Marketing news

A two-for-one promotion offered to Uni Times readers by Grill’d has backfired due to the brand not foreseeing digital distribution of the voucher. The brand issued the following statement on its website: Uni Times 2 for 1 Voucher Offer We've been inundated recently with people trying to redeem a 2 for 1 burger ...

The Red Cross has launched a series of TVCs for its campaign ‘Look after your mates’, created by MTV. The campaign is a part of the Red Cross ‘save-a-mate’ program, a national youth initiative that focuses on young people’s safety and wellbeing. MTV Australia staff took part in a company-wide initiative to come ...

Magazine retailer Mag Nation has announced a promotion that encourages consumers to enter its stores in their underpants for free magazines. According to the company’s CEO and ‘chief magazineologist’ Sahil Merchant, the ‘Undies Monday’ initiative is aimed at reflecting the brand’s playful nature. “The world is ...

IAB Australia has announced that it has begun drafting guidelines for the application of auto-refresh on sites. The guidelines, which are being drafted in collaboration with the Media Federation of Australia and Australian Association of National Advertisers and measurement providers such as Nielsen Online, are ...

The Out-of-Home industry’s long-promised holy grail, MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure), launched today. MOVE is the first national audience measurement for outdoor media. According to the Outdoor Media Association (OMA), MOVE is globally unique in that it measures all major formats and environments. ...

YouTube has announced the launch of its ‘YouTube Nonprofit Program’ in Australia. Under the scheme, eligible nonprofits can apply for a free YouTube Brand Channel. They are also allowed an increased upload capacity, placement on YouTube’s nonprofit channels page and the ability to add call-to-action overlays to ...

Research released by Millward Brown has revealed Colgate as Australia’s most trusted and recommended brand in its TrustR report. The report, ‘Beyond Trust: Engaging Consumers in the Post recession World’, indicates trust and recommendation (TrustR) are key ingredients to brand success, and with this metric Colgate ...

Tasmanians have begun to speak out on draconian laws that require online political comment to include the commenter’s name and home or work address. The laws mirror those passed and subsequently repealed in South Australia. A consumer group, Digital Tasmania, with the backing of the Australian Privacy Foundation, ...

Communications minister Stephen Conroy is set to announce policy around mobile spectrum amid News Ltd raising his ire by reporting a golf game with James Packer. The licenses for the mobile spectrum will begin expiring in three years time and reallocation could have significant implications for products. Senator ...

Facebook has come under fire from Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, after a memorial page for a murdered schoolboy was vandalised. Senator Conroy criticised Facebook for not being able to adequately monitor the activities of people who deface users’ pages. “I think there is a situation where people ...

PayPal has announced a deal to offer its services in key parts of Facebook’s advertising and developer systems. As part of the new relationship, advertisers around the world will soon be able to use PayPal to pay for Facebook Ads through the company’s online advertising tool. PayPal indicates that its service ...

The first half of 2010 has seen many companies in Australia continue to implement cost-cutting strategies that began in late 2008, says a survey released by Robert Walters. The global recruitment consultancy’s ‘Salary Survey 2010’ indicated that a large number of companies carried out redundancies and reduced employees’ ...

Unilever Australasia has begun rolling out signature branding through its advertising. Unilever overarches several brands active in Australia including Streets Ice Cream, Dove, Rexona, Omo and Lipton. In the first stage of the rollout, certain Flora, Rexona and Omo TVCs have aired with Unilever’s device. It bring ...

Online auctioning giant eBay has been found guilty by a French court for misleading consumers by using misspelt versions of luxury brands as search engine keywords to redirect users to its own links. The company was ordered by a tribunal to pay 200,000 Euros ($306,000) and additional legal costs to fashion brand ...

Virgin Atlantic and Sir Richard Branson are campaigning against “an unholy alliance” of British Airways (BA) and American Airlines (AA). The BA and AA alliance would allow the world’s two largest airlines to collaborate in ways normally prohibited by antitrust laws, e.g. coordinating fares and timetables. The pressure ...

Tourism New Zealand through Mindshare has begun a campaign to ‘inspire conversations’ among Australians. The campaign encourages consumers to send a postcard from a variety of New Zealand archetypes and accompanying epostcards. The campaign will run online Fairfax properties, initially on their larger portals but ...

Starcom has appointed a new general manager in Melbourne and managing director in Sydney. Michael Leeds has taken over in as GM in Melbourne. Leeds has been with the company for the previous 12 years in varying roles, the most recent being group business director. Leeds worked on clients including Mars, General ...

Despite spending increases in the online space, marketers still lack the technology to support their goals in this space, says a new study. The study, entitled ‘The Face of the New Marketer’, has found that 75% of the 360 marketers surveyed report that using various online tools for personalisation is a priority ...

Sony has announced the launch of its first unified marketing campaign in Australia, ...

Fast food chain Hungry Jacks has come under fire for admitting that it screened ads showing high fat food for children, breaching advertising’s voluntary code of practice. The breach has also brought into question the usefulness of the industry’s code, with critics citing the Hungry Jacks incident as proof that ...

YouTube has begun offering a safety mode to Google and YouTube account holders. The mode allows users to choose to filter content that doesn’t meet YouTube’s Community Guidelines. This option will censor both video content and users' comments. The mode appears at the bottom of each page, allowing users to toggle ...

The Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) are conducting a review which could lead to new standards for the portrayal of sex, sexuality and nudity in advertising as early as next month. As part of the review, the Bureau will interview 1, 200 consumers to gauge their reactions on ads that have already been reviewed ...

The latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) 'Online Advertising Expenditure Report' suggests online advertising in Australia could exceed $2 billion this financial year. The report, compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), found the online advertising market hit $1.87 billion for calendar year 2009. In the ...

Fast food chain Red Rooster has come under fire for its Barramundi Burger marketing misleading consumers because it doesn’t mention that its fish comes from South-East Asia. An Australia Food News report has suggested that the chain deliberately omits the fact its Barramundi is a Thai version, known in the South-East ...

Figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) show sales of Monday to Sunday metropolitan daily newspapers were down by 1.6% in the three months ending December 2009. Victorian weekend papers have gained some ground, with The Herald Sun Saturday edition and the Sunday Age recording modest growth. However, ...

While the iPad has been received with a mixture of joy, trepidation and scepticism by fanbois throughout Australia, Nielsen has released numbers off the back of Apple’s new product launch. According to Nielsen, iPad generated a potential record for amount of online discussion, reaching peaks of around 40,000 comments ...

According to Alterian, Google’s advertisement topped social media buzz around Super Bowl commercials. The report comes in the face of online commentary comparing the buzz to walking into a room where everyone already wanted Google to win. Alterian analysed 185,835 social media conversations between December 1 2009 ...

UK airline British Airways has announced it has pumped £100 million ($178 million) into its flagship luxury Boeing 777 ‘First’ brand, despite experiencing continuing controversy over its industrial relations. The plane includes new cabin designs that have personal wardrobes, leather-bound writing tables and electric ...

Search giant Google is set to introduce a new feature that allows Gmail users to view media and status updates shared by fellow users – taking on Facebook and Twitter in the process. The feature adds a module to the Gmail screen that will display a stream of updates from individuals a user chooses to connect with, ...

Lion Nathan’s latest campaign for Toohey’s New, ‘The Beer Economy’, has been met with accusations of intellectual property theft. The Saatchi & Saatchi campaign employs insights into Australian’s use of beer as currency. Both the overarching campaign idea and executions have strong links to a similar Budweiser ...

MTV has unveiled a new-look logo to its US viewers which has its classic ‘music television’ slogan removed. Forgoing the network’s well-known music heritage, the new three-dimensional design aims to identify more closely with MTV’s reality-TV content, such as Jersey Shore, The Buried Life and Teen Mom. Stephen ...

AC/DC’s tour to be promoted with its on radio band.

 Coinciding with Austereo’s acquisition of more digital radio spectrum, it will promote AC/DC’s current Australian tour with its own station dedicated to the band’s music. The selection will include hits, live and rare tracks. The station, High Voltage, ...

Whatever your opinion of the game itself, no media spot can guarantee as varied attention as the Super Bowl. Viewership decline aside, a marketer's advertising buck during the Super Bowl breaks out of its 30-second TVC container and in front of the eyeballs of engaged online seekers. Few TV spots can guarantee multichannel ...

Tourism Western Australia has announced the launch of its new brand positioning and campaign, which it says will showcase the state’s “incredible array of extraordinary experiences… using consumers’ emotions, reactions and stories to spearhead communications as they embark on a journey like no other”. The campaign ...

Adam Lang has been appointed the new director of operations at Austereo. Lang will support sales for the company in all strategic matters and be responsible for overseeing inventory and yield. He was previously Austereo’s national inventory manager and general manager, Sydney. Lang has over 12 years experience ...

Among the SME market, it appears there is opportunity for banking marketers to make some ground as consumer facing efforts outstrip business banking. Roy Morgan has reported the results of over 3,000 face-to-face interviews showing customer satisfaction among SME owners with the big four banks has risen just 0.2% ...

The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) has released its 2009 fourth quarter report, indicating that it was the strongest of the year, pulling a net media revenue of $125.9 million compared to $124.6 million in 2008. However, it wasn’t enough to help the sector pull back from a slide in overall full-year revenue, which ...

Australian wine brand Wolf Blass has announced that it will be spending £2 million ($3.6 million) in its largest ever sporting-themed campaign in the UK. The campaign, created by the Bezier Group, aims to align itself with attributes of both the England rugby squad and the Wolf Blass brand. Running across the Yellow ...

Out of home media operator EYE has announced the appointment of Hamish Michie as its general manager of sales strategy and performance. Michie joins EYE with experience across the public sector, consultancy and the telecommunications and information technology at Vodafone Hutchison Australia. “Hamish comes to ...

To celebrate the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Virgin Blue has announced that it will feature its own float in the main parade, as well as dedicating a commercial flight from Melbourne to Sydney for the event. The flight will include selected refreshments, goodie bags and special in-flight entertainment by ...

When it first caught on, social networking was seen as little more than an irritation for employers and an employee time waster. But a report from security firm Sophos ...

A billboard from the NSW Business Chamber has been removed for offending the public. The billboard read, “Welcome to Queensland” followed by “Subsidised by the taxpayers of NSW”, viewable below. Displayed at the Brisbane Airport, the ban comes from the airport rather than a government body. It has also been taken ...

Asia-Pacific consumer brands will succeed in the recovering economic markets but only if lessons are learnt from the GFC years, according to new research released by business analysis company Datamonitor. The study has revealed the difficulties brands face in capturing the attention of consumers, with 67% of Australians ...

South Australian Parliament has pushed through laws requiring all bloggers and contributors wanting to take part in political debate online to include their real name and post code. Contributors and bloggers details will be kept for six months. Disobeying could cost infringers $5000. The law could have serious ramifications ...

Kmart is launching a new brand campaign, ‘Expect Change’. The brand is purporting to be improving consumers shopping experience by cleaning up their stores to give aisles a wider appearance, transferring economies of scale to their customers and improved staff customer focus. “We have made many changes over the ...

New York-based brand, customer loyalty and engagement consultancy Brand Keys has released a report that proclaims 2010 to be the ‘Decade of the Brand’ in its Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. Covering 518 brands in 71 categories, the report indicates that attributes relating to the ‘brand’ and the degree to which ...

Val Morgan has announced that it has developed an in-house facility to create 3D enhancements to existing 2D cinema advertising. According to the media company, in the past 12 months there has been a 10-fold growth in the number of 3D screens in Australia, fuelled by the big budget sci-fi release Avatar. The cinema ...

Despite the much-anticipated launch of Apple’s iPad whetting the appetite of fanbois around the world, Fujitsu has accused the brand of name theft. According to the electronics manufacturer it first produced a product called the iPad in 2002, which runs on a Microsoft operating system with an Intel processor. But ...

Toyota is set to up its communications activity as it faces a recall of millions of cars. The recall is in relation to faulty accelerator pedal mechanisms, which – according to Toyota – may stick in a partially depressed position when worn down. The vehicle-maker may recall up to two million cars across Europe and ...

Despite positive Goldman Sachs JBWere (GS) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) forecasts, WPP’s CEO says things are “less worse”. GS and RBS predict advertising growth of 7.4% to 7.6% this year. In an interview with Bloomberg, Sir Martin Sorrell said WPP – the world’s largest communications group by revenue – were ...