It never ceases to amaze me how high the quality of the original content can get on YouTube. Some of the short films /clips broadcast on the site are inspiring. And that’s the trouble isn’t it?
Recently Creative Review blogged about the YouTube dilemma which opened by saying YouTube provides a steady stream of inspiration to advertising creatives, but it also leaves young directors vulnerable to having ideas stolen and agencies open to accusations of plagiarism.
And posed the question, how can both directors and agencies protect themselves?
It then went into great lengths to report on some of the more high profile and recent examples of this, such as the new Sony Bravia ad featuring Brazilian footballer Kaka and a life-size zoe¬trope which is currently airing across the region.
It was deemed to be too similar to or at least based on a short film by Mark Simon Hewis.
I am not going to go through all the cases Creative Review highlighted (You can read the blog posting here) but it’s certainly worth a read and raises more than a few questions.
How advertising agencies / creatives protect themselves from being labeled as plagiatists because… everyone always assumes the agency are guilty. And how do young directors protect their ideas from being used without any commercial gain when some would say they shouldn’t be broadcasting their work on YouTube if they don’t want people to be influenced by it or re-interpret it.
One commentator on the Creative Review blog summarised by saying: “copying of ideas will and should always be punished (by law or reputation damage). But re-applying parts of others people's output in new context will and should not be punishable.”
Yasmin Ahmad who directed a TVC titled ‘Funeral’ for the MCYS in Singapore has already responded to The Pitch which blogged about how bloggers had slammed the TVC for “ripping-off” a scene from the movie Good Will Hunting. See the post here.
Over to you guys.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Lighthearted look at communication strategy
England’s bid for the next World Cup kicked-off on Monday with a ceremony at Wembley attended by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and football icon David Beckham. And they’ve already identified what not to say in their communication strategy.
Don’t say football’s coming home.
The Guardian has an interesting (if you’re a football fan) piece on why England should steer clear of that catchy slogan which embodied the 1996 European championships hosted by England.
Those of you who watched the Euros that year will no doubt remember the slogan – and the great Lightning Seeds jingle to go along with it. But on Monday, the 2018 World Cup bid committee went on the record to say they would not adopt the “tone” of that communications this time round – calling it “arrogant”, among other things, to believe the country had the right to think of themselves as the home of football.
Lord Sebastian Coe, who led London's successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, was in Singapore for the World Effie Festival last year to talk about effectiveness in communications, and his clear message to anyone trying to reach out to youths in today’s cluttered landscape was: “If you don’t reach out to them in language they understand, someone else will”.
You should check out the Lightning Seeds video here and read the comments (yes people are still commenting 12 years on!).
Maybe the committee should reconsider their stance on this.
England's eight rivals for 2018 are Russia, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, the United States, Spain/Portugal and the Netherlands/¬Belgium.
Don’t say football’s coming home.
The Guardian has an interesting (if you’re a football fan) piece on why England should steer clear of that catchy slogan which embodied the 1996 European championships hosted by England.
Those of you who watched the Euros that year will no doubt remember the slogan – and the great Lightning Seeds jingle to go along with it. But on Monday, the 2018 World Cup bid committee went on the record to say they would not adopt the “tone” of that communications this time round – calling it “arrogant”, among other things, to believe the country had the right to think of themselves as the home of football.
Lord Sebastian Coe, who led London's successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, was in Singapore for the World Effie Festival last year to talk about effectiveness in communications, and his clear message to anyone trying to reach out to youths in today’s cluttered landscape was: “If you don’t reach out to them in language they understand, someone else will”.
You should check out the Lightning Seeds video here and read the comments (yes people are still commenting 12 years on!).
Maybe the committee should reconsider their stance on this.
England's eight rivals for 2018 are Russia, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, the United States, Spain/Portugal and the Netherlands/¬Belgium.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The best campaign in the world
The much talked about ‘Best job in the world’ campaign has taken the top prize at the One Show Awards in New York. Is there more to come?
Created by Australian shop CumminsNitro Brisbane for Tourism Queensland, the campaign added to its Best of Show win by also winning the Gold Pencil in the integrated branding campaign category at the One Show.
For those of you who’ve been living under a rock (you missed your big chance!) the ‘Best job in the world’ campaign was part of a three-year AUS$1.7 million global marketing strategy where a selected person would get a paid six-month job as a brand ambassador living on a Great Barrier Reef island.
It was positioned as a global search for candidates for the caretaker role of Hamilton Island for six months with a salary of AUS$150,000. And the competition received something like 34,684 applications from 200 countries – while achieving close to $100 million worth of publicity globally. Not bad for $1.7 million campaign.
The One Show accolades also come just one day after Ben Southall was named the winner of the ‘Best job in the world’ competition.
But what do you guys think? Will there be many more awards for this marketing campaign and what about it made it such a great success?
Already we’re seeing other tourism bodies following Tourism Queensland’s lead.
Created by Australian shop CumminsNitro Brisbane for Tourism Queensland, the campaign added to its Best of Show win by also winning the Gold Pencil in the integrated branding campaign category at the One Show.
For those of you who’ve been living under a rock (you missed your big chance!) the ‘Best job in the world’ campaign was part of a three-year AUS$1.7 million global marketing strategy where a selected person would get a paid six-month job as a brand ambassador living on a Great Barrier Reef island.It was positioned as a global search for candidates for the caretaker role of Hamilton Island for six months with a salary of AUS$150,000. And the competition received something like 34,684 applications from 200 countries – while achieving close to $100 million worth of publicity globally. Not bad for $1.7 million campaign.
The One Show accolades also come just one day after Ben Southall was named the winner of the ‘Best job in the world’ competition.
But what do you guys think? Will there be many more awards for this marketing campaign and what about it made it such a great success?
Already we’re seeing other tourism bodies following Tourism Queensland’s lead.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
McHappy no longer
The debate on intellectual property rights reared its ugly head again in Malaysia following last week’s high profile court ruling against McDonald’s in the case of the McCurry restaurant.
At the tail of end of last week, the news broke that McDonald’s in Malaysia was on the losing end of an eight year long court battle against an Indian restaurant calling itself McCurry.
The latest court ruling said that the fast food giant cannot claim an exclusive right to the ‘Mc’ prefix and there was no evidence to suggest McCurry (which stands for Malaysian Chicken Curry) had misrepresented itself to the public and confusing consumers.
The case is just one example of the struggle big-name consumer products face in attempting to protect its brands. Now I am not here to debate whether McCurry is in the wrong but McDonald’s clearly thinks the Indian restaurant has.
In a statement to A+M, the company’s VP of marketing communications, local store marketing and business / consumer insights, Stephen Chew said McDonald’s intellectual property includes the ‘Mc’ prefix and that intellectual property was considered to “be highly valuable company assets.”
“Over the years we have been vigilant in vigorously protecting and enforcing our trademark rights wherever we do business,” he said.
“We note that we originally won this trademark protection case in 2006 – so naturally, we are disappointed with this particular appeal court ruling.”
When asked if he thought the ruling might see a string of F&B outlets challenge the use of the ‘Mc’ prefix in their names, Chew would only comment that McDonald’s “will continue to protect its trademark in the future.”
The ruling certainly brings up an excellent question – will other big brands or multinationals, right or wrong, look at this market as one that does not particularly respect intellectual property rights?
If you hadn't already listened to it before, we also brought up the topic on our weekly spot on BFM which you can listen to here.
Over to you guys.
UPDATED 7/9/2009: MCDONALD'S HAS CHALLENGED THE RULING AND THE CASE HEADS FOR A MALAYSIAN COURT AGAIN. http://tinyurl.com/mj9z5u
At the tail of end of last week, the news broke that McDonald’s in Malaysia was on the losing end of an eight year long court battle against an Indian restaurant calling itself McCurry.
The latest court ruling said that the fast food giant cannot claim an exclusive right to the ‘Mc’ prefix and there was no evidence to suggest McCurry (which stands for Malaysian Chicken Curry) had misrepresented itself to the public and confusing consumers.
Headline from theSun
The case is just one example of the struggle big-name consumer products face in attempting to protect its brands. Now I am not here to debate whether McCurry is in the wrong but McDonald’s clearly thinks the Indian restaurant has.
In a statement to A+M, the company’s VP of marketing communications, local store marketing and business / consumer insights, Stephen Chew said McDonald’s intellectual property includes the ‘Mc’ prefix and that intellectual property was considered to “be highly valuable company assets.”
“Over the years we have been vigilant in vigorously protecting and enforcing our trademark rights wherever we do business,” he said.
“We note that we originally won this trademark protection case in 2006 – so naturally, we are disappointed with this particular appeal court ruling.”
When asked if he thought the ruling might see a string of F&B outlets challenge the use of the ‘Mc’ prefix in their names, Chew would only comment that McDonald’s “will continue to protect its trademark in the future.”
The ruling certainly brings up an excellent question – will other big brands or multinationals, right or wrong, look at this market as one that does not particularly respect intellectual property rights?
If you hadn't already listened to it before, we also brought up the topic on our weekly spot on BFM which you can listen to here.
Over to you guys.
UPDATED 7/9/2009: MCDONALD'S HAS CHALLENGED THE RULING AND THE CASE HEADS FOR A MALAYSIAN COURT AGAIN. http://tinyurl.com/mj9z5u
Friday, April 24, 2009
It's gonna cost you
Recently the press picked up on the impending English Premier League rights bidding war that’s about to kick-off around the region. It was timely given that I just got a hold of some figures from ESPN STAR Sports which tells me (a) EPL is still mind-numbingly popular, and (b) it’s not going to come cheap for both the broadcaster and in the end, the football fan as well.
ESS says the current season of the Premier League live matches and ancillary programming reached more male viewers 15+ than the combined reach of news, education and entertainment programmes between 15 August 2008 to 25 February 2009.
According to AGB NMR, over the same period, more than 63% of all cable viewers aged 15+ in Malaysia have already watched the BPL (Barclays Premier League) 2008/2009 matches and its ancillary programming.
The BPL match between Manchester United and Liverpool on March 14 hit a Top 3 spot^ over the March 1 - 15 period, achieving an average rating of 6.6% among male viewers 15+ on cable, with the highest audience share (among regional cable broadcasters) of 17.3% during television viewing primetime, only second to a local-language channel.
But it’s not just the matches that ESS is able to tap on. It produces close to 1,500 hours of original football content a year including Nokia Football Crazy, Football Focus, Goals, Football Forecast, First Edition and Football Extra.
And because ESS also has the rights for the UEFA Champions League FA Cup, the company’s senior director of marketing and corporate communications, Paras Sharma is confident they will retain the EPL rights for next three seasons (from July 2010 onwards).
Still, ESS has lost out before, back in 2007 in Singapore (although they still handle the ad sales for that market).
StarHub paid a reported $250 million for the Singapore rights which were also seen as a strategic attempt to ensure rival SingTel wouldn’t be able to add the Premier League to its IPTV mio-TV platform.
Closer to home, Malaysia's state-owned Telekom Malaysia recently went on the record to say it may challenge Astro and bid for the exclusive rights which will open for bidding in the second quarter of this year. TM is hoping to secure attractive content for its IPTV platform which launches at the end of 2009.
So while Singapore is sold as a standalone market with other markets a part of a cluster - who knows what will happen this time.
Whatever happens, you can bet it’s going to involve a lot of money and it’s going to cost the football fan.
“You can make corrections if the business isn’t going up but clearly it is,” Sharma said.
*During period 15 Aug 2008-25 Feb 2009 in Malaysia. Refers to CNN, MTV Asia and Discovery. Source: AGB NMR
^Source: AGB NMR, Top 100 Broadcasts on Cable TV channels in Malaysia for March
ESS says the current season of the Premier League live matches and ancillary programming reached more male viewers 15+ than the combined reach of news, education and entertainment programmes between 15 August 2008 to 25 February 2009.
According to AGB NMR, over the same period, more than 63% of all cable viewers aged 15+ in Malaysia have already watched the BPL (Barclays Premier League) 2008/2009 matches and its ancillary programming.
The BPL match between Manchester United and Liverpool on March 14 hit a Top 3 spot^ over the March 1 - 15 period, achieving an average rating of 6.6% among male viewers 15+ on cable, with the highest audience share (among regional cable broadcasters) of 17.3% during television viewing primetime, only second to a local-language channel.
But it’s not just the matches that ESS is able to tap on. It produces close to 1,500 hours of original football content a year including Nokia Football Crazy, Football Focus, Goals, Football Forecast, First Edition and Football Extra.
And because ESS also has the rights for the UEFA Champions League FA Cup, the company’s senior director of marketing and corporate communications, Paras Sharma is confident they will retain the EPL rights for next three seasons (from July 2010 onwards).Still, ESS has lost out before, back in 2007 in Singapore (although they still handle the ad sales for that market).
StarHub paid a reported $250 million for the Singapore rights which were also seen as a strategic attempt to ensure rival SingTel wouldn’t be able to add the Premier League to its IPTV mio-TV platform.
Closer to home, Malaysia's state-owned Telekom Malaysia recently went on the record to say it may challenge Astro and bid for the exclusive rights which will open for bidding in the second quarter of this year. TM is hoping to secure attractive content for its IPTV platform which launches at the end of 2009.
So while Singapore is sold as a standalone market with other markets a part of a cluster - who knows what will happen this time.
Whatever happens, you can bet it’s going to involve a lot of money and it’s going to cost the football fan.
“You can make corrections if the business isn’t going up but clearly it is,” Sharma said.
*During period 15 Aug 2008-25 Feb 2009 in Malaysia. Refers to CNN, MTV Asia and Discovery. Source: AGB NMR
^Source: AGB NMR, Top 100 Broadcasts on Cable TV channels in Malaysia for March
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Sucked in
My daily consumption habits of news online brought me to an interesting story by a Singapore news portal which asked the question, how many people out there think that Singapore sucks?
The answer, according to the news portal, can be found in the number of members who belong to a Facebook group called ‘Singapore Sucks’ – which has 375 members at the time of writing. And was created by a Singaporean (so it has been reported).
Under Basic Info, the Facebook group says: “While Singapore has enjoyed stable economic growth for decades now, its people and culture have not progressed forward. Prolonged periods of tight government control on all aspects of life have created an atmosphere of workaholism because there is simply nothing else to do.”
“The purposes of this group are to raise awareness for people from everywhere in the world about the current state of Singapore and for members to vent their frustration.
And it goes on to say that “Singapore needs a liberal government... and for that to happen Singaporeans have to change and have to start asking for a change.”
The page goes on to list a number of “facts” which supposedly highlight Singapore’s backwardness in a number of areas and mentions everything from its rankings in the Reporters Without Borders’ Worldwide Press Freedom Index, to accusations the nation is supporting the Burmese military junta.
To be honest I am surprised the Facebook is group still active (it gained nearly 50 more members since the article in the news portal was published) especially now that mainstream media has turned its attention to it.
But what do you guys think? Will it get shutdown – does it deserve to be? And if the Group gets shutdown now does it not prove the point of its creator about Singapore’s media laws?
If something similar were to happen here with an anti-Malaysia Facebook group being discovered - what would the media’s reaction and government’s reaction to it be?
The answer, according to the news portal, can be found in the number of members who belong to a Facebook group called ‘Singapore Sucks’ – which has 375 members at the time of writing. And was created by a Singaporean (so it has been reported).
Under Basic Info, the Facebook group says: “While Singapore has enjoyed stable economic growth for decades now, its people and culture have not progressed forward. Prolonged periods of tight government control on all aspects of life have created an atmosphere of workaholism because there is simply nothing else to do.”“The purposes of this group are to raise awareness for people from everywhere in the world about the current state of Singapore and for members to vent their frustration.
And it goes on to say that “Singapore needs a liberal government... and for that to happen Singaporeans have to change and have to start asking for a change.”
The page goes on to list a number of “facts” which supposedly highlight Singapore’s backwardness in a number of areas and mentions everything from its rankings in the Reporters Without Borders’ Worldwide Press Freedom Index, to accusations the nation is supporting the Burmese military junta.
To be honest I am surprised the Facebook is group still active (it gained nearly 50 more members since the article in the news portal was published) especially now that mainstream media has turned its attention to it.
But what do you guys think? Will it get shutdown – does it deserve to be? And if the Group gets shutdown now does it not prove the point of its creator about Singapore’s media laws?
If something similar were to happen here with an anti-Malaysia Facebook group being discovered - what would the media’s reaction and government’s reaction to it be?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
But your Facebook status says so
It's always amusing when social networking sites provide the headliners for daily newspapers. Just yesterday, on April Fool's Day no less, the national newspapers were taken for a good-humoured ride by politician Teresa Kok.
Kok, who is Seputeh MP poked fun at the day's events when she posted a link to a news story which said: "Oh no, I am now national news!"
The joke started much earlier in the day at 9.41am when she set her Facebook status to read "Teresa Kok is Luvin' It although her marriage plans have as many combinations as a McDonald's menu."
The 45-year-old DAP stalwart - a member of the opposition coalition - was then subjected to a barrage of phone calls from journos who were waiting to get the dirt about her tying the knot.
It didn't help that there were a flood of congratulatory comments and questions left on her page.
In the end, The Star got the scoop before mid-day reporting that Kok said she is not getting married, clarifying her Facebook posting, adding that it "got the media buzzing".
At 12.06pm, Kok, who was reportedly at a state exco meeting (it's usually held on Wednesdays) in Shah Alam, then updated her status to read: "Teresa Kok's last status msg about 'marriage plans' was her April Fool's joke. Too many reporters are phoning her up for comments so she has to, reluctantly, reveal it's a joke today, instead of tomorrow".
Nice.
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