Month: November 2012

Harps, Hipsters and Cultural Hard Ons

Hipsters are, if nothing else, a cultural plague. They warp the trends of the past while disdainfully setting the benchmarks for the short-lived trends of next week. Their only benefit to society for the most part is their willingness to splurge for the sake of their image – their gluten, cruelty and trend free organic meals cost nearly double the norm, just one of the five double shot soy macchiatos cost more than most will pay for a day’s worth of caffeine. In short, they are a marketer’s wet dream.

What more could you ask for? We had scored a wealth of well paid, image conscious trendsetters. Ka-ching.

A group of us thought we could turn these cultural snobs into the basis for a rather unexpected entertainment renaissance. With a little hipster ingenuity classical would be the new vintage chic.

We researched and researched. We endured performances. We slummed in hipster dives. In short, we got into the pseudo- cultural imperialist lizard brain of the happening hipster and made it our play thing. What did this teach us? That in every way possible, we needed to be underground, alternative, quirky – all those things that bring about a hipster hard on. This meant no TVCs, minimal press, and no blatant giveaways. How else could you explain our use of chalk graffiti, post cards and giant music boxes.

There was no one from the mainstream or the hipster scene whom could escape what we had created. We designed something guaranteed to rack up earned media and viral buzz like there was no tomorrow. The campaign created was something designed to fill them with a profound mixture of wonder & awe. This was a game changer that would inspire one and all. I swear I’m not tooting my own horn here, what we created was hipster heaven.

Discover more for yourself by seeing the copy heavy components of the campaign here.

All I can say in the end is ha, or more appropriately mwahahahaha.

Girt by consequences

First it was off-shore servicing, then it was transplanting their corporate side far afield and now they’re breaking away from Tourism Australia – one has to wonder, does QANTAS still call Australia home?

For 40 years now, QANTAS has aligned itself with Tourism Australia as a globe-trotting brand advocate for everything Australian. The world over, people cannot separate QANTAS from what they know of our country – QANTAS is the flying kangaroo after all.

The logic behind this move for now appears to be related to a stoush between current QANTAS boss Alan Joyce and his predecessor (and now Tourism Australia chairman) Geoff Dixon. Joyce believes that Dixon was seeking to utilise the longstanding partnership to oust him from QANTAS and reshape the company’s board of directors.

QANTAS is a brand that has struggled to maintain its positive positioning in recent years – safety concerns, union disputes, price hikes, all of it chipping away at a once pristine image. Anyone else remember Dustin Hoffman’s QANTAS schitck in Rain Man? That was the power of this brand.

They have tried to alter their image in recent years through carious means. They’ve left their children’s choir stranded for the sake of higher order concepts such as “You’re the reason we fly”. This has yet to pay off for them, especially since it feels like such a departure from their historic Australiana-based identity.

Tourism Australia hasn’t been doing too well either. In the past few years we’ve upset other countries with Lara Bingle’s potty mouth and put too much faith into the cult of Oprah. Most believe that there hasn’t been a worthwhile ad for Australian tourism since the days when Paul Hogan was our brand ambassador.

It does take a lot of added push to convince Americans and Europeans to fly for upwards of 24 hrs just to visit our shores. Despite the best efforts of both QANTAS and tourism Australia, our international tourists continue to come from more localised markets such as China, Korea and Japan – with China being the biggest contributor over the past few years. 

Reports suggest that QANTAS will now shift a portion of their $600 million annual ad spend to the state based tourism bodies. One implication of this is that QANTAS reshapes its longstanding ‘proud to be Australian’ image to suit each state. Imagine it – Naturally NSW, Totally Tasmanian, Quintessentially Queensland, you get the idea.

And what would Tourism Australia do? We have no other airline; in fact we barely have another major international tourist transport. It’s not like they could team up with P&O Cruises and put a positive spin on boat people, or could they? Anything would be more enticing than their current line of “There’s nothing like Australia”.

Our one attempt to truly brand ourselves as a nation – Baz Luhrman’s Australia was a considerable failure. In their attempt to replicate the Lord of the Rings impact on NZ tourism, Tourism Australia effectively dialled back any sophistication we had by sugar coating some the worst parts of our history.

Dixon and his alleged co-conspirators (Gerry Harvey et al) haven’t said a word. This leaves the focus is squarely on QANTAS and Mr Joyce in this situation. Given their propensity to pull a fast one in the midst of a major controversy, everyone wonders what their next move will be – grounding all flights was a classic one.

Neither side can afford to lose this partnership. Tourism Australia will be losing its only worthwhile brand advocate and QANTAS will be losing the one tie that keeps its brand standing strong throughout the world. Divided they are woeful, united they are tolerable.

Rock on and on and on.

Stones, Zepplin, Barry Gibb and Cliff Richard are rocking the world and making headlines. No, it’s not the 70s or the 80s – in fact, you’re only a month shy of the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse.

The most recent trend in pop culture and music these days is the unbridled love for anything that is so old school, that it’s cool. Bands and solo artists whose hey-day has come and gone are releasing albums and touring as if no time has passed since their last number one hit.

Your mum and dad’s favourite rock gods are now vying for your hard earned cash alongside your Coldplays and Ke$shas. But why? Did someone leave the crypt door open or unlock the gate at the rockstar retirement village?

One theory is that all these ageing rockers have run out of cash and need more funds to fuel their lavish lifestyles for another few years. All those cars, girls and drug rehab treatments don’t come cheap. Plus, it does cost a lot to have people grovelling at your feet day after day.

Another is that the record labels have noticed the increased interest in pop nostalgia, something that has partly been fuelled by the likes of Glee. Seems all those loyal ‘gleeks’ are legitimately interested in the various older songs that are butchered every week on the hit show.

Or is this simply a sign of our ageing population? Baby boomers are by far one of the largest cohorts across the developed world, particularly in Australia. This means that older acts still have a fairly large and viable fan base to tap into, with the added plus that music lovers of Gen X and Gen Y are loving the ‘nostalgia’.

The Rolling Stones are doing a very limited tour in cities well outside of Australia that costs minimum $151 AUD for the most basic ticket. When you add to it the costs that local fans are paying for flights and airfares to see these concerts in London and Paris, it’s more than a little crazy.

Going a little heavier – Led Zeppelin have recently roped fans into the cinemas with the release of a new documentary, with some cinemas offering special screenings. There are major Hollywood films with Oscar buzz that have drawn in less people in the past year.

Even the Beach Boys have more or less reformed after decades apart, releasing a whole new album and touring as a legitimate band (rather than a quasi-tribute group). Brian Wilson and company could be seen chatting on shows like Jimmy Falon as if it was back in the days of Johnny Carson.

Then again, if you really think about it, this trend isn’t confined to the finest acts the swinging seventies has to offer. In the year or two, nineties bands such as Aqua, Wheatus and Limp Bizkit have all gone from non-existence to viable touring acts. Yet their resurgence hasn’t quite had the same impact as their more iconic forbearers – maybe they need to wait long enough for their music to be retro or 4KQ material.

This isn’t a trend to rile against – in fact, we think you should embrace it. It’s time we all tapped into music from the golden era devoid of Beleibers and F.O.O.D (Friends of One Direction).

Click, click, boom.

When was the last time you got hyped up about the Boxing Day Sales? If news coverage in recent years is anything to go by, very few of us still feel the urge to swarm upon our local department store in the search for an amazing post-Christmas bargain.

Most would attribute this to the shift toward online shopping, a shift which took a whole new turn recently with the establishment (and much-reported failure) of Click Frenzy. This massive online sale was meant to be Australia’s answer to America’s Cyber Monday, the ultimate post-Thanksgiving online retail blowout, which incidentally posted record sales last week.

But as we said, Click Frenzy more or less failed to meet expectations. But while the media were fast to damn the promotion, it did raise sales, and it did get a lot of publicity. Was it all just tall poppy syndrome, or was it a doomed idea from the start?

Well, here’s our view on the Click Frenzy fiasco.

What was it?

Click Frenzy was billed as the sale that would stop the nation. This one site was going to be the aggregate point for bargains from some of the biggest brands we all know and buy – Jag, City Beach, Bonds, Target, Myer, QBD and STA were all in on it. Unlike everyday group buying or daily deal sites, this was to be concentrated on one day, on one site.

Consumers were given a select time to log onto the Click Frenzy website so that they could snag bargains that they would otherwise miss. This was a localised stab at replicating what is known as Cyber Monday in the US – the American continuation of ‘Black Friday’ sales, which is essentially their equivalent of our Boxing Day sales.

What was it trying to achieve?

This was an attempt to embrace the overall shift towards online retail by transplanting the idea of an annual sales event from the physical to the virtual. The greater majority of stores and brands involved had previously only tentatively moved into full-scale e-commerce, making this event their first chance to make a significant virtual splash. With so many of us shopping online now, this sort of move was going to happen sooner or later.

But aside from making their mark on the online landscape, these retailers wanted to cash in. The US has numerous sale events throughout the year, including Labor Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, New Year’s Day, Columbus Day, President’s Day, the Christmas period, and of course Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Unfortunately, Australia doesn’t quite have this amount of activity, so retailers were trying to establish the tradition while capitalising on the online boom.

Will it work in the future?

Yes, especially when you consider that it technically didn’t fail. Online retailers involved in the plan reported a combined sales volume 2.5 times above their usual peak. Even brands who had nothing to do with Click Frenzy reported a 30% spike in sales in the 24 hours surrounding the event, which is a good sign that things somehow caught on. And while clothes and accessories saw a lower-than-average spend per sale, alcohol, electronics and furniture received a strong push.

The main failure was that the central hub for Click Frenzy – its website – was not capable of handling the amount of interest it received. By all rights, it is more than feasible for a Click Frenzy 2.0 to work if they bother to invest sufficient infrastructure in it, including better servers. The other issue is the fact that consumer confidence in the platform is understandably deflated after this year’s effort, but it’s nothing that some good PR and advertising can’t handle.

Whether we get a reformatted, redesigned Click Frenzy is still not certain, but it could still be a welcome thought for some online retailers. Chances are it won’t be called “Click Frenzy” next time – consumers are pretty unforgiving when it comes to unfulfilled promises, but the concept has proven itself to work. The good thing is that this whole experience has shown us just how much interest there is in online retail here in Australia, and the failure of this particular little venture is perhaps nothing more than a cautionary tale that will help future sales become bigger and better. 

But we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, those Christmas presents aren’t going to buy themselves. And we get the feeling that despite Click “Fail”, as it has come to be known, more presents are going to be bought online this year than ever before.