Communication – Page 60

Open the bloodgates

Mosquitoes are nasty little bloodsuckers. Not to mention carriers of dangerous disease. So how should we educate the public on the danger? Cartoon infomercials? How bout unleashing a swarm on unsuspecting conference delegates?

The Queensland Government is spending a bit of money educating the general public on the perils of Dengue fever. The longer TV ads feature warnings not to wear dark clothes. Apparently dark clothes attrack the little Aussie mozzie. Who’d have thought. Perhaps a resurrection of Don Spencer’s “Little Aussie Mozzie” song would have been an appropriate piece of educational propaganda:

What may not be the most politically correct piece of anti-mozzie propaganda – but was no doubt more effective – was a decision by Bill Gates to release a swarm of mosquitoes on an unsuspecting audience at a Technology and Design conference in California.

February 5, 2009

Stimulating discussion

There’s a bunch of interesting commentary on the current stimulus package and associated bickering. It’s stimulating, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The Libs are taking the high “unpopular road” looking to block it. Claiming they’re doing the right thing, while the Labor Party is politicking “like a scared soldier firing all their ammo at once” – not a bad quote there from Turnbull.

It’s a dangerous game keeping money from voters while calling for lower taxes. Looks a bit like protecting the wealthy. Trickle down economics. I know I’ll be annoyed if they block it.

If Rudd wanted to score maximum points out of this politically he should have gone with a much bigger figure than $950. Say $3000. Something the coalition would have to block, rather than just grandstanding. Then when they blocked it and triggered a double dissolution the coalition would have to try dislodging a popular PM, having just robbed the voters of $3000. Political suicide. How much is a vote worth I wonder…

Articles from the SMH are written by, or quote, the following people:

Peter Costello

“Rudd, the fiscal conservative of last year, was attacking the Coalition government because it hadn’t cut spending enough. He promised to do more. He wasn’t worried about all those “neo-liberal” ideas on careful spending, balanced budgets and low debt. He was complaining it hadn’t gone far enough.”

Costello Re: the last stimulus package…

“If the purpose of the payment was to boost sales at Woolworths, the Government should have bought the goods and distributed them to pensioners and families. But it is a low-quality use of $10 billion.”

And more commentary from Annabel Crabb… on parliament yesterday…

“Hilarious nerd insults were exchanged.Rudd accused Turnbull of fancying Milton Friedman, and Turnbull retaliated by calling Rudd “Whitlamite”, the nastiest word in the Liberal nerd insult dictionary.

Then Lindsay Tanner accused Julie Bishop of having a soft spot for the Reagan-era economist Arthur Laffer.

Really, they all sounded like back row hecklers at a second-year economics open mike night.

Debate was then suspended for several minutes while a noisy band of protesters shrieked: “Human rights for all. Stop the intervention.”

In case you were wondering, they were not talking about the socialist state’s intervention in the free market.”

Even Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson, out here on an Australian tour, weighed in with this sterling commentary:

“”He (Rudd) genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he’s actually seen the books.“[In the UK] we’ve got this one-eyed Scottish idiot, he keeps telling us everything’s fine and he’s saved the world and we know he’s lying, but he’s smooth at telling us.”

The last word goes to Economics columnist Ross Gittins – who explains that this stimulus is unusual but might work.

“But it will be the most anticipated recession we’ve had. Normally we get the recession and then the response to it. This time we’re getting the cure before we’ve seen all the symptoms.

Why? Because so much of the global recession we are caught up in emanates from the Wall Street debacle. Since the crisis reached its peak in October we’ve been able to see its consequences coming, like a slow-motion tsunami rolling across the Pacific.”

February 4, 2009

Best job in the world

It has been remiss of me not to post about the best job in the world earlier. We had an embargoed briefing on the campaign from Tourism Queensland a while ago and I thought “this would be fun to blog about”… except we signed confidentiality agreements.

Tourism Queensland had to jump through massive HR hoops to run this campaign so they deserve all the coverage they’re getting. Even if they did have the little mishap with fake applications at the start. The message is reaching all corners of the globe. Osama Bin Laden has applied. But his application was rejected. Here’s the video:

February 4, 2009

YouTube Twosday: so good it had to be posted

When I was a young lad I spent a lot of time playing with GI Joes. Call them Barbies with guns. Call them a terrible influence on a developing psyche. I call them awesome. So this movie, complete with ninjas, is on the must see list.

February 3, 2009

No smog

You may have heard that the atheists are banding together to advertise. In possibly the weakest advertising campaign ever they’ve booked some bus billboards and are running this ad:

That’s right. The best they could do was “there’s probably no God”. Talk about not being able to stand on their convictions. The call to action – “now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Over at the solapanel Mark Baddeley has a great post on what’s wrong with this campaign. I’m all for freedom of speech. And it seems this campaign is making a very secular society consider the question of God’s existence – which can only be a good thing.

The reason I’m writing this post is there is a most excellent site where you can make your own bus ad.

Here’s mine:

There's probably no smog. So go outside and breathe deeply

Kind of lame – but I started with “there’s probably no dog” and then tried a series of words that rhymed with dog. I’m sure I could do better. But this makes what I believe is an important statement.

So, if you’re a dissatisfied atheist, or a theist with a better idea than a smog slogan, share your slogans in the comments, and go make your own.

February 3, 2009

Hit for headline writers

There’s a set formula for writing hackneyed cricket headlines that goes as follows:

“{Subject} hits {players name} for {six} or {actual figure based on the story}.”

You can alternate that with a passive voice format for variety. But very rarely should you ever leave that trusty formula completely. Unless you want to be interesting and engaging.

Case in point: CA hits Symonds for $4000

Ok, so I may be exaggerating- the SMH to its credit doesn’t have a whole lot of those. At the moment. But it’s such cliched headline writing.

January 29, 2009

Letterman

I’m a long time fan of David Letterman’s Late Show – back in my single, uni days when I was a nightowl I’d often tune in for his acerbic, incredibly dry take on the preceding day’s events – Australia gets his stuff a day behind.

The Huffington Post has a page of Letterman highlights – and they’ve just posted a link to Cracked’s “nine most awkward Letterman moments” where Letterman demonstrates an obvious disdane for several of his guests. It’s a mark of his power and influence that these guests will appear on his show probably knowing they’re about to be relentlessly mocked.

Here’s Letterman with Paris Hilton – just after her release from prison. Which according to Letterman might be here legacy. It’s painfully good.

January 29, 2009

Things I learned from daytime television

I don’t often get the chance to watch daytime television. Not since my days as a slovenly uni bum anyway when that was all I did. Only I had pay TV so day time television meant sport. Today was one of those odd occasions where I found myself watching the Summer repeat bonanza special edition of Mornings with KAK.

While Kerri Anne herself is an Australian institution – who happened to mention this morning that she’d been doing the show for more than 25 years (only it was a repeat from last year so it’s even longer now) – her show still doesn’t seem to have the basics right. Infomercials are like a car crash – you can’t turn away but you know they leave carnage in their wake. If a family member is affected by infomercials it can be a painful process. On a side note – the Danoz direct oven that was being advertised this morning would make a very interesting coffee roaster… but back to the main point of this little tirade. And it will be little. If you have testimonials from happy customers singing the praises of your weightloss miracle cure concoction – do not. And I repeat. Do not. Have them read their testimonial from an autocue using words that are right out of the weasel word manual.

“It enabled me to engage in a vast array of activities I’d never really considered” might sound impressive to you sitting in your ivory tower of corporate promotional speak where you have to address a board of directors on sales results – but coming from a real woman who is claiming to have lost 30kg thanks to your product it sounds like she’s acting, or at the very least not as glowingly enthusiastic as she should be. Personal testimonies are an incredibly powerful way to sell a product. Unless they are riddled with jargon that sounds like it comes straight out of head office.

There’s a lesson here for all of us. Well providing we’re trying to sell something via an infomercial.

Actually – there is a lesson here for any Christian trying to explain the gospel to their friends/neighbours – avoid in house jargon at all costs. Authenticity depends on you sounding real and sincere – people don’t want a cardboard cut out towing the company line. If you’re going to use the power of personal testimony to sell something – make it personal. Don’t “identify a product that will help you overcome a drastic deficiency in your regular masticating schedule” – tell it like it is. In plain language.

Seriously people. Is it that hard to not automatically become a robot in front of a camera.

I did manage to flick over to Business Today or something like that on ABC 2 – where a terrified telephony lobbyist was trying to explain that communications companies will not be affected by the recession in the same way that other companies will – they’re a diversified bunch now.

He delivered a deadpan line of company speak gobbledygook that made little to no sense even to the business minded journalist asking the question – so little that she asked him to clarify – and his idea of clarification was to repeat verbatim what he’d said to the earlier question. An answer so filled with corporate double speak that none of it managed to penetrate my cold addled brain. Oh, and he reckons we should invest in communications companies. After a compelling sales pitch. I think it’s pretty funny that “communications” companies are developing a reputation for their inability to clearly communicate and articulate their business. Mobile phone contracts are a triumph of obfuscation. “Communication company” could well be a latter day oxymoron if all our modern day companies can do is trot out weasel words.

January 28, 2009

ATP: Equal pay for equal work

ATP in that heading stands for Another Tennis Post – there’ve been a few of them, and given the amount of tennis we’re currently watching there’ll no doubt be more.

We’ve just watched Dokic go down fighting against Safina. It was a hard fought game – but in all honesty pretty boring to watch. Here’s the thing. I don’t like watching women’s tennis. And I’m sick to death of the special treatment they get and their cries for equal pay.

I’m not against the idea of women getting paid the same amount as men – in any sport. What I am against is the preferential treatment of women in tennis. Why should we have to wait until after 10.00pm to see arguably the best player ever to play the game? Why are the women’s games played first? They’re boring, they don’t play with the same power and precision as the men and their serves are a good 40km slower. Sure, there’s the eye candy factor, and the Aussie “home girl hero” factor tonight – but at the end of the day I’d rather watch the men first and then the women (at the end of the day).

Here’s the rub – women want equal prizemoney in the grandslams – and yet they play much fewer sets – a woman winning the tournament in straight sets throughout her fixtures will play 14 sets – a man winning in straight sets will play 21. If a woman is forced to play the maximum number of sets available she’ll play 21, a man 35.

A set generally takes somewhere between 20 minutes and an hour to play – if you take the average of 40 minutes and the middle ground for number of sets played throughout the tournament a male champion is likely to play about 18 hours of tennis. This is pretty conservative. Because in theory as games get tougher and closer throughout the tournament they last longer. You can realistically expect a mix of three, four and five set games. A woman champion playing seven games is, using the same methodology, likely to play about 11 hours of tennis.

I’d say pay rates are pretty fair – especially given pay loading for having to play at less desirable times. You could argue that having the men’s games earlier would rate better and create more television revenues for the game. On that basis this quest for equality is actually robbing the coffers and there’s no business case for increasing women’s prize money.

January 27, 2009

Ego-Surfing USA

A long long time ago I wrote about egosurfing – the act of googling oneself. Have you ever done that? I have. About once every three years – whenever I want to blog about egosurfing. It’s depressing. My first unique appearance is for a Media Release I wrote about the Magnetic Island crocodile – it’s on the second page of the results. Other Nathan Campbells seem so much more accomplished. There’s a triathlete (certainly not me), an artist, a second grade player at the Parramatta Eels, a scout, and someone who has been sentenced for a crime on YouTube. I do slightly better on the pages from Australia – I’m on the first page.

The reason I write this is because US author David Baldacci, writer of fiction thrillers that are borderline “airport thrillers”, has a bad case of egosurfingitis. I must confess that I enjoy his work. I have purchased many of his novels for many a flight. But this page is pure ego stroking/search engine optimisation. And I made it, for referring to “The Whole Truth” in my “I Spy” post. My review wasn’t even that flattering… here’s the quote they’ve used:

“I’ve also managed to plow through a David Baldacci thriller. I don’t know about you – but I like my holiday reading to be pretty mindless. So “The Whole Truth” appealed to me much more than it did to the reviewer quoted on the Amazon page”

The worst bit is that the process doesn’t appear to be automated – it’s posted by “staff writers”. Now the reason I know this isn’t down to egosurfing – WordPress automatically tracks linkbacks to the blog from around the web. I can only hope that David Baldacci will link to me again if I mention his book “The Whole Truth” a couple more times. And perhaps put a link in to the Amazon page for The Whole Truth – which I did actually enjoy. That’s the whole truth. I probably enjoyed the Robert Ludlum (of Bourne series fame) The Icarus Agenda more. It was superior as far as political conspiracy theory thrillers go. The Whole Truth seemed like a Wag the Dog derivative only instigated from the corporate rather than political sector.

January 27, 2009

Posted on bail

There’s a list of things you shouldn’t do if you’re a major company that has received a government bailout. At the top of that list is taking out advertisements in major (expensive) publications thanking people for the generosity that was foisted on them by government distribution of tax dollars.

People are pretty unhappy that they have to bail out big companies from their own pockets. So if you book out a full page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal – you’re going to cop some flack. As Chrysler learned the hard way. Here’s a page full of feedback from its blog (which was pulled so this is the google cached version). And here’s a sample…

“Depending on placement, full page ads placed in the Wall Street journal can cost over $200,000, not to mention the other publications where this ad was placed. So, at least a quarter of a million dollars of our money was spent on an ad thanking us for our contribution. A contribution that the majority did not want to make. This ad screams “Hey, look what we are doing with your tax dollars, lol.” This ad is yet another example of frivolous and clueless spending. Thank us by using OUR money to make your company profitable, not with a meaningless ad. As the old saying goes,”Actions speak louder than words.”

January 23, 2009

Shirt of the Day: Spoiler alert

Awesome shirt – guaranteed to earn you a punch in the face from an unhappy movie buff. Designed by Brit Olly Moss available on Threadless.

January 20, 2009

Keep the Customer Satisfied

You may think this post, with a nominal reference to a Paul Simon song, would be about our return home. Given that the opening lyrics are:

“Gee but it’s great to be back home
Home is where I want to be
I’ve been on the road so long my friend
And if you came along I know you couldn’t disagree”

But it’s not. Today’s story is about our recent experiences with each end of the customer service spectrum.

The good (it’s a long story)

Just prior to leaving Townsville we decided to buy a TV. We’d heard that prices were going to go up post Christmas and we’d been saving for an upgrade for a while. We spent an evening price matching at various outlets in Townsville. We knew what we were looking for and we were quoted various prices roughly within the same $800 ballpark. Until we got to Dick Smith Powerhouse – where we were quoted a figure of $650 for a Panasonic we’d seen elsewhere for $1000. We were pretty sure it was a good deal. But we wanted to check two more shops before confirming the purchase. We were told by another shop that this was below cost – and we should take it. Upon our return our friendly salesman went out the back to get the TV. He came back empty handed. The TV out the back was broken. He could only sell us the display model. I asked if we’d get a further discount. He said yes, he could sell it to us for a further $20 off – for $830. $830? But he’d just quoted us $650… no, the salesman couldn’t possibly give us that price. It was a mistake. $830 was still the best price we’d found on the unit in question – and we had decided we liked it. We got to the counter, and much to our surprise the salesman told the guy at the counter to sell it to us at $630. Hooray. At the last moment he went around the counter to check the details – and ammended the cost to $830. But I said this was the good. We reluctantly paid the $830 – having made noises about how we should have been given the $630 price – even though it was a mistake. The customer is always right. Right?

Two days later I wrote used the Dick Smith website’s customer feedback page to write a letter. The basic format of a good complaint letter is some heartfelt praise for the company, the reason you chose to do business with them, a lengthy description of the circumstances, and a closing argument “I know you’re a company that prides itself on customer satisfaction… blah, blah blah…” and contact details. The letter worked. After Christmas I got a phone call from the store manager promising to refund the $200 on our return to Townsville. That happened today. So good on Dick Smith Powerhouse and their most excellent customer service. We now have a $630 TV that we are more than happy with – and they get a mention on the internet, unsolicited.

The Bad

I mentioned the grumpy lady at Hanmer Horses in my review of our time at Hanmer Springs – she was not a great picture of customer service – but she was not the worst case we came across on our New Zealand adventure. The worst case predated our arrival in New Zealand – and carried through to our travelling companion’s (another gratuitous Paul Simon reference) departure. Cancellation fees can be a legitimate way for a business to recoup lost earnings, a protection for operators against unscrupilous bookings designed to hurt the bottom line, they can be a tax on stupidity, or they can be extortionate revenue raising. Cancellations are the bane of tourism businesses. I know this. Robyn and I both booked accommodation through the same company in the same town on the same night – and they graciously waived the cancellation fee for us. $30 they could by rights have held onto. For that, Alpine Holiday Homes can have a free link. And a hearty recommendation as a cheap, good quality accommodation option in Hanmer Springs. But this is “the bad” – the Interislander Ferry has a monopoly on travel between the North and South Islands of New Zealand – unless you want to fly. The Interislander also demands a 50% cancellation fee on any of their bottom end bookings. Sure, it’s there in the terms and conditions, but that shouldn’t rule out compassion – particularly if you want to maintain a reputation as customer focused. That 50% figure comes regardless of notice – and regardless of the fact that they will operate cancellations notwithstanding. This is an example of extortion. We learned the hard way. Robyn’s sister booked us on to the boat thinking that we would be accompanying them to the North Island as they departed. We were planning to continue circumnavigating the south. We notified the Interislander service by email as soon as we realised a mistake had been made. A month prior to their departure. We received no reply. We had to call them three days before to check that the cancellation had been made. It hadn’t. They gave no quarter. Showed no compassion. And whacked us with a $65 fee for what essentially was an innocent mistake. That was poor. Dreadful service – and a dreadful way to handle customer emails. Even a cursory response to acknowledge the email had been received but ignored because of heavy email traffic would have been nice. A standard autoreply. But no. So they earn a terrible review here. I hope lots of people google the Interislander and find their way here. The interislander ferry is evil.

The Ugly

This is not a first hand experience – unlike the others. This is a case of terrible practice using the user generated content phenomona. I linked to the initial story using my google reader shared items post yesterday. Belkin. Maker of modems, routers and other technowizardry, has been caught trying to solicit 5/5 reviews from users on Amazon. Amazon has a service called Mechanical Turk – a chance for human users to be paid to do pseudo robotic tasks too simple for computers to manage. Collate articles on a topic, summarise an article etc… you can earn Amazon credit – or get paid cash. Not only did Belkin want reviewers to write perfect reviews, in perfect English, they wanted them to pan other reviewers who had been less than flattering of the product. Worse still, Belkin got caught. Now everybody knows what a flagrant disregard they have for customer feedback and customer satisfaction. That’s ugly.

January 20, 2009

Slow news day

You know journalists are scraping the bottom of the barrel when this is news.

“…The Onkaparinga Hills man had been taking photos of local birds just before dark last Thursday, January 15, when he made the “horrible find” at a car park near Piggott Range Rd.

I saw it tied to the door handle and it was bound up quite severely with its legs crushed up against its body so it couldn’t move – I thought it was dead,” Mr Cook, 54, said.”

It sounds dramatic. It would be if it was person. Or a dog. Or even a cat. But no. This was the offensive item…

What a lucky coincidence that the victim (not the lizard, the car’s owner) was a photographer… We can all now share the pain he felt by witnessing the troubled lizard second hand.

The poor victim is obviously a master of overstatement, read the rest of his dramatic reaction below…

“I couldn’t get the tape off so I had to take it home and use scissors to free it.’’

He said the “tedious task’’ of freeing the lizard was made harder by its delicate feet and toes but he managed to release it back into the bush the next day, missing only a few scales from its back.

“It’s just disgusting, I worked for the RSPCA for 10 years as a rescue officer and I’ve been volunteering for the last six years at a farm that takes in local fauna so I’ve got a soft spot for all living animals,’’ he said.

“What a terrible way for the creature to die if I had not tended to it as soon as possible.’’

Mr Cook said the car parks around Onkaparinga Gorge were often the target of vandals and thieves, who dumped rubbish or stolen cars and did burnouts and wheelies.

“I’m not game to go up there anymore, it’s hard to go on bushwalks without the fear of something happening to your car,’’ Mr Cook said.”

January 20, 2009

Missed by a whisker

Everyone loves cats. Except for people who hate them, like me. There’s a whole website predicated on the idea that cats are irresistibly cute. Like the one this picture comes from – one of the internet’s most popular websites. I work with a lot of cat people. I’ll never understand them. I think I’m normal – and I think there are a lot of people out there who share my feline sentiments. Unfortunately not the marketing and branding boffins at PETA. They also think we all like cats. It seems they are capable of promotional activities not involving naked celebrities (there’s a word pairing that will boost hits to this blog), or vacuous blonds staging really smart protests about chicken cruelty at a business whose core business practice involves the killing of chickens.

PETA in its infinite wisdom has decided people are much less likely to eat fish if they’re rebranded – the entire species – as “Sea Kittens”. I am not making this up. This doesn’t hurt those of us who tuck into a big juicy steak with a clean conscience. No, this hurts those soft vegetarians who aren’t prepared to take a hard line vegan stance. Those who are still prepared to dehumanise – or dekittenise fish. Here’s a quote from the statement… it’s too good to edit.

“Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You’ve done enough damage, buddy. We’ve got it from here. And we’re going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?”

And in a PR coup for the books – here’s your chance to make your own sea kitten to take home…

Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!

January 17, 2009