It’s been fabulous (though I ams still suffering the after effects of swine flu. Saw the offline edit of the new Mortgage Choice TVCs today and they are lookin good. Am I allowed to say how much I like Jonathan, Warwick and Sue from Filmgrahics? and Mark Somerville, our producer? Maybe not. New campaign launches August 16. Sit by your sets.

Dale and I went to the Telstra NSW Business Awards presentation last Tuesday night at the Westin Hotel. We didn’t win our category - that went to a Central Coast company who seem to spend every minute of their day supporting the local community (and good on them for it) - but we did have a fabulous time and we shared our table with the overall NSW winners - Publisher Textiles. These guys design and create fabulous bespoke wallpapers. They’re the only wallpaper company in Australia that manufactures locally and the owners, Mark and Rhynie, are just adorable. Check out their stuff. I like their website too.

And here we are collecting our Sensis Social Responsibility Finalist Award…… I will need to get someone to retouch my fat arm syndrome in this pic

Dale and Liz at the Telstra business awards (with the presenter from Sensis in the middle)

But have the pigs been framed?

Over 3 million views this week……

“We all have a tendency to use research as a drunkard uses a lamppost - for support, but not for illumination.”  

Respect man, respect…….

With thanks to Mitchell Media……

• Survey: Social Networks Not So Hot In The Workplace (And No One Cares) by Mark Walsh, Thursday, July 2, 2009, 4:23 PM 
  Are people social networking at work? More than half (55%) of office workers with Web access have at least one social networking account, but only 43% use it at work, and typically for less than 30 minutes per day, according to a new survey by WorkPlace Media.

It might please employers to know that workers aren’t hanging out on MySpace or Facebook all day, but social media advertisers probably won’t be overjoyed. Even less encouraging for marketers, the study found that not having a presence on a social site made no difference to people’s opinion of a brand. And only 11% follow any major brand on a social network.

“When it comes to influencing brand perception and purchase decisions, the data shows that social networking still has a long way to go.” says Stephanie Molnar, CEO of WorkPlace Media, a marketing firm that targets the cubicle crowd. “Most of our meaningful recommendations continue to be old-fashioned, word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, co-workers, and/or family.”

That view gets support from a recent Harris poll in which 21% of participants said they relied on face-to-face discussions with a family member or friend when researching a purchase decision compared to only 4% who mentioned using online social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace.

In the Workplace Media study, however, Facebook was by far the most popular social property, with 89% members of the site. The runner-up was MySpace (40%), followed by LinkedIn (31%), and Twitter (18%).

Of the 18% who reported acting upon a business or product recommendation on social networking sites, the top categories were: entertainment (53%), dining out (50%), groceries (23%), beauty care/cosmetics (21%), apparel (20%), and electronics and pet care (15%). The survey was fielded in May 2009 among 753 American workers.

This week we found out we are a 2009 NSW Telstra Business Awards Finalist in the Sensis Social Responsibility Award. How excited are we? We find out if we are the winner at the awards dinner on July 21. So please keep your fingers crossed. 

B&T Story on Mortgage Choice

 Our new campaign launches today…..  

Reading the SMH yesterday (I think) there was a piece on soft power in relation to the enormous cultural influence the US exerts (as demonstrated by global reaction to Michael Jackson’s death). I was especially intrigued by this quote……

What is soft power? The man who developed the concept, Joe Nye of Harvard University, explains: “Hard power is the ability to coerce others by using carrots or sticks as either bribes or threats. But soft power is the ability to get what we want by attracting others, by getting them to want the things we want.

“If I can get what I want because you want it too, it saves me a lot of carrots and sticks,” is how Nye put it to the BBC. It includes the power of culture, of values, of example, of desirability. The marketers of designer brands understand the value of the concept because it is the basis of their incomes.

I thought it neatly summed up what good advertising does and how marketers can save a lot of carrots. (We find the stick doesn’t work too well, except on things like private health insurance with threats about turning 31.) Which led me to revisit this Vanity Fair story about how the Obama White House handle the press. Long story short, and a very interesting one it is too, the White House Press secretary and his team set out to woo the journos from the print media, even though their perceived power is declining by the day. It’s the ultimate use of soft power…

Here are a few quotes that sum up the dynamic….

Instead, the (Obama administration) are wooing The New York Times as assiduously as Pierre Salinger did on behalf of John Kennedy in 1962. And, perhaps not surprisingly, The New York Times woos back—rewarding the president with a lavishness of coverage not seen since, well, J.F.K. in 1962. It’s an establishment lovefest.

It’s some perfect re-creation of a relationship between president and news media that has not been seen since the White House pressroom was a clubby place with reporters invited into the press secretary’s office for whiskey and cigars. It’s cozy. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, who would have been, in previous administrations, the highest and most exclusive White House sources, have become almost casual quotes for the Times.

It is, curiously, a return to a time when the press was so much more dependent on the goodwill, and susceptible to the care and feeding, of the president. Indeed, The New York Times, and the rest of the established press, needs Barack Obama a lot more than he needs them.

But the article goes onto say that a key part of the White House’s media strategy is to pretend that they don’t have one. They don’t talk about it on the record or off. This in spite of having the biggest White House media relations team ever. Run by some pretty savvy individuals. And therein lies they way they leverage their “soft power”.

They have been handed a most remarkable historical moment—in which they get to remake the media in their own image. They have the power and they are the subject. These people in this White House are in greater control of the media than any administration before them.

The only thing is, they mustn’t let on that they know it.

Food for us marketers to chew on. Wooing the consumer….. Here’s a link to Joe Nye’s wikipedia entry if you’d like to know more about soft power.