In this guest post, blogger and digital creative Laura McWhinnie argues for more disclosure in the bloggersphere. 

The bloggersphere has always been a bit like the Wild West. Bloggers could post about products to their heart’s content without having to disclose their relationship with the brand. This meant that consumers had no idea who was behind the marketing messages influencing their purchasing decisions. But in 2009 that all changed

when for the first time in more than three decades, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of America implemented their Guide to Endorsements and Testimonials in advertising.

On March 12 this year, the FTC ramped things up with the release of their updated .Com Disclosures – a report that addresses issues surrounding disclosures in social, mobile, and other digital channels.

When it was last updated back in 2000, social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram didn’t exist. The updated report cracks down on everything from the inefficiency of using the #SPON hashtag to denote a sponsored tweet, to the placement, proximity and prominence of required disclosures on a blog.

The FTC compliance is an important reason for bloggers to disclose, but it also comes down to trust and transparency. If you’re working with brands under the table, it can completely undermine the credibility and reputation you’ve been trying to build. While there is currently no law in Australia requiring a blogger to disclose when they are being paid or compensated as part of their work for a brand, the disclosure discussion continues to spark debate.

If you’re a blogger and unsure about how to handle sponsored content, get started by following these three rules:

1. Disclose everything

We all saw the trouble the South Australia Tourism Commission got into after the Kangaroo Island cash for tweet disaster where Australian celebrities including Matt Moran and Shannon Noll were paid $750 to tweet about the destination. While many believe that all publicity is good publicity, consumers felt duped by the celebrities, resulting in more than 300 damaging tweets. It wasn’t illegal by Australian standards and it got people talking, but just how much damage did South Australia Tourism Commission do to their brand through their lack of transparency?

2. Use a third-party service

Disclosure is a grey area for bloggers for a reason. What exactly counts as ‘payment’ for a blog post or a tweet? If someone buys you a coffee and you go on to write a blog post about their brand do you disclose it? What if you’re gifted a product after writing about it on your own accord? Clearing the confusion is US-based company CMP.LY. They’ve set out to become the industry standard for disclosure by providing a consistent and audited framework that’s free for bloggers. They use eight types of CMP.LY disclosures that you can insert into websites and social media posts. For example, I recently borrowed an inflatable Giant Swan to shoot for a blog post that I was then allowed to keep and disclosed it here. It’s also a valuable tool for agencies and brands to measure how many times a single blog post has been viewed.

3. Stay true to your brand

Only work with brands you love and products you believe in. The best part about running your own site is having complete editorial control over its content. This allows you to build trust with your readers – something far more valuable than making a quick buck or getting a bunch of freebies. If you go down the path of making compromises in exchange for money or product, you’re going to seriously affect the integrity of your blog. Your readers follow you for your opinion, so you can’t expect them to be interested in something you’re not.

• Laura McWhinnie is a digital creative and runs her own blog This Island Life.
• Next month’s Mumbrella360 will discuss the regulation of social media following new guidance from the AANA and IAB.

The post Disclosure in Social Media: How transparent should bloggers be? appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

Is our industry full of cheats and liars or do people of honour who stand by their word still exist in business? In an article that first appeared in Encore, Cameron Boon investigates. 

The recent court case involving Paul Fishlock suing his former employer The Campaign Palace brought into focus more than just the struggle of one man. It highlighted that there are some in adland whose word cannot always be relied upon.

Fishlock, who was dumped from his position as the national creative director for the agency, discovered he had been ousted after reading about it in the trade press and the case saw many reputations take a battering, including former Campaign Palace CEO Mark Mackay. After sifting through correspondence between Mackay and Young & Rubicam’s global creative director, Tony Granger, and hearing testimony from Mackay, Justice John Sacker chose his words carefully. “I have serious misgivings about Mr Mackay’s evidence,” he said.

From this evidence, it emerged that there were times when Mackay was discussing with Fishlock the appointment of a creative director who would report to him while Mackay and the international management were, in fact, planning a replacement for Fishlock.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fishlock won damages in the ballpark of $300,000.

Sadly, this is not the only recent example that has raised the question of whether someone in the marketing and media industry can be taken at their word. Another high-profile case before the courts in recent months brought this home − the hearing to decide the fate of former Spice Girl Mel B’s local TV career. The case saw details of conversations between Mel B’s partner and manager Stephen Belafonte and Seven’s Brad Lyons come under scrutiny. Much like in the Campaign Palace case, the presiding judge, Justice Hammerschlag, concluded that Belafonte was “unsatisfactory,” “evasive” and “unclear”. Lyons’ reputation, on the other hand, remained intact.

A third case, back in 2010, was similarly poor for the reputation of adland. Andrew Moss sued Lowe Hunt & Partners after he joined the company based on the promise that it was in good shape, only to discover it was technically insolvent. He also won about $300,000 in compensation.

And it’s not just individuals in the business whose reliability is in question. Brands can also face a backlash when the public feels misled. Earlier this year Domino’s Pizza suffered the ire of the public for its “game changer” campaign that wasn’t really a game changer at all. While the stakes were lower, the teaser campaign fell flat − and made the brand look somewhat foolish when it proved to have nothing bigger to announce than a new pizza range. It didn’t help that Domino’s boss Don Meij was the face of the campaign.

But when it comes to misdirecting the public, it’s hard to forget Witchery’s girl in the jacket campaign from 2009.

Naked Communications was behind the campaign which − via a YouTube video and a misleading tip-off to the press − claimed an attractive woman called Heidi was on the hunt for a man who left his jacket behind in a Sydney cafe. She was actually an actress cast by the agency.

An unamused press, and unhappy rival agencies who didn’t like what it did for the reputation of the industry, went hard against Naked. But while Naked’s head of behavioural science, Adam Ferrier, says he wouldn’t change the campaign itself, or the initial deception, he would change the way his agency handled the response.

“People are very wary and defensive of anything that makes them feel stupid and it’s a fine line to tread between a practical joke and insulting somebody’s intelligence,” says Ferrier. “It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, though, because something you’ve made that seems fairly playful and mischievous can be very quickly demonised.” Ferrier quotes Mark Twain, saying: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” and says advertising isn’t always “straight down the line” when it comes to selling a product. “Sometimes you have to fabricate something to generate conversation,” he adds.

And the stunt certainly did generate conversation as Naked pushed the campaign to its limits, running an ad that listed the journalists duped by the ruse.

One of the journalists on that list was the Sunday Telegraph’s Caroline Marcus, then employed by Fairfax Media. At the time, she called it “journalistic fraud”, and told Encore’s sister publication Mumbrella: “If the CEOs of Naked Communications and Witchery think that the media will forgive and forget being lied to, then the biggest joke is on them.”

Anthony Freedman, founder of ad agency Host and the chairman of the Communications Council, says there are clear legal boundaries around what advertisers can and cannot say.

“That doesn’t mean that agencies, like lawyers, won’t find a way to present the facts in the most compelling way possible. In fact that’s the agency’s job – to find a way to present the truth in a simple, memorable, unexpected and differentiated way.

“In general, despite what some might think, most people who work in advertising have a moral compass that points true north. In pitching, we compete hard against one another and like to know who we are up against, but it’s all left on the field and we’ll win, more or less, fair and square and take the losses on the chin.

“That said, of course there are some for whom winning at any cost is considered fair and square. But I think that’s true of any business or industry, not just advertising.”

Sometimes, of course, whether or not an agency is lying to consumers is settled by the regulators. Sportswear brand Skins was penalised $120,000 in 2008 by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission after being found to have engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in advertising. It had wrongly claimed in its ads that it did not pay sports stars to wear or endorse Skins products. Similarly Optus was fined an eye-watering $5m by the ACCC in 2011 after is made misleading claims about its broadband packages. And even Apple − which enjoys one of the best reputations in the world − was fined $2m last year for wrongly implying its iPads were 4G compatible when they were not.

SULTANS OF SPIN

One sector of the industry often called in to put a positive spin on less than palatable information is public relations. Stuart Gregor, chairman of industry body The PR Council and founder and director of PR firm Liquid Ideas, agrees that the industry is ruthless with clients looking to agencies to deliver information in as positive a way as possible.

“The simple fact is, you’re always working for somebody who has a challenging message to get out, whether it is cereal, beer or airlines. And that’s kind of the fun of it. The easy ones with an interesting story and a person everyone wants to interview is the dream, but that doesn’t always happen. The good ones don’t really need a PR agency.

“You don’t always win, you have a few blues and certainly losses along with the successes. When you’re given a hard brief you think ‘Jesus Christ, how are we going to massage this into a positive message?’ and we face that almost every day.

“It is increasingly hard to spin and bullshit your way out of things because there are so many more ways people can find the true ownership of a brand. Transparency is the key these days. Once upon a time you only needed to know a couple of people, but these days obfuscation is much more difficult. My advice is consistent and I tell people to just tell it like it is and work hard at it.”

Gregor says he once worked on an account for a Chinese restaurant in the early 2000s and attempted to sell “Chinese Tapas”.

“A food writer who I was friends with at the time called me and said, ‘I’ve seen some bullshit in my time. Chinese Tapas is called Yum Cha,’ and we got called out on that.”

The problem, of course, with being caught lying is that you won’t necessarily be believed next time. There are at least three major agency bosses whose future denials would have little credibility with the Encore team after having been caught red handed.

MR NICE GUY

But there are others with a reputation as being among the most trustworthy in the business. One person known for being a straight shooter is Sydney ad agency Banjo’s managing director Andrew Varasdi – a man mentioned over the years to the Encore team by his peers more than once as someone whose word can always be trusted.

Varasdi says relationships between advertisers, agencies and the public need to be built on trust. He says: “To get any sort of meaningful work done, you have to be transparent and honour agreements and not try to pull the wool, so to speak. My experience has been that you’ll get caught or the relationship will break down and the work will suffer.”

“Sometimes integrity is lacking in the industry. From agency side, people haven’t been honest and have done whatever it takes to win a piece of business or to woo a potential staff member − but naturally things don’t work out in the long run.”

Naked’s Ferrier says: “I don’t think there’s a culture of lying in the industry, but advertising is art and it’s important to always be pushing to find out what is acceptable and what isn’t. You’ll always find the odd instance where somebody thinks they can get away with being untrustworthy but they’re few and far between. The days of lying and not getting caught are gone. People will find out and I don’t think any agencies can afford to have that happen. Sure it’ll happen by mistake from time to time, but I don’t think it’s a deliberately malicious act.”

And it’s worth noting that adland’s job is different to journalism.

A century ago, HK McCann, now McCann Erickson, launched. Its motto – Truth Well Told – still stands.

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

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Online trading is the next big thing says Rob Atkinson in a piece that first appeared in Encore. 

Who is the most powerful person in Australian media and why?

Harold Mitchell because of his influence and the footprint he has left. He’s built a huge brand in Mitchells, offloaded it into Aegis, Aegis has obviously done extremely well to be then sold on to Dentsu. So if you think about it, he is very much a father figure of the industry.

What one medium could you not live without?

Out-of-home advertising, not surprisingly. I’m a sucker for Times Square and Piccadilly Circus. I like that explosion on your senses of all the colour.

Your one guilty media pleasure?

One that most people won’t readily admit is The Big Bang Theory, primarily because I think it is a TV program a bit like Friends, but for nerds.

The next big industry trend is…

Big data is this year’s big trend. Next year, or later next year, programmatic buying or online trading for all digital assets will follow.

Real-time buying is going to extend into all parts of media given our desire to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

If you weren’t doing this for a living what would you be doing?

I would have argued a few years ago that I’d be a failed professional soccer player by now.

Or a travel writer, because I really love to explore. I’ve got that innate curiosity that’s led me to travel and see lots of different cultures and lifestyles.

Your best piece of career advice…

I got told this very early on in my career and that’s ‘credibility and trust take a long time to gain and a moment to lose’. In addition, having strong written and verbal communication skills will give you a point of differentiation. Finally, I was given a wonderful piece of advice while working in Dublin, ‘the mind is like a parachute, it works best when it is open’.

If you could poach any one person, who would it be?

I would love to poach a clairvoyant or futurologist. Five years ago people would have said: “Google who?” Having someone know the future and the speed of it would be vitally beneficial. I’m thinking the role has got to be ‘head of what next’.

Would you recommend working in this industry to your kids?

I certainly wouldn’t put them off. They should follow their hearts.

What is your favourite Aussie ad?

I’ve got two actually. The first one is quite an old one and that was the Carlton Sky Troop ad which followed the Big Ad. The second one is Kangaroo Island. I love the story behind it. For someone who is now living in Australia, it made me want to go there.

Rob Atkinson is the CEO of out-of-home media company Adshel.

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

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Is the best way of being successful in Australia not be here at all? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Lee Zachariah speaks to Aussies making it big abroad.

I always wanted to work in New York,” says Julian Cole. “I thought it was the number one place to work in advertising; a lot of the best campaigns were coming out of there. So I moved over and was lucky enough to have a couple of interviews in the first couple of weeks.”

Cole’s story is indicative of the somewhat contentious idea that the best way to be successful in Australia is to not be in Australia any more.

Many professionals across film, television, journalism and advertising have made the move overseas, leaving family and security behind in search of new opportunities.

Cole immediately signed with the New York arm of global agency BBH and acknowledges that the move might have been less risky for him given his solid resume. “I felt like I had a couple of case studies under my belt. It just felt like the right time. But I also have friends who have come over, they’ve been at the start of their careers, and they’ve been able to pick up work. Especially going into in-demand positions, which are usually around the digital area. It definitely does help if you’ve got a portfolio of work.”

Film-maker and VCA graduate Richard Gray recently moved to Los Angeles, and has alternated between making films in Australia (Summer Coda, Blinder) and the US (Mine Games, The Lookalike). When Summer Coda began screening in Palm Springs and LA, it seemed like the perfect time to make the move. He says: “It was always the plan, it was just picking the best time. It had taken seven years to get Coda up and although we were making a living within the broader industry in Australia, we wanted to focus solely on film.”

In 1994, Matthew Godfrey was 26 and working at ad agency Y&R in Sydney when he was offered a move to Vietnam as part of his career development. “Legends of our agency such as Alex Hamill had gone to Asia in the early ’70s and recommended it to me as both a career and life accelerator. The opportunity to run an office in a country that was opening up like Vietnam was too good an opportunity to miss. It both challenges you and stretches what you are capable of achieving. That was more than 19 years ago now and I still see those opportunities every day across the region. It’s never dull or predictable and the region is now an even more important part of the world economy and global growth plans.”

“I was really bitten by the travel bug,” says Amy Fallon, an Australian journalist who worked in London for five years before moving to Uganda. “I wanted desperately to live overseas. The idea of working on Fleet Street was exciting. But for me it was also about having a cultural experience, making new friends and being able to travel around Europe and to other parts of the world more easily from Britain.”

Former Australian TV host Eden Gaha is now the president of production company Shine USA. He notes that working in the Australian media gave him, out of necessity, a lot of experience across a range of roles. “I started out as an on-air host, but also learned to edit, shoot video and produce,” he says.

“We were very hands on, as we didn’t have the staff or the size that a lot of bigger American productions have. When I first arrived in the US, people had very defined skills – you were an editor, a cameraman or a producer. So I was fortunate to have a wide range of skills and was able to move up the ladder fast.”

That’s a sentiment shared by Cole. Recently promoted to communications planner, he recognises that this role is more defined than his equivalent back home. “In Australia, that would probably be rolled into three different titles. They might call it an account planner, which would have a brand planner, a comms planner and a digital strategist all in one. In America the budgets are so big, they can account for having someone who specialises in brand planning and comms planning and digital strategy. Therefore, you can get a little more specialised in what you do.”

Perhaps obviously, the most noticeable difference in markets such as America and the UK is size. The media industry is simply bigger over there, and that may inform the countries more optimistic approach. “I guess it’s a better business in the US all round and that brings more opportunity,” says film-maker Gray. “There’s also more positivity and general belief that you can actually make it happen, which leads to a more enjoyable and productive experience. We’ll never stop making films in Australia, but we do find the industry to be quite dog eat dog. We’ve also had more success raising investment to fund our features in the US,” Gray adds. “It’s something they’re far more accustomed to doing, and they better understand the models. That’s not to say there’s no hope at home, it’s just a greater challenge.”

“The media scene in the UK is bigger, it’s more diverse, it’s definitely more competitive,” says Amy Fallon. “Obviously there’s more national papers, there’s more tabloids. There’s also a lot more news agencies and the magazine industry is dramatically different. There’s a lot more of these ‘real life’ publications, as they’re called. As an Australian, you’re a little fish in a very big pond.”

“Culturally the American TV industry is a bit more buttoned up,” says Gaha. “When I worked in Australia, it tended to be more relaxed. So I’d say there are positives and negatives on both sides.”

When our ex-pats are asked if they plan to return to Australia, their answers are broadly yes… in theory. The idea of coming home is appealing, but so is the pull of the work. The unspoken implication is that there are opportunities in Australia, but it’s not the most likely place to find them.

“Everyone agrees that Australia is one of the world’s best countries,” says Godfrey. “But for now, Asia has much to offer both me and my family.”

For established professionals looking to make the move, Cole reiterates that developing a speciality is key.

“You’ve just got to be ready for the differences of the industry here. Coming from Australia, where you’re trying to be everything for everyone, you’ve got to figure out what you want to specialise in.”

Uganda-based Fallon agrees that having a job lined up before you go is the ideal scenario, but probably not a practical one. She says: “It gives you peace of mind, but I don’t know how realistic this is in the current economic climate. It’s very hard to get a staff job, contract or permanent position. Still, you have to try.”

The advice for those thinking of heading abroad is that you should throw caution to the wind and book your ticket now. “If you believe in yourself enough, you can make it whereever you go,” says Gaha, who made the move without having a job lined up. “An opportunity helps, but working without a net is truly exhilarating.” Godfrey agrees. “If you’re young, stop thinking about it, just get on a plane and go do it. Be prepared to start anywhere on anything to simply get involved. Then work your way up. The worse that can happen is that you’ll have an amazing six months and be back in Australia with stories to tell.”

“If you really want to go, set a date and do it,” says Gray. “Don’t miss that date. You’ll work it out when you get there.” But, he adds pragmatically: “Buy a bed and a blanket before you buy a TV and Blu-ray player.”

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

The post Making it overseas appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

From journos to ad execs and PRs, these days everyone seems to have a book in them. But what does it take to get published and will you actually make any money? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Brooke Hemphill finds out.

Attention wannabe authors. Forget big fat advance cheques and living off royalties. The reality of having a book published today is another story altogether. There are only two reasons you should even consider sitting down at your computer to bash out a manuscript – passion or profile.

Benython Oldfield, a literary agent with Zeitgeist Media Group, says: “If you are interested in writing a non-fiction book, you do it for credibility reasons or for passion because the amount of money that’s possible is negligible in an Australian context.”

Oldfield, who works with published authors including John Barron and Benjamin Law, is keen to lay out the bare facts about financial gains from publishing. He explains that writers make 10 per cent of the retail sale of their books, so if the cover price is $34.95, you’ll pocket less than $3.50 per sale. If you consider that successful Australian non-fiction titles sell 10,000 copies at most, the year you’re likely to spend slaving over your keyboard is going to net you an entry-level salary – if you’re lucky. And don’t think the rise of ebooks will save you. Oldfield says you’re even worse off financially from digital sales with authors taking home 25 per cent of the cover price, which in most cases is significantly lower than the cost of a hardcover book – think somewhere in the vicinity of $2.50 per sale.

Paul Merrill, the English and Australian launch editor of men’s magazine Zoo, knows first hand what books can do for your bank balance. Last year his first book, A Polar Bear Ate My Head, a non-fiction account of his time working on men’s magazines, hit the shelves.

“According to Random House, it sold okay. It was within their projections. But if I work out how much money I earned per hour spent writing it, I probably would have earned a lot more behind the wet fish counter in Coles,” he says.

But like many authors, Merrill’s motivation wasn’t money and in his case, writing the book came after his departure from publisher ACP, now Bauer Media, when he had time and money to spare.

“I had decided to leave ACP so I was on gardening leave and had some time on my hands. I’d always thought there’d been enough bizarre, horrific and shocking incidents during the years so I started writing not thinking it would get published. After I was about halfway through, I sent it off to some agents and they replied overnight. So I finished it and got it out there. It was fun to do. I absolutely enjoyed doing it,” he says.

Virginia Lloyd, an author and agent, says: “I would not advise anyone with a mortgage to take a year off to write a book because you’re not going to see the sort of financial returns that you’re likely to get from just picking up your regular pay cheque. But the thing a book can give you that almost nothing else can is enduring credibility.”

Fellow agent Oldfield agrees. “It’s amazing what doors will open for people who have written books,” he says. He cites the example of John Barron whose book about the American presidential race, Vote For Me! The Long Road to the White House, led to a host of other opportunities. “After that he got the gig at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney lecturing there. He now has a program on ABC News 24 called Planet America. All these things might have happened without a book but it really put him in the place of being a specialist about American politics and put it in people’s minds,” says Oldfield.

Barron, a journalist who has been covering US politics for many years, says that while it has given him credentials, there is another benefit to writing a book.

“Unlike doing a story for radio or TV there is a particular thrill in seeing a pile of your books sitting in the window of your favourite bookshop; seeing people on the bus reading your book and laughing out loud; having it assigned to students to read at universities in Australia and in the United States, as has happened with my book,” he says.

Ex-Zoo editor Merrill was already well known before writing his book and says this was not why he wanted to get published. “Being the editor of Zoo, I had a profile and in fact I was trying to reduce the profile as it was usually negative,” he says.

Both Merrill and Barron are in the fortunate position of having books with international appeal which is rare for Australian-based authors. Oldfield says: “Every country has its own specialists and to break through you really have to be saying something new.”

Barron has found being an Aussie with vast knowledge of US politics has made him something of a novelty in America leading to further publicity while Merrill’s book, which covers his time with Zoo in the UK, is about to be released in the United Kingdom.

Another author who comes from the magazine industry is Benjamin Law, a freelance writer who had been writing for various publications before he wrote his first book, A Family Law, in 2010. “It definitely built up a public presence and a lot of that has to do with the publicity that happens around the book, especially if you’re writing a non-fiction title,” says Law. “I remember a few key publicity interviews that I did. One was for Sunrise. I didn’t expect that to happen but I was on Sunrise and I thought, ‘yeah, something’s changed’. Another interview I did was for Richard Fidler’s Conversations and that has such a huge listenership that I found a lot of people were contacting me.” Law went on to write a second book, Gaysia, which was published last year. He is also working on a television adaptation of A Family Law with Matchbox Pictures.

If you’ve come this far and you’re still not deterred from writing a book, Lloyd says the first step is to take a “helicopter” view of the topic you want to write about. She says: “A lot of the time people who come from advertising or media backgrounds need to have a broader view of their topic area in order to think about how to pitch their idea in a way that’s going to appeal to a commercial trade publisher. Publishers, generally, are not big fans of books about advertising. They don’t seem to sell outside people who are already working in the industry so there’s not enough of a market in the eyes of most of the big publishers for those books.”

With the idea nailed down from a commercial perspective, Oldfield says it’s time to get writing. “You can pretty much get it up on the first 10,000 words,” he says. A synopsis and chapter breakdown will also be required before you can approach agents like Oldfield and Lloyd who will then negotiate with publishers on your behalf if they like what they see.

“That 10,000 words really has to be pretty stellar and it can’t be different sections of the book. It has to be the first 10,000 words so we know exactly what we’re getting,” says Oldfield. He also urges potential authors to think about whether they can go the extra distance to finish a full manuscript.

“A lot of the time people can write a great 10,000 words but you have to ask yourself, ‘can I write 80 to 100,000 words on this topic?’ because a lot of good non-fiction ideas that people think should be made into a book really should be turned into articles.”

When it comes to writing non fiction, Oldfield adds: “A writer has to find their voice and it has to be a lively voice as well. It’s all very well giving facts and figures but you have to be able to express these things in a lively and accessible way.”

And while writing a book will help to boost your profile, it helps to have one in the first place in order to get published. Lloyd says: “Publishers are going to be more interested in a non-fiction writer that has some kind of established platform and that could be anything from a strong Twitter following to being published in mainstream journals.”

While Oldfield says it is impossible to specify particular genres and topics publishers are currently interested in, late last year Lloyd posted a list on her blog that has seen her inundated by budding writers. Non fiction is in huge demand, she says, as is “farm lit” and memoirs with a strong hook.

The industry boasts numerous authors. From the PR world Roxy Jacenko made the move into chick lit putting her name to Strictly Confidential as did ex-Cleo editor Gemma Crisp who launched Be Careful What You Wish For last year. The Newspaper Works’ Mark Hollands recently penned a thriller, one time adman Nigel Marsh’s book Fat Forty Fired is being adapted for a US TV series, while John Steele’s The Art of the Pitch is a title of enduring authority.

As for the authors Encore spoke to, there are more books in the offing. Barron would like to write another book but says: “Because it is something of a labour of love, you need to have the passion and the interest and the opportunity and the offer of somebody to say ‘this is something we think would be worth writing a book about’.”

Merrill’s second book, Muddle Your Way Through Fatherhood, goes on sale next month while Law says he has at least three more books up his sleeve.

“Writing a book is deeply, deeply rewarding,” he says.

“There’s a sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing you’ve produced this book-length work. It’s coupled with such anxiety and horror as well and most of the writers I know, they receive their book in the mail all bound and it’s not that ‘pop open the champagne’ moment. It’s just like ‘oh my god, what have I done?’ It’s like giving birth.”

Clearly book writing is not for the faint hearted and agent Lloyd says: “You’ve got to be a little bit mad because there are plenty of other things you can do with your time that are going to generate more revenue.”

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

The post Got a book in you? appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

In an article that first appeared in Encore, Chris Savage tackles your career and agency dilemmas in his weekly advice column.

Hi Chris,

My clients seem to be demanding more and more from us. At the same time, it seems many of the younger people in our industry simply don’t have the client servicing skills my generation grew up with. How do we instill in our executives some of the good old-fashioned behaviours that would keep a client happy and loyal?

Bloody difficult issue. Fact is, winning clients is far easier than keeping them. Chuck Porter, the founder of iconic agency Crispin Porter Bogusky, told the 2010 Cannes Creativity Festival his secret to building a great agency – hire client ninjas: talented executives who live and breathe delivering outstanding service and value to the client.

Sadly, there are not too many client service ninjas around so we have to create them. At STW Group, we are relentless in training our people on the absolute critical imperative of delivering world-class service. Here are the 10 vital habits of client service excellence we instill in our people, many of which stem from the writings of David Ogilvy.

These are not secrets. They are obvious and common sense. The trick is actually making them happen every day for every client.

Do great work in a proactive way. Deliver great work that delivers results and exceeds expectations. And do it proactively. Take ideas to the client. Be one step ahead. Clients want us to be delivering what’s now, but also anticipating what’s next.

Stick to your deadlines. Do what you say you will do and communicate early if you won’t deliver on a promise. Under promise and over deliver.

Get the details right. Cameron Hall, Australian NutraSweet CEO in the late 1980s, hammered me on God being in the detail. Bill Marsteller, a founder of Burson-Marsteller, described excellence as “clarity of purpose; attention to detail”. Sweat the detail.

Never tell the client a lie. Never lie, though as in life, it is okay to sensibly manage perceptions on occasion.

Know their business. When clients stop working with us, 82 per cent of the time it’s because we don’t know their business well enough. Get deep. Get passionate. Keep in the trenches of their business. Get in their shoes and stay there.

Listen like thieves. Listen with your eyes. When you’re talking, the client is critiquing. When the client is talking, you’re selling.

Write well. Enough said.

Have respect. Respect clients’ time and their culture. Use the client’s products. Don’t let the client disrespect you or your colleagues.

Be positive. Be a ray of sunshine in clients’ lives. Be the bringer of hope. Be optimistic. Be ‘can do’. Be honest and tell the truth but always focus on the solutions and positive options to move forward.

Make it fun. The relationship needs to be an exciting, colourful, interesting, fun part of our client’s work lives. Make it that and keep it that way.

Consistently deliver great client service, underpinned by great work that works. Do that and you will have long, growing, highly profitable and enjoyable client relationships for years to come.

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

The post Savage counsel appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

From dressing the part to playing the gatekeeper, Leo Burnett Sydney’s Susie Henry tells us how to make it as the face of adland in a piece that first appeared in Encore.

What does a receptionist in an ad agency actually do?

Well, there’s the frantic every-day, all-day stuff of deliveries, courier bookings, doing expenses for directors – always challenging – plus arranging all the travel. But one of my main jobs is counselling the account service people. I also keep up with all sports information to discuss with our sports-loving clients – because who wants to be bored while they’re waiting? And I know how they like their coffee. You need to know everyone – from accounting to HR. I’m also the go-to for all catering and sending flowers.

Who do you need to know in order to do the job?

I need to know a lot of people in the Publicis Groupe network around the world. I’m lucky, having been here for 28.3 years, that I have developed those relationships.

Is there any lingo you need to know to do the job?

You need to stay on top of what’s happening in advertising − in all media − and what the media is saying about the media and advertising, not just your agency but about the competitors because visitors and your colleagues ask questions all the time.

What is the dress code?

I do have fun here: frocks, shoes and major jewellery.

What is a typical day like?

Making it happen: greeting clients, making sure their meetings are booked and everyone is prepared. Mostly I try to make coming into this agency a pleasure for all who do – and that includes staff, clients and delivery boys.

What’s the secret to getting the most out of your job?

My happiness is greeting people, making them feel welcome and relaxed. If there is a secret, it’s being genuine. I enjoy what I do, and I think that shows.

Often you are called upon to be the ‘gatekeeper’. How do you do so tactfully?

I am very diplomatic, yet firm. I don’t like to disillusion people or be disrespectful, as you never know when you might cross paths again.

What’s the secret to making this a fulfilling career and not just a stepping stone to another position in the business? 

Again, I think you have to have a genuine interest in what you’re doing right now. This is a fulfilling career. I’ve held bigger jobs in advertising – but not necessarily more enjoyable. I’m doing my job as long as I make it enjoyable for anyone and everyone who comes into our agency.

What’s the greatest challenge? 

Greatest challenge is to make sure everything in reception flows smoothly for everyone. Working with these young kids is a daily excitement that I love and I couldn’t imagine life without working with them.

What’s the most fun part of the job?

We have hot actors, voice over guys and young people wanting to get into advertising and they are all enthusiastic and excited about advertising. The fun part of the job is that every second there is something new happening.

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

The post Fake it til’ you make it… as an ad agency receptionist appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

Most journalists lean left-of-centre, says Folker Hanusch of the University of the Sunshine Coast, in a post first published on The Conversation.

Most Australian journalists describe themselves as left-wing, yet amongst those who wield the real power in the country’s newsrooms, the Coalition holds a winning lead.

But while the media’s political leanings will no doubt be debated in the lead-up to September’s federal election, our study has also found other largely unscrutinised biases remain – particularly whose views disproportionately shape the news.

Conducted between May 2012 and March this year, the University of the Sunshine Coast’s representative survey of 605 journalists around Australia found that more than half (51.0%) describe themselves as holding left-of-centre political views, compared with only 12.9% who consider themselves right-of-centre.

It is the first study of its kind in more than 20 years to involve such a large number of journalists, and follows on from the work of John Henningham in the early 1990s.

Our survey was conducted by telephone with carefully selected journalists from newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, online news sites and news agency AAP, as a sample of the 8000 to 10,000 journalists in Australia today.

When asked about their voting intentions, less than two-thirds of the journalists we surveyed revealed their voting intention. Of those 372 people, 43.0% said they would give their first preference vote to Labor; 30.2% would vote for the Coalition; and 19.4% said they would choose the Greens – about twice the Australian average.

Media bosses more in sync with voters

Yet, among those who arguably matter most – the journalists in senior editorial ranks who have the most power to decide news agendas – a dramatically different picture emerged.

Among the 83 senior editors who took part in the survey, the Coalition was the party of choice on 43.2%, followed by Labor (34.1%) and the Greens (11.4%).

This suggests that Australia’s media bosses are more in line with the broader electorate, at least according to recent Newspoll results.

It is important to note that there is little research showing that journalists’ personal political biases affect their work.

When asked in this survey about a range of influences on their work, many journalists said their superiors have a much stronger influence than their personal values and beliefs.

Aunty leans to the Greens

An interesting finding emerged when we compare journalists from the three biggest news organisations in the country – News Limited, Fairfax Media and the ABC.

The national broadcaster has repeatedly been attacked for having a seemingly leftist bias, while others have accused News Limited – and particularly its flagship newspaper The Australian – of being overly conservative in its political views.

At first glance, the findings do not support this assumption, with no significant differences in the way journalists from the ABC and News rate their political views on a scale of 0 (left) to 10 (right).

However, 41.2% of the 34 ABC journalists who declared a voting intention said they would vote for the Greens, followed by 32.4% for Labor and 14.7% for the Coalition.

In contrast, 46.5% of 86 News Limited journalists who answered this question said they would vote for Labor, 26.7% for the Coalition, and only 19.8% for the Greens. As well as The Australian, the News stable includes some of the country’s best-selling tabloids such as the Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Courier-Mail, Northern Territory News and the Adelaide Advertiser, and some suburban newspapers.

Among the 86 Fairfax Media journalists who responded, Labor was by far the most popular party at 54.7% support, followed by the Coalition and the Greens, both on 19.8%. The Fairfax journalists came from outlets including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times, a range of regional and suburban newspapers, and metropolitan radio stations.

If we disregard the 42.8% of journalists who are undecided, refused to answer or would vote for a party or candidate other than the major three, this is a statistically significant result.

It means that even though only a smaller number of journalists answered the voting intentions, which does increase the margin of error, it is still reasonable to conclude that there is a marked difference between the voting intentions of journalists at the three major media organisations.

Australian stories that go untold

Where in the country journalists work also seems to make a major difference. Journalists at metropolitan news media are significantly more left-wing in their political views. Labor would receive 52.6% of the metropolitan journalist vote, while in regional areas, 44.4% would vote for the Coalition.

Our study also found that while journalists recognise their own political biases, they may be less aware of their cultural bias.

An overwhelming majority of journalists in this country still come from a white, Anglo-Saxon background, with minorities very few and far between in mainstream journalism.

Three out of four journalists give their ethnicity as at least partly Anglo-Saxon. Only 4.7% said they have an Asian or Middle Eastern background, which is around half of what it should be to reflect the make-up of the Australian population.

Journalists identifying as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders representing just 1.8% of Australian journalists – again, disproportionately lower than the 2.5% of Australians with an Indigenous background.

This is further evidence to support the argument that Australian journalists’ worldviews and cultural backgrounds are still not representative of the general population.

And it is an aspect that many argue is reflected in Australian media reporting of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues, as well as in stories related to race and ethnicity.

Note: This research has been accepted for publication in the June edition of the Australian Journalism Review. The margin of error for the entire study sample is 4%. Sub-samples of journalists’ responses to some questions – such as voting intentions – are likely to have a higher margin error, however, appropriate statistical methods were used in testing for differences between sub-samples to take account of the smaller sample sizes. The survey response rate was 89.5%.

Folker Hanusch is a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of the Sunshine Coast. This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Government funding bodies are lazy and decadent, says industry veteran Michael Thornhill but in a piece that first appeared in Encore, Ed Gibbs begs to differ.

I vividly remember the time I first saw Animal Kingdom, David Michod’s breathtaking labour-of-love feature debut. The press screening was half empty, despite the film winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance just months earlier, in 2010. Yet its superb performances, stylistic flourishes and overall polish left me speechless. Could this really be a feature debut, an Australian one at that, I wondered, almost out loud? It seemed too good to be true.

I had a similar response when viewing Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown the following year and, just a few weeks ago, Kim Mordaunt’s beautiful feature, The Rocket. Like Warwick Thornton’s Cannes-winning Samson and Delilah before it, all these films point to a screen agency culture backing a fresh breed of film-makers (albeit ones well honed, in their thirties and forties).

The world has duly taken note.

I was puzzled, then, at last month’s Australian Directors Guild Awards dinner, to hear industry veteran Michael Thornhill sound off on the “sickness” that prevails in modern cinematic funding bodies. The former head of Screen NSW, a respected writer, director and producer in his own right (and a former critic to boot), claimed that TV writers are being hired to assess cinematic projects, and it shows. The room awkwardly applauded. Many were incensed.

When I spoke to Thornhill last week, he stood by what he said (although he refused to comment further on his blatant attack on Packed to the Rafters and A Place to Call Home creator Bevan Lee). He claimed Australia is “a philistine culture”, where “art and aesthetics and ideas” are not celebrated as they should be. He was dismissive of Animal Kingdom as merely “a vehicle for its director” and Jacki Weaver to flourish. He hadn’t even bothered to see Snowtown. Australia, he said, is making “DVD movies”, not cinematic ones.

In a modern, multi-platform industry, where fragmented markets offer challenges and opportunities in their own right, the wistful days of the New Wave – where the likes of Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford and Phillip Noyce flourished (as did Thornhill, to some extent) – are long gone. The world has changed. And so must its creatives.

I am unaware of the knock-backs Thornhill has had in recent years. He wouldn’t tell me, although he did brand the industry as “youth-orientated” and ageist. One of his best-known films, though, The FJ Holden, has been reborn on DVD, courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment.

Government-funded agencies exist for a very good reason. Unlike, say the US, we have the luxury of having them to ensure a local film industry can exist, even flourish. What we do need is to foster young blood – in writing, directing and producing – with more initiatives like Screen Australia’s Springboard and its Opening Shot scheme with the ABC. If there’s a “sickness” affecting the industry, it’s the lack of emerging voices coming through, particularly those aged 25 and under. Film and television crossed over long ago (take a bow, HBO). It’s high time we fostered a new New Wave.

Ed Gibbs is a film critic, journalist, broadcaster and curator based in Sydney.

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

The post It’s time for a new New Wave in the film world appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

Life is sweet for freelance writer Max Kitchen, but in a feature that first appeared in Encore, he admits his struggle against returning to the agency fold.

I’ve never taken heroin. But I suspect if I had, the temptation to try it again would not be too dissimilar to the lure of returning to agency life.

Let me explain.

After 15 years of abusing my body, mind and the odd suit along the way, I‘ve finally left adland (for now) and decided to go it alone.

And I’m happy to say I’ve been ‘clean’ for nearly three months.

Of course, going ‘cold turkey’ comes with its own challenges. There’s the sweats brought on by a late-paying client, the general feeling of nausea induced by the thought of tax returns, not to mention the sleepless nights that come with the unpredictability of irregular work.

But here’s the thing.

I feel more liberated than I ever have, I love being answerable to only myself, and I’m positively buzzing at the thought of what the next 24 hours will bring.

Despite all this, there’s something that keeps bothering me.

It’s a monkey on my back, whispering in my ear, most often when I’m chasing an invoice, writing my own client brief (again) or reacquainting myself with the dark arts of expense management.

It goes something like this: “C’mon Max… what have you got to lose… guaranteed salary every month… super thrown in… good social life… free post-it notes… no chasing clients… no finances to manage… just one more hit… you know you want to man.”

Believe me, the temptation to ‘chase the dragon’ one more time is immense. But, much like falling off the wagon, I know it’s the easy option.

If I’m going to have any chance of beating this ‘thing’, my first step to recovery is recognising I have an agency dependency; and that for the last 15 years, what got me out of bed was searching for that next creative ‘fix’. In those early days as a junior writer in London I was driven by a desire to surpass the rush I experienced when my first ever idea got up.

Truth is, the industry is changing at a million miles an hour, and based on today’s commercial realities, the search for creative euphoria has become ever more elusive.

I believe it’s been made all the more difficult with the emergence of ‘low-grade’ briefs made from a cocktail of bad propositions and poor research, mixed in with creatives that just aren’t up to the task. Don’t get me wrong, there are  some very talented creatives out there.

But as we all know, once the quality of our creative product starts to diminish, so does demand – particularly from clients who continue to expect more bang for their buck.

As the saying goes, “once an addict, always an addict”, and I have no doubt that the pull to return to the life of an ‘agencyholic’ will always be there.

But for now, -the time feels right to flush out the toxins of agency past and focus on the launch of agency me. I reckon it’s the only way I’ll last the course without ‘relapsing’.

Sure, my day plays to a different rhythm now. No longer the regularity of nine to six.

I have to react when my clients need me, which means I’m often up way past midnight, tweaking a TV script or polishing an SEO report. But hey, I don’t have to do timesheets anymore AND I get to write in my underpants.

Now the rush doesn’t get much better than that.

Max Kitchen is a freelance copywriter, aka The Sydney Copywriter.

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

The post Going cold turkey on an agency addiction appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

First there was the Grand Prix. Next came the reported $500m bid for cricket rights, then Ten secured the 2014 winter Olympics. So, can sport save the ailing network? In a feature that first appeared in Encore, Nic Christensen investigates.

The television sports rights bidding process is a bit like a game of poker.

Check, fold or bet. Those were the options for the Ten Network last week when it had to finalise its bid for the cricket rights.

While many had expected the struggling network to raise the bet and challenge the incumbent Nine Network, few insiders tipped Ten’s new CEO Hamish McLennan to go all in with a reported $500m bid, over five years, aimed at prising one of Australia’s most beloved sports away from the network where it has been for 32 years.

The size of Ten’s gamble surprised many media buyers. While few are willing to speak on the record about the bid, a number expressed concerns about the amount of money involved and the overall strategy behind chasing a summer sport that plays out largely during a non-ratings period.

“It’s a fuckload of money,” says a senior media buyer.

“And when you’ve just done two capital raisings that have not even covered the price of the bid, you have to wonder what they’re thinking.”

“Yes, it’s an expensive gamble and it’s very difficult to know how much they have to spend,” says another senior media agency executive.

“They have some key investors who have fairly deep pockets but how deep those pockets will go in order to keep the station alive and bring it back to what it once was is really the question.”

“The cricket alone won’t secure the long-term health of the network.”

Sources close to the Ten bid have disputed the reported $500m figure suggesting it is far more complicated with the deal including a contra agreement, perhaps as high as 50 per cent if the network is successful, that would see Cricket Australia given a significant amount of airtime to on-sell in lieu of cash.

But even with such a contra deal, TV insiders say the bid dramatically eclipses the estimated $45m that Nine currently pays for its seven year rights deal and that if Ten is successful in winning the sport, the network could lose as much as $40m a year.

Sources at Nine say it’s a 50/50 bet whether they will enter the fray and try to counter Ten’s bid. And while Nine might well be smarting at potentially losing an important franchise, the network certainly can’t say it wasn’t warned.

From the moment he took the role, Ten’s new CEO Hamish McLennan made it clear he felt the network needed a better hand if it was to improve its lacklustre ratings. In an interview with The Australian Financial Review in February, days into the job, McLennan spoke about the network’s need to “build some momentum”. He also flagged the network’s interest in what has been a mainstay of the Nine lineup for three decades telling the paper: “Cricket’s a valuable property. We will certainly consider it. It comes down to securing those rights at an appropriate price.”

At the time, many in the industry wondered if this wasn’t just bravado but McLennan also signalled to The Australian that he would soon commence a sports spending spree when he told the newspaper that “cricket is the priority for now” and that tennis and Olympics rights were also of interest.

Fast forward three months to this week when the network made its first acquisition, confirming it will broadcast the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. McLennan is believed to have spent around $20m to secure the rights although the network disputes this figure, with a spokesman for Ten describing much of the commentary around the Winter Olympics bid as “wrong and ill-informed”.

But in trumpeting the win, McLennan said: “We are delighted that Ten will be Australia’s Olympics network in 2014. The agreement with the IOC delivers on our strategy to increase our investment in premium sport. We are also confident that Australian viewers and advertisers will embrace our coverage.”

This viewpoint is shared by his chief operating officer Jon Marquard who, in an interview with Encore, was asked whether the Ten network could handle a sport or two and joked “or even three”, signalling the network’s broader intentions. While Ten currently holds the rights to the Formula One Grand Prix and MotoGP, it does not currently have a hand in any of the broader franchises such as NRL, AFL or cricket.

With cricket negotiations ongoing, Marquard is contractually prevented from discussing the network’s bid for the sport but agreed to speak about its broader strategy.

“Sport is very important. As you know we bid very aggressively for the NRL rights,” he says. “But certainly under Hamish there has been a renewed interest in it and that just happens to coincide with some premium rights that have become available.”

While there has been much commentary and speculation on the Ten sports strategy, especially around the cricket bid, Marquard is coy about suggestions that sport will be a loss leader for the network.

He told Encore: “We don’t talk about the individual economics of any particular sports deal but like every investment we make, (sport) will be well measured and thought through.”

This perspective isn’t shared by media analyst Steve Allen who questions how any network can make money after paying the price tag being touted in media reports especially when cricket is thought to bring in around $60m per year in advertising revenue and cost around $10m to $20m to produce.

“I don’t think either Nine or Ten can make money from it at that price. Nine is in a better position to make money from it, and that’s not to discredit the Ten sales team, but Nine has a very long history with cricket and it’s been a premium product for them for 20 years,” he says. “If Ten gets the rights they are going to have to build it from the ground up. Nine are not going to help Ten whatsoever and most of the media buyers and sponsors aren’t going to give Ten an easy time. Therefore some of the premium is going to disappear if it does change telecasters.”

Marquard says the network is confident it can maintain the premium on any successful sports bid and says its shifting focus is about broadening the target demographic.

“We have to consider why sport is important. It’s one of those things that has broad demographic appeal across the country,” says Marquard.

“While sport tends to have a slightly male skew, good sport − premium sport − appeals to all demographics.”

And it’s this demographic question that appeals to the country’s media buyers. Ten has traditionally pursued a younger audience of 16 to 39-year-olds but is now trying to broaden this to a wider 18 to 49 audience, in part to make up for the loss of younger viewers to competing platforms such as online.

CEO of media agency UM Mat Baxter says it is clear that Ten is focusing less on a youth audience and broadening their appeal in the marketplace.

“Does cricket help do that?” asks Baxter. “Yes it does because cricket has an enormously wide appeal from an age standpoint.” This view is shared by Zenith Optimedia CEO Ian Perrin who says Ten’s cricket bid needs to be viewed in the broader spectrum of the network’s programming. “They need to connect with more Australians than they have historically and therefore they need to look for programming that will bring in more demographics than they currently are,” says Perrin.

“They will certainly reach a lot more people but whether they become too old, that is the question.”

PART OF THE STRATEGY

Alex Pekish, group media investment director at Aegis Media, says sport is likely to be part of a wider strategy. “Different forms of the cricket appeal to different demographics,” he says.

“What cricket will do is allow Ten to promote their schedule to a broader audience.” This strategy worked brilliantly for Nine which launched Celebrity Apprentice off the back of the 2012 Summer Olympics. The so-called ‘halo effect’ is clearly in the forefront of Ten executives’ minds.

COO Marquard says: “Good sport will attract even casual viewers because people want to know about it. It is part of the Australian fabric and that is why networks do what they do. We try and cater our programming to appeal to a broad base.”

However, there are cynics who question whether Ten has the content to cross promote if it does pick up a major sports franchise such as cricket.

One television insider told Encore: “Right now they haven’t got anything to promote. What are they going to promote, the News at Five? They can’t − they’ll have the cricket at five.”

Another industry figure says depending on the size of the sports rights investment, “they could soon come to regret it” with the outlay potentially crippling any further spend on the network’s other programming.

Media buyers are also concerned. One media agency CEO says: “I reckon if you’re going in at $500m (for the cricket) you’d have to have a billion total to be able to do the job you need to do.”

“Whether they’re tapping up Gina, Lachlan and co. I don’t know but they are going to need more cash to make this work,” says another media buyer.

Ten’s chief operating officer insists the network is committed to having a breadth of programming to promote. “Absolutely, the strategy is not just about sport. While sport is an integral part of any network’s programming, it can’t be the only thing. You have to make investments elsewhere,” says Marquard.

“Last week we announced The Bachelor and that has been incredibly well received. That will be the first of a number of other programming initiatives that the network will announce in due course,” he adds.

WILL NINE LET GO?

Ultimately, Ten’s fate is in Nine’s hands and it depends on whether the network is willing to let go of a franchise it has held for more than 30 years.

Sources have told Encore that Nine executives are genuinely undecided about whether to counter McLennan’s bid. Nine bigwigs are also conscious that Ten’s strategy may be a diversionary tactic with the aim of gaining the advantage in other sports negotiations down the track.

Another complication is legal action launched by Cricket Australia against Nine in the Victorian Supreme Court last week. While the exact nature of the action is confidential, Encore understands the sports body is seeking clarification on whether Nine’s last rights clause, which allows them to see and match a competitor’s bid, applies to the domestic cricket and in particular the Big Bash League, which launched after Nine’s seven-year contract began.

Last week Nine managing director Jeff Browne commented to Encore’s sister publication Mumbrella: “We have a 32-year relationship with Cricket Australia and I’m very confident that we will be able to resolve any issues between us sensibly and through direct discussion.”

Privately, Nine executives are disappointed with the Cricket Australia court action although the network fiercely disputes media reports that Browne and Nine CEO David Gyngell threatened to sue the sports body to prevent them taking the test and one-day international matches to Ten.

Ten’s all-in bid has raised the stakes and makes it far less likely there could be a deal between the networks where Nine retains the rights to the international forms of the game while Ten takes the domestic matches and Big Bash League.

Adam Hodge, strategy director at Octagon Australasia, a leading sports and entertainment marketing company, believes a focus on the Big Bash could certainly work for Ten.

“Big Bash is definitely a younger form of the game from a fan’s point of view,” says Hodge. “Based on my understanding of Ten’s audience, I would say yes. They have always pitched themselves as having a younger demographic and being proud of that. It could definitely work for them.”

Ten’s Marquard refuses to discuss anything to do with the cricket but does hint that the broader appeal of Big Bash is on their agenda.

“(We’re interested in) sports that have worked to broaden their appeal among families and women, whether that’s cricket, AFL, NRL or rugby. All the majors have done that assiduously,” he says.

“What we see for sport is something that appeals not only to a very targeted niche audience but something that appeals across the board.”

Were the two free-to-air networks to strike such a deal it would lock out pay-tv provider Fox Sports which has worked to build the Big Bash over the last two years. Fox Sports declined to be interviewed for this piece.

Nine has until early June to decide if it will match Ten’s bid for one of Australia’s most beloved sports and what is unclear is whether it will bet or fold.

“Everything is up for grabs,” says one media buyer. “We’ll just have to see where the chips fall.”

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

The post Can sport save Ten? appeared first on mUmBRELLA.

It was immediately clear that Australia was about to meet an interesting marketer, one who blogged and tweeted and thanks to his time at Dell in the US was digitally savvy. Even two years ago, that was a big deal. The fact that he also had a stint in public relations gave him an absolutely intriguing background before he even arrived.

After the iconoclastic Mark Buckman who had moved to Telstra, CBA, it seemed, was about to be run by another charismatic marketer, albeit a very different one.

And it was true. The last two years have seen Lark roar through. The ending of the controversial tenure of the San Francisco based lead creative agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the ditching of BMF, the move to the new position of “Can”, created by M&C Saatchi and fronted by Toni Collette . Media agency Ikon takes great credit for staying on board the bucking bronco.

I should declare an interest though. Sometimes when you ask trade journalists whether someone is “good” at their job, the answer is based on the filter of whether they are good for copy.

In which case, the answer is an emphatic yes.

I suspect that there has never been a marketer in Australia who has had more written about them by the trade press in the space of two years.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Lark unashamedly sees part of his role as having a profile and coming out and explaining. As he puts it, he is the cheerleader for a much bigger team.

Clearly, I’ve a bias here, because I suspect he’s been on stage at more of our events than anyone apart from Darren Woolley. The reason we kept inviting him back (and he’s on a couple of sessions at Mumbrella360 next month that we haven’t announced yet) is because he speaks entertainingly and persuasively about marketing and personnel issues. You only have to watch the hashtag on Twitter as he speaks – people always end up talking about wanting to work for him.

It’s a real contrast. I’ll be honest, if you were to ask me the name of the marketing director of ANZ bank, I’d have to look it up.

Lark also has his detractors. One marketer described him to me as a “loudmouth”. And slip ups. It was under his watch – if not his fault – that the company had its Olympics backpack bomb misstep. It also says a lot about his not taking criticism personally that he carried on talking to us after that one – I went quite hard, it’s far to say.

For the marketing industry in Australia, I think Lark has been a good thing. He’s raised visibility for a group of people who at times can be too internal looking.

He’s also been willing to do things differently. The launch of The Messenger Collective (now the Renegade Collective) magazine in part came about because Lark was willing to treat some of his marketing budget as a media innovation fund. It’s not many CMOs who get thanked in a magazine editor’s launch speech.

I’m sure Lark will end up in another interesting role when the notice period is over. And hopefully it will still be in Australia.

He’s been good for the promotion of marketing as a discipline, and an interesting one at that.

He’s too entertaining to give back to the Americans.

Tim Burrowes

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This week Mumbrella’s Nic Christensen, who began his career four years ago, gave the keynote address to would-be journalists at the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance’s Student Day. This is an edited version of his speech.

Good afternoon, I can remember distinctly the last time I was in this room.

It was 2009 and I was sitting where you are. I’d come to this event, a friend and myself — from memory we sat up the back — and I can remember at the time wondering if I’d ever get a job as a journalist.

It was only four years ago and then as now getting a job was ultra competitive but I’m not sure there was quite as much media ‘doom and gloom’ as there is now…

There are times when it feels as though my job as a media and marketing writer is to chart the decline of the mainstream media.

Just last week I had do a feature for Encore Magazine – Mumbrella’s tablet-based sister publication – on the topic of: is this the worst time in Australian history to be a journalist?

You’ll be pleased to hear that the answers I got weren’t a simplistic yes. But rather varied somewhere between a ‘no’ and or ‘it depends’ on where you work…

Certainly if you were a journalist in the so-called “mainstream media” it hasn’t been a great year. Up to 1,200 reporters have been made redundant, in just 12 months…

An estimated 380-400 from Fairfax, probably more than 500 from News Limited, 80-100 from Channel Ten and the rest coming from magazines such as Grazia, Madison and other smaller publications…

As the mainstream media seeks to cut costs these redundancies are very likely to have an impact on the number of entry level jobs available to the thousands of journalism students coming out of Australia’s universities.

Indeed it’s one of the ironies of the modern media that while the industry faces some major structural problems — declining revenues, a failing business model and the challenge of completely reinventing itself in the digital era — journalism as a career has never been more popular.

According to the Department of Innovation, in the last ten years the total number of people enrolled in journalism courses has risen from just over 3,013 in 2001 to 4,750 in 2010.

While not all of the people who study journalism want to be journalists… many do. And the reality is that there are not enough jobs for all of the graduates wanting to enter the profession.

But I assume if you’re here today then the thought of becoming a journalist has at least crossed your mind.

What I want to do in the next half an hour is to unpack some ideas about how to get a get your foot in the door, how doing this will make you a better journalist and will hopefully also lead to a job…

I guess if I was to sum up this talk I want to say that despite the difficulties — and there will be plenty — you can storm the barricades that most media outlets put up… but you have to want it, and you have to persevere.

For me back in 2009 I was a politics geek who after four years studying political science at UNSW had decided that I wasn’t really suited to working in government.

I decided to give journalism a go…

And over the four years I’ve had the chance to traverse the 21st Century media landscape… working first as a producer for Radio 2GB, then a tabloid reporter for The Daily Telegraph before being approached by The Australian to run a video/online series and then to work as a media writer, where I also had to help run the online media newsdesk.

Earlier this year I made the move from the “mainstream media” to a website that is somewhere between a “blog” and one of the country’s leading media and marketing news websites Mumbrella and its sister publication Encore Magazine.

And to be honest the job I have now is a world away from the job I thought I’d have… or I guess the one I pictured myself having…  but I love writing about the changing media landscape… even though it does have its fair share of doom and gloom.

Every day I get to cover everything from newspapers and online, to marketing, digital and the world of public relations. I see my work regularly picked up by the mainstream and it’s a really interesting space that feels like it is on the crest of this information / digitisation wave that is currently transforming the media landscape.

Getting your foot in the door

But I’m conscious that none of this is would have happened if it wasn’t for a chance encounter four years ago. Throughout my university years I’d put myself through my arts degree by working at a Telstra shop in the city and there was this one day when I was serving a customer whose face just looked familiar.

After my undergraduate degree I’d signed up for the postgraduate journalism course at UTS and as those of you from UTS will know there’s a strong emphasis there on not only doing university internships but also creating your own internships / opportunities.

Morrison

With this in the back of my head I soon figured it out that the guy with a familiar face was 2GB’s then Drive Presenter Jason Morrison who at the time was the regular fill in for Alan Jones.

Stupidly upon figuring out who he was I said to him “you’re the Alan Jones fill-in right?” A quick tip: when trying to get an internship it’s best not to insult them by highlighting that they’re someone else’s fill-in.

Anyway it didn’t take long to a) sell him a phone  b) sell him on why I should be his intern. Don’t get me wrong this wasn’t a proper gig… this was just for me to come in and see one show.

After a bit of haranguing I came in and did that one show and while I was there I made myself useful. I made coffee, did research, even booked interviews and monitored the wires.

By the end of the show — and remember it was only the one show — I was able to sell Jason and his producers on letting me come in every Wednesday.

And that’s what I did.

Every Wednesday — like clockwork — I’d come in and it didn’t take long for them to expect me and have work ready for me… Now don’t get me wrong, none of this was glamorous stuff – it was mainly looking for stories in local papers, and writing the scripts no-one else wanted to write.

But looking back I realise that I learnt so much over the course of those first six months and that’s why you do these unpaid internships.

To learn and to build your CV.

Now of course university marks are important and you should also push to get your work published as a freelancer… but in the end the question that people in the media industry often ask is: where have you worked?

And one thing that happened for me is that eventually I started to be asked to do shifts and it was at this point I had to explain to them that no-one had actually hired me…

I was just there but I had a foot firmly in the door.

Absorbing from the newsroom 

Anyway after learning to answer the talkback lines I was able to convince the program director to give me a job.

And for the next couple of years I would work across all the shows — Hadley, Jones, Drive, midnight to dawns, weekends – everything – and I kept learning and absorbing.

A friend of mine recently described this process as “being a sponge” – it’s incredibly important to put yourself in a different situation where you can pick up so much.

In my case I was also careful not to just get radio experience.

Today’s journalist needs to be a multimedia journalist across all media and while I loved radio I knew I had to try my hand at a bit of everything…

Looking back, while I was a casual producer at 2GB, I did work experience everywhere – local papers, community radio at 2SER, The Punch, the ABC, The Herald, The Daily Telegraph, The Australian. I did a bit of everything/everywhere and what I soon found is that I liked and was good at “print journalism”.

In my case I got real experience because the Herald picked up a piece that I did for uni and I was able to work in their newsroom with some of their most senior reporters on getting that story published.

That story, which outed businessman Chau Chak Wing as Australia’s largest foreign donor, saw me win the student journalist of the year award, but it was not important to me for that… it was important because the process and working with senior journalists Deborah Snow and John Garnaut, I learnt a lot from them in a short amount of time and that inspired and helped make me into a journalist.

In the end, it’s the practice of journalism that makes you a journalist and it really doesn’t matter where you do it as long as you are learning as you go.

In my case I really learnt to be a journalist while interning at the Daily Telegraph…

From my first day I’d promised myself I’d pitch to the newsdesk every day and make the most of the opportunity. After two months as an intern I was fortunate to be offered a job as a casual reporter on the Telegraph.

Paying your dues 

It was the most interesting 12 months of my life, the life of a tabloid reporter means one minute you can be doing vox pops, the next you’re at a crime scene or a press conference, covering the story of the day.

As the junior reporter on the paper most of the time you get the worst jobs… night shifts, dawn shifts, the assignments no-one else wants – from memory the worst assignment I got was the day they sent me to Santa School.

But if you embrace the ‘shit kicker’ work then it will be noticed.

The best example I can give of this is that not long after getting a job on the paper I was given the ‘Something To Talk About’ section which was essentially a super vox pop.

I assume most of you know what a vox pop is. But the ‘Something To Talk About’ section required me to get 12-16 people in the one photo, each with a comment, a head shot and it ran as a full page in the Monday paper.

If one person in the scene said no, it was off and I have to tell you it was like herding cats – only the cats were unsuspecting bystanders going about their business in Sydney’s streets.  I distinctly remember failing the first couple of times I had to do this assignment. I felt like the worst journalist in the world…

But I eventually learnt how to do it and I actually made the section look good…  and rather than being a ‘shit task’ we started doing photo shoots at the aquarium, centrepoint, at interesting places that made it more than just a giant vox pop.

The significance of this is not the photos… in the end they were always a difficult and somewhat thankless task but the newsdesk saw I could take whatever they threw at me and that was important.

Also in journalism there is an expectation that you will “pay your dues”. Whether it’s midnight to dawn on talkback or doing a Friday night shift at the Telegraph, like any junior reporter I had to show a willingness to do what was asked because it’s only by doing that that you earn the respect of your editors.

Making connections & opportunities

I should also mention here that you need to get to know the senior journalists and editors in your newsroom. Don’t be shy. They were you once – most of them love giving advice – and if you’re scared of them you won’t get their respect.

Newsrooms are not places for shrinking violets.

I would also encourage you to make friends with your classmates and the young reporters in your newsrooms. It’s often about who you know and not what you know and I’ve been helped and been able to help a number of friends over the last couple of years.

In the end though, it was while paying my dues at the Telegraph that I got offered a great opportunity by The Australian to come downstairs and run my own project – a video online series.

As a print journo/radio producer the challenge of running a video online series was daunting, but if there’s one thing I’ve discovered over the last four years it’s that you sometimes have to jump in the deep end to learn how to swim.

And I really wanted to learn video and online – multimedia is important. For the first six months at The Oz, I got to work with a film crew and web team, we built a microsite and did a video documentary looking at what Australia and New Zealand would look like in 100 years.

It was one of the most interesting projects any journalist could ask to work on and I was offered it because one of the senior editors at The Oz liked some freelance work I’d done for him and because they knew my work at the Telegraph.

In the end you never know when opportunities will come you way but you have to seek them out and you have to build connections with everyone.

The new media world 

After the video project finished up I was asked to join the Media section and help out while the online media editor was on maternity leave.

For much of 2011 and 2012 I made sure the online desk of the media section was current / up to date and had the latest breaking stories.

I also got the chance to carve out my own beat… now to be clear, in a busy newsroom it’s very unlikely that people will come up and ask you what you want to cover. But if you consistently pitch things in a particular area you can often carve out your own niche.

In my case, I carved out a space covering digital and in particular social media. At first my editors weren’t that interested but over time their attitudes changed and I saw my stories move from page 9, to page 6 to page 3.

In the end, the most valuable part of my time at The Australian was working online and seeing how newspapers are grappling with the changing media landscape.

Last week News Limited confirmed it would move to a metered paywall. It’s a bold move and comes after the company experimented with other forms of paywall strategies.

Fairfax is also experimenting, announcing a paywall for international readers and will later this year introduce a paywall for Australian readers as well.

All the major media companies around the world are grappling with the disruption of the internet and the challenge of declining traditional advertising dollars being replaced by digital dimes.

I now find myself working for one of the online disruptors. Four years ago Mumbrella was in its infancy, having been launched by my editor Tim Burrowes in late 2008.

What started as a one-man operation now employs close to 20 people, around a quarter of them journalists, with many of them like myself coming from the mainstream media.

It’s an exciting time to be a digital disrupter these days. It’s not just the likes of Mumbrella, Crikey or New Matilda – it feels like the ranks of the online revolution are continuing to swell.

This week, former editor-in-chief of The Sydney Morning Herald Peter Fray launched Politifact Australia and the expectation is that The Guardian Australia will launch any day now.

These launches follow others such as The Citizen at The University of Melbourne and Business Insider Australia.

The online landscape is constantly changing and evolving…

When it comes to thinking about where you might want to work I urge you to consider niche online media – not only because that’s where many of the jobs are, but also because it’s one of the most interesting places in the Australian media landscape.

A University of Queensland study by academic John Cokley in 2011 showed niche media outlets now employ more people than traditional big media.

In the study Cokley said of the 8000 journalists employed in 2007, about 57 per cent or 4500 were in small media outlets employing fewer than 10 people, compared with 34 per cent in major media outlets.

And that’s a trend that has only been accelerated by recent events…

While new media arguably can’t employ all the j-school graduates coming out of Australia’s universities, I will tell you it’s one of the most interesting and rewarding spaces to write for.

Since moving to Mumbrella I’ve arguably taken a step back in my career… I no longer write for a big national newspaper and no longer have the prestige that comes with that big masthead.

But if I’m honest, that prestige is overrated…  I’m more excited by getting to write across a variety of areas and topics and doing both breaking news but also 2,500 word features.

One of my greatest frustrations as a newspaper journalist was getting a great story and immediately being asked by the newsdesk: “will it hold till Saturday?”

Today I rarely have to worry about that question.

One of the joys of being with Mumbrella is that we break news when it happens and we are less focused on the old media business model and more focused on reinventing the journalistic business model.

It’s an exciting place to be and one which allows me to help rethink traditional approaches to journalism.

In the end I believe the great opportunity that the current media flux offers young journalists is that we are no longer tied to the traditional pathways to journalism.

Rather you have the opportunity to reinvent journalism and find your path.

I would also emphasise that while the media landscape is changing, the basic tenets of journalism won’t.

The lessons I learned – make contacts, work hard, make the best of ‘shit kicker’ tasks –  those lessons stand for any publication you work for, anywhere in the world, online or print, radio or TV.

This is one of the oldest professions in the world, and yes, it’s dealing with the challenge of getting people to pay for something that they’ve given away for free for the past 10 years. But if the last two centuries are anything to go by, people will always want the news.

The news man has become a news woman, but both perform the same job.

The newspaper has become the news website, the mobile app or the tablet, but they all provide news

Deadlines have gone from afternoons and evenings to rolling deadlines, 24-hour cover and a demand for real-time content, but this is ultimately just a reflection of the digitalisation of news.

In the end, the ace cub reporter, the hardened senior writer, the long, hard days – and the beer at the end of it – some things will always stay the same.

Nic Christensen is a senior journalist for Mumbrella and its sister publication Encore Magazine.

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In this guest post, News Limited’s group editorial director Campbell Reid responds to the views of ninemsn’s Hal Crawford that the company’s push into metered paywalls is about data rather than dollars.

Hal Crawford is both right and wrong in his article which argued that our digital subscription plans are all about the data.

Sure, the data you get from having people register and then subscribe, as our metered model does, is incredibly valuable.  On that point, I’m not sure I understand Hal’s argument it’s not a decent strategy to have data about your consumers if everyone else has data on theirs as well.

Although his numbers are a bit off, Hal is on the right track when he says the metered model captures your most loyal readers. That’s the whole point of it – you want your loyal consumers to subscribe but not scare off your more casual readers who are still valuable.

However, Hal is wrong when he says that subscription revenue is not going to help. The Australian is not alone in saying that it is earning more money under the new dual-income (subscription plus advertising) model than the old advertising only model.  In terms of the significance of the revenue, this model is still in its infancy – we haven’t even scratched the surface of what might be possible.

But in explaining why ninemsn doesn’t need to charge, Hal is missing the crucial point that The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and our other publications have a very different business model to ninemsn’s.

Compared to our newsrooms Hal runs a tiny operation. I’m unsure precisely how many journalists ninemsn has, but it’s a fraction of what The Tele or Herald Sun and our national news network has.

And that’s as it should be, because ninemsn creates a fraction of the journalism our papers do. It doesn’t need a big newsroom because it doesn’t publish the same breadth and depth of content, the opinion or analysis. It takes a lot of content from the newsroom of its parent company Nine, and much of its content is rehashed from other sites. It doesn’t break many, if any, stories.

ninemsn doesn’t campaign on behalf of its readers and help save them money like The Daily Telegraph’s People Power initiative. The mass movement saved more than 100,000 signatories up to $400 a year, including households that did not change power providers, thanks to the encouragement of The Tele.

ninemsn also doesn’t uncover injustice and fight for the rights of its readers as the Herald Sun did with the Fiskville case. For those who don’t know the story, for decades fire fighters had been exposed to cancer-causing chemicals at a training college at Fiskville, west of Melbourne. Without the Herald Sun’s dedication the scandal linked to the deaths of at least 20 people may never have been brought to light.  Prompted by the revelations the Country Fire Authority has apologised, the state government has given nearly $17 million dollars to clean up the area, and the victims stand a chance of being compensated.

All this stuff benefits the community, but costs money.

That’s not to criticise what ninemsn does, just to note the difference. ninemsn has a model which works for itself, but that doesn’t mean it will work for other publications. Just last week an analyst noted that the world’s most popular news website, that of the UK’s Daily Mail which has nearly 50m monthly unique visitors, is still not profitable. No wonder the Mail recently confirmed it was actively considering charging its readers for some content.

Back to where I agree with Hal. The world does not exist to support any particular media company. Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. It’s all about the consumer. They will vote with their clicks and their decision to pay for things they value.

That’s the business we’re in, and have always been in. Whether it’s newspapers, magazines, television, books or movies, News Corp has, and always will be, about creating content that people value enough to want to pay for.

• Campbell Reid is group editorial director of News Limited. He is a former editor of The Australian and the Daily Telegraph

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Cosmo’s Kate Leaver tells us how to bluff it in her job in a feature that first appeared in Encore.

What do you do, as a features editor?

Really, play with words and ideas all day. At any one time, we’re working across three issues of the mag – getting one on its way to the printers, pooling all the words together for another, and planning the issue after that. It’s busy but it’s a pretty magnificent process. For me, it’s like working on a few really awesome jigsaw puzzles at once – piecing together the best mix of stories and subjects and writers and voices. That’s the esoteric job description. It’s all about the detail – every sentence has to be awesome, every headline, every image. And the features editor is really the gatekeeper of ideas; they ferry ideas back and forth between freelancers, in-house writers and the senior editorial team.

What skills do you need to be good at the job?

Sometimes I joke that you need to be a fortune teller as a magazine editor. We work three months in advance, so predicting what people will be talking about that far in advance is a real skill. You’ve got to be able to write, to care about every sentence, and to see every story both phrase-by-phrase and the big picture. Time management skills to set and meet deadlines; clarity and conviction when you communicate to a writer what you want from a story; quick decision making; the humility to scrap your own work when you need to; a way of getting the best from your team. An infinite ream of story ideas is helpful. Passion is a prerequisite.

Who are the people you work closest with?

Our editor and deputy editor – we’re a little ideas team and it’s such a joy to work with women you admire every day. Cringe, I know. But it’s true. Then there are the writers, sub-editors and the art department.

Is there any lingo we need to know to do the job?

At Cosmo? Definitely. Or should I say “defs”? We’re big on abbreviations – you’ve got your “totes” (totally) and your “obvs” (obviously). If we commission an “illo”, we’re getting an illustration done for a page. If we talk about “job bags” that’s just the folders our stories travel in between departments. I sometimes kid with my friends that “totes Kardashian” is the secret password to getting things done in the office.

What does a typical day on the job entail?

Coffee, meetings, brainstorming ideas, researching articles, commissioning stories, writing, writing, writing.

What’s the best part of the job?

My new favourite thing is to go through our Cosmo website feedback inbox, which is full of both delightful and scathing feedback. I love to feel connected to our readers, and I start to feel so protective of their interests, that it’s just awesome to hear from them. That, and the utter joy of being in a job that allows me to write about how much I love Jennifer Lawrence in the morning, politics in the early arvo, and how to help a friend through grief – all in the same day. There’s beauty in the mix of celebrity gossip, beauty advice, mental health and safety stories, news articles and first-person stuff we publish.

Kate Leaver is the features editor for Cosmo magazine.

This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

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