oh that's what you're here for. Here's the budget allocation and all the technical specifications..."

The engineers were excited by the product, the national offices around the world were allocated quotas, and in each country we had to go out and sell them. What is the large hole in this picture?

Yes, marketing. Why does the public want it? What market opportunity does it fill? Who will use it? What is the competition? How realistic is the pricing?

But no, the marketing that you need to do before you so much as draw a plan, was still not thought through as the boxes left the factory.

A recent article by Japanese specialist Robert E. Peterson of Wickaboag Consultants, Tokyo, who has advised Japanese companies for 31 years, explained a lot to me.

As I had personally observed, many high-level executives - particularly those in Japan head office - did not understand marketing. Even now, it is not a core part of their business education. The job of marketing executive is often filled by younger executives rotating through the company for experience, rather than being a key management post in the company.

So there is little opportunity for an executive core with developed skills, knowledge and experience based on a collective memory of past experiences.

Peterson introduced me to the Japanese business caste system of shinokosho. A large Japanese manufacturing corporation is run like a fortified empire of old. They may not stride around with a katana sword strapped on their backs any more, but the corporation is commanded by the highest social group, the samurai.

These are the engineers, and if you've ever worked with a Japanese company you will immediately recognise the deferential way these lords are treated. Second come the farming peasants, who grow the food. Third, the artisans and craftsmen. These fulfill the jobs of manufacturers, process workers, drivers, clerks - all the essential jobs in the middle.

At the fourth, bottom level, are the merchants. In Confucian terms they have the lowest moral purity as they produce nothing but only sell the products to make money. And guess what - that's where the marketers are. With baskets hanging off their bamboo yokes, metaphorically speaking.

Peterson claims that Japan's university education in marketing is poor, and the corporations do not have well-provisioned training programs for their recruits.

But meanwhile Japan has been suffering, financially and socially. As its population ages, the public's willingness to embrace a constant flow of new products diminishes. Reaching outside of Japan has become an imperative for the nation's future prosperity.

They have to seek new markets out in the huge growing world. We all know the skill they have to create wonderful products. But before they can be invented, manufactured and sold to eager customers, companies have to create a need for these products. The customers have to feel a desire for them and a willingness to pay. And that is generated through marketing.

ray@ebeatty.com

To bag your Lion, you need a brave client

Melbourne Herald Sun, June 27, 2013
The champagne corks have been popping in St Kilda Road this week as the victorious news has rolled in from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. If this were the Olympics they'd be organising the tickertape parade.

The hit of the festival was a commercial we first saw last year: Metro Transport's "Dumb way to die" animated jingle. This jolly ditty sings about decapitation, setting fire to your hair, being eaten by grizzly bears and piranhas, all to tell you lessons - obviously not known to many of our citizens - that it's pretty dozy to stand near the train track with your ear plugs in.

McCann Melbourne not only won the Grand Prix for Best Film but another four prix for PR, Direct, Radio and Integrated. An unprecedented five lions in the bag. This news has been broadcast wide now, but what caught my eye is that of the dozen gold lion and super lion awards, there was hardly any display of the "product", in the sense of a physical pack shot, in any of them.

Clemenger BBDO's Carlton Draught commercial - a very funny cops and robbers chase through the streets of Melbourne - displays the beers in every hand, as the whole cast runs, each holding a full glass of beer reverentially unspilled. But you barely glimpse the logo.

Metro Trains does not show off its gleaming trains or stations.

Dove has a wonderful commercial of women hiding their faces from candid home video shots, with the killer tag: "When did you stop thinking you're beautiful?" But no bar of soap on the bathroom sink.

Smart Car shows off what a rotten car it is for offroad driving, bogging on muddy tracks and drowning in streams. But how it comes into its own when you need to park in the city.

The point is that these advertisements worked brilliantly well, but they won because they were the very few that took risks.

I've been very critical of much of current advertising, finding it so dull and boring. And I ask, is it the clients' fault?

"Marketing teams are constantly asked to do more with less, that makes them risk averse," said Adrian Mills. He's Account Director for Metro at McCanns, so carries the duty of bringing the creatives' ideas and the client's budgets onto common ground.

Great ideas don't have to be expensive. Neither the Metro animation nor the Dove candid shots needed big budgets. But they do need strength and intelligence both from the agency and from the client. "There's a lot to be said for experienced heads in a room," said Mills. And he tipped his hat to a former rival, "Someone like Russell Howcroft knows how to work a room."

As you work with a client you develop trust in each other's teams and the good work starts to flow more easily.

One problem in recent years has been the shrinking of middle management and the way large companies move their people around so quickly.

Where once a marketing manager might have been in power for ten years, these days he is more likely to be moved on after three. With no time to develop experience, trust, and a success list.

Oh, and he has to learn the intricacies of marketing through Google and Facebook and Twitter and peer to peer and international mail order, as well as conventional TV and print. All with shrinking budgets.

Victories like Cannes show that there is no shortage of talent here. And as Mills said, "Success like this creates an appetite to be more adventurous." I hope he's right.

Flying Pigs and Supermarkets

Melbourne Herald Sun, June 20, 2013
How do you shop - are you a bulldozer driver or a hunter and gatherer? The 'dozer lowers her scoop, throws the tracks into high gear and ploughs through the supermarket in minimum time. When she says (it's usually a she) "I'm out shopping, be back in an hour," she means it. Back she comes with half a dozen stuffed bags hanging off each hand.

Me, I'm a hunter. This is my weekly adventure. I have favourite butchers, greengrocers, delicatessens, all down the shopping strip. I love the diversity that comes from these little shops, even if they do cost - occasionally, not always - a bit more than the supermarket.

Of course more than half the shop is still done in the supermarket, but this can be a slower hunt. You see I make the shop difficult because if I can possibly avoid it, I will not buy the store's own-brand merchandise.

This can be difficult because the chains are pushing more and more of their own products onto the shelf. It used to be the vegetables and the meats that were anonymous. Then milk and bread at "lost leader" pricing. Then jams, pickles, cereals, dog food and ice cream.

Currently Coles and Woolworths are being investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for screwing down the prices of their suppliers. I believe it's more serious than this. In a mindless contest to own more market, they are destroying the brands we have known all our lives. And that many of us have depended on for work.

Right now the two biggies hold a 70 per cent grocery market-share between them. They wholesale, distribute, retail, and even sell the transport fuel. Once they have taken over most of the manufacturing as well, Australia will be a two-shop stop.

But sometimes they can trip over themselves, when they get so big the right foot doesn't know where the left foot's going.

Coles, no doubt wishing to give itself the appearance of a social conscience, gave support to Animals Australia's "Make it Possible" flying piglet campaign.

This highly emotional, professional advertising uses Babe-style animation to make piglets and battery hens sing, in a commercial which has drawn huge internet viewing and TV exposure. Coles put the flying piglet shopping bags on sale in 500 national supermarkets.

Only problem: Coles is also a farmer and food manufacturer (owned by Wesfarmers, remember). A campaign against factory farming of pigs, chickens and eggs involved shooting against its own side. And into its own foot.

The National Farmers Federation was furious, its leaders thundered at Coles management and its members threatened to boycott the stores. Where to turn?

Animals Australia came to Coles' aid and removed the bags. But the very action has brought a blaze of publicity to the campaign, spotlighted the factory farming problems, and has generated donations to pay for the singing commercial's return to TV.

Coles now has another misadventure. For some months Jeff Kennett has been claiming Coles' fresh bread (and for that matter Woolworths' and IGA's) is in fact frozen dough bunged into the oven - some of it brought all the way from Ireland.

ACCC chairman Rod Sim has now taken Coles to the Federal Court over its ''baked today, sold today'' claims. He calls its advertising and logos ''false, misleading and deceptive'', pointing to the independent bakeries that are often close to the supermarkets. ''That is putting those bread shops at a disadvantage, if they are themselves making their bread from scratch.''

When you get too big, it can be hard to spot the Irish dough and flying pigs.

ray@ebeatty.com