Have you detected the not-so-subtle difference in the coverage afforded to our Paralympic and Olympic athletes? A sense that the marketing budgets are worlds apart for the two sporting events? It wouldn’t…
Nothing is sacred and nothing can’t be bought, sold or sponsored in the modern era of the Olympics. If you can’t afford it, then you won’t win it. Sport in 2012 has become a massive global industry. The…
July 1 has rolled past and Australia has a carbon tax. As Government Ministers prepare to hit the road to spruik the benefits of the tax, it’s worth shining a spotlight on the kinds of messages they love…
I’m a fan of the retention of pubic hair. I don’t much like the idea of breast implants. Thoughts of vaginoplasty coax me into an involuntary Kegel exercise. I’ve no idea why any woman would bleach her…
The furore following the announcement that Jenny Craig CEO Amy Smith would address a gathering of hundreds of girls’ school teachers has once again brought the uncomfortable issue of corporate presence…
There have been enough social media disasters of late to make one thing clear: manipulating sentiment through social networks is next to impossible. The McDonald’s #McDStories campaign in January was supposed…
My central problem with branded clothing is my reluctance to actually be branded. Why on earth would I pay to advertise someone? When a Kiwi can make a motza from auctioning her buttock flesh to a strip…
The Federal Government is once again hitting difficulties in communicating its carbon pricing proposal, with polling finding Australians don’t like the word carbon. The government is reconsidering its…
Traditionally, the work of marketers has been to encourage the shopper to buy. For decades, marketers have focused on understanding, segmenting, or empirically dissecting a product or brand’s existing…
Creating a 30 second YouTube movie that goes viral is the holy grail of marketing. So how is it done? Ensuring the success of a viral-produced movie is still largely hit-and-miss. Some of the more well-known…
In 2011, brand is everything in the corporate world. While the rest of the business operations are considered a cost, marketing makes money. And central to so much of modern marketing is the brand, built…
This week Radio National’s Background Briefing looks at how pharmaceutical companies market their products to doctors. The program is presented by Ray Moynihan, an award-winning journalist, columnist at…
RUGBY WORLD CUP – As the All Blacks and the Wallabies prepare for Sunday’s semi-final showdown, Deakin University’s Adam Karg discusses how to make money from the competition. The Rugby World Cup has returned…
How do we choose? Consumers imagine themselves as rational decision-makers, able to weigh up the relative costs and benefits of decisions to arrive at reasoned choices. Yet, a growing body of research…
MEDIA & DEMOCRACY: Today, Andrew Hughes looks at how voters have become consumers of political marketing, as part of The Conversation’s week-long series on how the media influences the way our representatives…