Happily it’s now come together with this week’s “Can’t” teaser campaign, which appears to be for Westpac or CommBank.

Bring the two together on adjacent Adshel panels, and the results are delicious…

As Yoda, nearly said: “Do or do not. There is no can’t.”

Andrew Varasdi, the managing partner of Nando’s agency Banjo Advertising, told Mumbrella that the campaign does not flout rules on fast food advertising, since the chicken featured in the ad is grilled.

“Nando’s doesn’t have the same issues as a fried chicken product,” he said.

A spokesperson from the Advertising Standards Bureau told Mumbrella that the ad had received no complaints, and added “there appears to be a good mix of food choices shown in the advertisement”.

Nando’s was unavailable for comment.

The campaign comes a few weeks after Nando’s launched a TV ad around MasterChef that introduced the slogan ‘Eat interesting’.

Banjo won the Nando’s business earlier this year.

Andrew Traucki

A US-based sales production and distribution company has picked up the worldwide sales rights to the next film by Aussie writer/director Andrew Traucki.

Traucki’s film The Jungle has been picked up by Lightning Entertainment of Santa Monica.

The news sees the two parties reunite after Traucki’s 2010 shark film The Reef.

Lightning has already secured sales for the film in a number of regions including Australia’s IFM/Filmways, France’s Wild Side, Metrodome in the UK, Acontracorrientes in Spain, Eagle Films in the Middle East and IPA in Thailand.

Filming for The Jungle is due to begin in June in both Australia and Indonesia.

The Jungle is about an Australian leopard conservationist who ventures into Indonesia jungle with a documentary film-maker to investigate sightings of an endangered species of the big cat. However, they become aware that they are being stalked by a deadly, unseen predator.

Richard S. Guardian, executive producer of both The Jungle and The Reef said: “I am thrilled to be working again with Andrew after the incredible success we had with The Reef.”

Robert Beaumont, president of Lightning Entertainment said: “This script is an edge-of-your-seat suspense thriller – Andrew’s specialty.”

The Jungle will be the third film from Traucki following The Reef and Black Water.

In the March issue of Encore, Traucki argued against Screen Australia’s Kathleen Drumm that Australia wasn’t getting better at marketing films.

The announcement:

21 May 2012, Australia: InMobi, the world’s largest independent mobile ad network, has today announced it will partner with Mi9 to bring more interactive and high-engagement mobile rich media experiences to the Australian market.

The two-year partnership will see InMobi represent selected mobile advertising sales for ninemsn, and offer production capabilities that make it easier for brands to make an impact and reach consumers across mobile devices.

Mi9′s strength across platforms combined with InMobi’s technical and HTML 5 rich media capability, allows brands to create deeply engaging advertising experiences across the mobile web by leveraging a suite of features such as drag and drop, animation, social media and video integration.

“Mi9 will continue to offer cross platform sales and branded integration opportunities, whilst InMobi’s rich media capabilities mean we can increase our offering to creative agencies and brands – allowing them to focus on imaginative and intelligent creative executions.” says Richard McLaren, Chief Data and Technology Officer, Mi9.

Francisco Cordero, General Manager and Regional Director of InMobi Australia and New Zealand added, “This is a significant milestone for InMobi and for our customers in Australia. Combining our extensive network with Australia’s number one digital destination gives our agencies and advertisers tremendous reach across Australia and premium consumer segments. This partnership further reinforces InMobi’s leadership position in Australia and NZ for local rich media advertising inventory and our reputation as a trusted partner for publishers.”

Recent Australian mobile media consumption research has shown nearly 40% percent of mobile web users in Australia are primarily or exclusively accessing the web via their mobile devices. In addition, more than half of mobile web users in Australia are comfortable with receiving mobile advertising and 1 in 4 of these users have had their purchasing behaviour influenced by it.* It is predicted that by 2015, the market for global mobile advertising is likely to be worth in excess of $20 billion.**

ninemsn’s growing mobile consumer base for advertisers continues to build with recent year-on-year research showing a 101% growth in mobile page impressions compared to April 2011.

Source: Mi9 press release

Monday, 21 May 2012: Mi9 today announces a raft of new appointments as part of its ongoing investment in its imagination + intelligence proposition to advertisers. The new recruits include a number of strategic hires across Mi9’s Commercial, Data and Technology divisions.

This growth follows the launch of the Mi9 brand earlier this year, and reflects the business’ commitment to delivering on the future of media.

Commenting on the new appointments in the Data and Technology fields, Richard McLaren, Mi9’s Chief Data and Technology Officer, says, “We are on a journey to build world class capability in the smart use of data and the cultivation of deep customer insights. It’s fantastic to add such skilled and experienced people to our team. Theirdepthofknowledgewillultimatelydriveadvancesin ouradvertisers’campaignimpactandeffectiveness.”

Key new additions to the Mi9 ‘intelligence’ team include:

Jenny Ashcroft, Head of Data Strategy and New Business, joins Mi9 following six years with Microsoft in London, Sydney and Singapore. Jenny has a strong background in strategy and business development in digital and leads the creation of new data-driven products and solutions for clients.

Alex Johnson, Head of Advertising and Targeting Products, with over 12 years of experience in online advertising systems, Alex develops and manages all Mi9’s digital targeting products. His team operationalise the company’s data products across all creative formats, sites and devices.

Gabbi Stubbs, Head of Research and Insights. Gabbi brings with her 15 years of media and research experience and is responsible for all audience, market and product insights research at Mi9.

Alex Parsons, Managing Director of ninemsn said the new hires in the Creative, Sales and Trade Marketing areas were about bolstering the business’ digital creative and strategic sales expertise across all platforms.

“We’re shifting our focus to strategic sales, and delivering on our promise to bring the best creative campaign ideas to our advertisers. Deep data-driven insights will feed into our audience business, with a focus on imaginative branded content integration leading our charge in-market,” said Parsons.

New additions to the Mi9 ‘imagination’ team include:

Jemma Enright, Director of Sales Strategy & Specialist Platforms, with more than 15 years’ experience in the industry, Jemma is responsible for driving strategic campaign ideas for advertisers, harnessing Mi9’s full

capabilities across branded content, video, interactive television, rich media

and new targeting technologies. She also leads Mi9’s specialist sales team across; Mobile, Video and X-Box.

Mi9’s commitment to intelligence combined with imagination is reinforced through the appointments of Emily Carding, Head of Client Services, whose role will incorporate commercial creative services, campaign delivery and mobile services. Also Michael Valaris, Commercial Creative Services Manager, who joins the Mi9 Studios team and is charged with bringing imagination and creativity to life through the delivery of commercial production services for clients; and

Nicole Moore, Trade Marketing Manager, with more than 12 years of experience, Nicole supports our advertisers by delivering quality materials that grow the understanding and perception of digital. She is also responsible for delivering Mi9’s popular annual Digital Marketing Summit.

Source: Mi9 press release

Last month, Telstra announced a deal with subscription music service MOG enabling users to stream a catalogue of 15 million tracks to their mobile, tablet, computer or net-connected TV. It joined Spotify, Rdio and Songl, who had already unveiled plans to launch in the Australian market.

Joining the Battle of the Bandwidth panel are Dan Rosen, CEO of the Australian Recording Industry Association; Digital Music Distribution CEO Mark Shaw, Sound Alliance commercial director Ben Shepherd, MCM Entertainment Group CEO Simon Joyce and DMG chief digital officer Rebekah Horne.   

An invitation headlined with the word “Can’t” was delivered to journalists at Mumbrella this morning, linking to the domain ‘@whatiscant.com.au’.

It coincides with industry rumours that a “big four” bank is about to go through a major rebranding with rumours pointing to the Commonweath Bank of Australia. Mumbrella understands that “a massive media buy” of outdoor and TV ads is in the offing.

CommBank’s media team was unable to offer an immediate comment. However, a senior source at the bank told Mumbrella there would be more to say at the end of this week.

The domain ‘@whatiscant.com.au’ is registered to Melbourne IT, which also handles CBA domains.

Ad agency M&C Saatchi, won the business in February from US ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in one of the first moves by new chief marketing officer Andy Lark.

The invitation asks journalists to a briefing at an unspecified Sydney CBD location on Friday morning. It informs them: “Information disclosed at the event will be under media embargo until 6am Sunday 27th May.”

It adds: “There will be no check-ins, tweeting or social media usage allowed at the event.”

The raunchy interactive video (possibly NSFW) allows the user to upload of a photo of themselves, which is then used in the video.

The video leads the user to Stonemen’s website and gives them the option to buy some Stonemen underwear.

The campaign was developed by Arnold Furnace.

A censured version is running as a teaser campaign.

Paul Fenton, joint national creative director of Arnold Furnace told Mumbrella: “We pushed it as hard as we could. The client was up for taking as many risks as possible. It was one of those things where we wanted to make an impact and not die wondering what could have been.”

The clip on YouTube aims to tease and push users to create the interactive ad campaign themselves. “Like a good stripper, it leaves you wanting more,” Fenton said.

However, a full version does not exist on YouTube. Nor can the interactive video be embedded into Facebook or Twitter. Fenton said: “We wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing by Facebook and social media. It’s a fine line that you walk with social media.”

The user instead is provided with a link for their video to forward or post to social media. Fenton also said that there will be no TV version.

Marc Debnam, director of Stonemen, said in a press release: “The high production values of the film reflect Stonemen’s own obsession with quality. To print a seamless 360 degrees image on a pair of undies has been a labour of love for us and we wanted to bring the same level of craft to the film. It’s rare that virals have this aesthetic and adding an interactive element is a genuine marriage between beauty and the kind of fun you like to have with your mates.”

Credits

Joint National Creative Directors – Paul Fenton and Tom Spicer
Art Director – Paul Fenton and Tom Spicer
Copywriter – Paul Fenton and Tom Spicer
Agency Producer – Melissa Petryszyn
Director – Stephen Carroll
Editor – Dan Lee (The Editors)
DOP – Jeremy Rouse
Post Production Producer – Nicoletta Rousianos (The Editors)
Flame – Adam Archer (The Editors)
Titles – Beau Simmons (Foxtrot Echo)
Flash Developer – Rob Muller
Digital Strategist – Cairo Walker
Agency Digital Producers – Luke O’Doherty and Kate Egan and Melissa
Petryszyn
Sound Design – Song Zu
Sound Design Producers – Larissa Coupe and Morgan Cabot (Song Zu)
Sound Engineer – Abby Sie (Song Zu)
Music – The Lovers
Music Licence – Gaga Music

The pitch kicked off in November last year as part of a “best practice review of suppliers”.

Patts Melbourne’s newly promoted MD Steve Doherty confirmed the news. He told Mumbrella: “Unfortunately, we didn’t win the pitch, but life goes on. We wish the client well.”

With no increase in funding from its university backers to cover rising operating costs, ‘tough decisions’ are to be made at the current affairs and talk radio station, with all staff positions under review.

Among the proposals would be the redundancy of Mark Robinson, Talks Co-ordinator at the station, one of 11 paid members of staff. Robinson oversees the station’s current affairs output.

According to a volunteer journalist at 2ser, the axing of Robinson’s role would see a decline in the quality of content at the station.

Neighbourhood Watch producer Shant Fabricatorian said: “With no Talks Co-ordinator present in the newsroom, there will be an immediate and noticeable drop in the quality of our talks content. This move will directly result in some programs being unable to go to air, and volunteers are gravely concerned that by the end of the year, 2SER news and current affairs programming will amount to just a hollow shell of what exists today.”

Melanie Withnall, MD of 2ser, responded with the statement:

The current change proposal, recommends changes to all positions at 2ser. A staffing restructure is not taken lightly, however, we are at a point where we need to look at where and how resources are utilised, to be able to keep the station broadcasting into the future.

2ser faces a similar scenario to FBI Radio, which launched the ‘Ask Richard’ project by Naked Communications in March 2010 to salvage the station.

In an interview, Mumbrella editor Tim Burrowes and Naked’s Adam Ferrier discussed the Ask Richard campaign.

The announcement:

Sydney, Monday 21 May 2012 – AMF Bowling, one of Australia’s leading entertainment, leisure and sporting venues has appointed Momentum Worldwide PR as its project agency of record.

Momentum will be responsible for brand communications, publicity, community engagement and experiential to support the AMF Bowling marketing strategy of driving engagement of young socials and families.

AMF Bowling Marketing Manager Neema Shah said: “We are very excited to have Momentum join our agency family. We identified the need for a fresh and new PR approach and were very impressed with Momentum’s PR credentials, their creativity and understanding of our brand.”

Momentum’s PR Director Anna MacIntosh added: “AMF Bowling is one of Australia’s most recognisable leisure brands so we’re thrilled to add them to our client portfolio.

“Our work with AMF Bowling will see the team broaden our scope beyond PR to help position AMF Bowling as an entertainment destination,” Anna continued.

With 45 locations nationwide AMF Bowling centres feature state of the art sound systems, glow in the dark bowling, arcade games and café and bar facilities.

Source:  Momentum Worldwide press release

The announcement:

Sydney, May 21, 2012 – OgilvyOne and Endless Rewards today announced a partnership to provide a different approach to loyalty that will enable businesses to better engage their  customers in the age of social media and mobility. Jerry Smith, Regional President, Asia Pacific, OgilvyOne Worldwide, based in Hong Kong,

launched the partnership in Sydney today. He said; “Together, OgilvyOne and Endless Rewards will deliver strategic expertise, creative excellence, software solutions and analytics  as part of an end-to-end approach. The ultimate aim is to enhance customer experience to  drive loyalty, as well as reduce the cost of programme deployment.”

Businesses across financial services, retail, hospitality and other sectors are already seeing  the benefits of building loyalty amongst their customers every day.  “With the local explosion of social media, daily deals sites like Groupon plus global online  shopping, owning the customer has become a major business challenge. Effective  management of loyalty and global consumerism have become key and Endless Rewards  have already demonstrated they’re ahead of the game,” said Michelle Holland, Managing  Partner of OgilvyOne Sydney. Says Neil Joseph, Global CEO Endless Rewards, “Our philosophy is grounded in the belief  that the sale of a product or service is not the end of your relationship with that customer – it’s the beginning of your relationship with them. We have developed our platform around  this premise and can manage the fulfilment of rewards across multiple social, mobile and  traditional channels into a single rewards account per customer, providing companies with a  360-degree view of their customer base. “We are delighted to enter into partnership with OgilvyOne. Together with their creative, strategic  and analytics capability, OgilvyOne and Endless Rewards will provide a best in class retail, hospitality and commercial solution to loyalty that delivers immediate, measurable and significant business  results.”

Source: OgilvyOne press release

The ad is based on an experiential event the Tim Tam “orchard”, which was erected a fortnight ago. The ad ends with the tag line ‘Truly, Madly Tim Tam’.

The campaign comes the week after Arnott’s parted ways with agency GPY&R, awarding DDB the entire account.

Leif Stromnes, MD for strategy and innovation at DDB Group Sydney said: “The idea behind this first execution of Truly, Madly Tim Tam came straight from our Facebook community and we really wanted to give back to these fans who gave us such a great idea to work with. What better way to come full circle than to create personalised ads which feature the names of individual Tim Tam fans and actually run across both TV and online channels”

Credits:

• Arnott’s Tim Tam:
• Marketing Director: Susan Massasso
• Group Marketing Manager: Susanna Polycarpou
• Marketing Manager: Leigh Coleman
• Brand Manager: Holly McCarthy
• DDB Group Sydney:
• Executive Creative Director: Dylan Harrison, DDB Sydney
• Creative Director: Scott Huebscher DDB Sydney
• Creative Team: Richard Apps, Andrew Allsop, Erica Valenti, DDB Sydney/Mango
• Craft Designer: Shane Wahl, DDB Sydney
• Managing Partner: Nicole Taylor, DDB Sydney
• Planning Director: David Chriswick, DDB Sydney
• Business Director: Dave Murphy, DDB Sydney
• TV Producer: Samantha Meehan, DDB Sydney
• Project Director: Rebecca Jones, DDB Sydney
• Senior Executive Producer: Brooke Pilton, Mango
• Senior Community Manager: Hannah Cooper, Mango
• Head of Publicity: Tina Alldis, Mango
• Digital Producers: Jeroen Jedeloo, Raghav Mathur, Tribal DDB
• Technical Director: Ferdinand Haratua, Tribal DDB
• Digital Team: Robertus Johansyah, Mark Esther, Josh Kelly, Ivan Yip, Tribal DDB

The film, directed by Dael Oates through production company Progidy, concludes with the slogan ‘perfectly balanced tailoring’.

The ad was made without an agency, with inhouse creative director Carina Hicks steering the project.

Herringbone’s advertising used to be handled by M&C Saatchi.

Credits:

Director – Dael Oates
Producer – Marge Mcinnes
DOP – Peter Eastgate
Production Company – Prodigy
Editor – Adam Wills
Grading and FX – Fin
Original Music Score – Silencio
Herringbone Creative Consultant – Carina Hicks
Client – Herringbone/Van lack

The British costume drama ranked third – behind Nine’s The Block, which won the night, and Seven News.

Nine’s renovation show took 1.678m across the five metro market, according to preliminary reports from OzTam. Seven News took 1.612m and Downton Abbey took 1.53m, down 300,000 viewers on last year’s premiere of 1.807m.

However, Downton Abbey did win its 8:30pm timeslot, beating Nine’s The Mentalist on 0.814m, The ABC’s Midsomer Murders on 0.62m and Ten’s Touch on 0.602m and SBS’s Prophets of Science Fiction on 0.23m.

Seven’s Dancing with the Stars which, over a two-hour time slot took 1.232m, lost to Nine’s The Block. But the show beat 60 Minutes, which rated with 1.118m. The show also beat Ten’s Modern Family, which rated with 0.865m, but lost to MasterChef, which took 1.33m.

In the demographics, The Block won in both the 18-49 and 25-54 markets with MasterChef in second. But the results were reversed for the 16-39 market. Downton Abbey placed 5th in 16-39 and 18-49 and 6th in 25-54 demos.

Sunday’s top 15 shows
1. The Block – Nine 1.678m
2. Seven News – Seven 1.612m
3. Downton Abbey – Seven 1.530m
4. Nine News – Nine 1.443m
5. Masterchef – Ten 1.330m
6. Dancing with the Stars – Seven 1.232m
7. 60 Minutes – Nine 1.118m
8. The Diamond Queen – ABC 0.968m
9. ABC News – ABC 0.954m
10. Modern Family – Ten 0.865m
11. The Mentalist – Nine 0.814m
12. New Girl – Ten 0.665m
13. Midsomer Murders – ABC 0.620m
14. Touch – Ten 0.602m
15. AFL on Seven – Seven 0.587m

Sunday’s channel share
Seven: 27.0%
Nine: 21.7%
Ten: 15.4%
ABC1: 12.0%
SBS1: 4.0%
GO!: 3.5%
7mate: 3.2%
7TWO 2.8%
Gem: 2.7%
One: 2.2%
Eleven: 2.1%
ABC2: 1.5%
SBS2: 0.8%
ABC News 24: 0.7%
ABC3: 0.5%

Newsnight will be hosted by Hamish Macdonald and air at 10.30pm from Monday to Thursday.

The reversal of strategy echoes that carried last year when the network axed its 5pm weekend news bulletin before returning to it after Nine jumped into the vacant slot.

Newsnight launches on Monday June 4. The new program appears to stretch from traditional news territory into light entertainment including musical performances.

Network Ten’s head of news and current affairs, Anthony Flannery, said: “It will cover the staples of news bulletins, such as headlines of the day, breaking news, sport, weather and finance. But Ten Newsnight will also include features such as live interviews, entertainment, and segments that use social media to reveal what people are talking about and what will be the next day’s big stories.”

Sports presenter Brad McEwan will also be part of the lineup.