Highlighting negative attributes about competitor brands and creating positive assocations that works in favour of the brand! Genius little (and cost effective) idea!

I’m really liking the Freo rebrand execution… simplicity really goes a long way. I can see the heritage, tradition and strength intentions in the effort. The purple and white flat-colour decision supports the establishment of strong recall (as opposed to the previous tri-colour brand) which is great for the brand’s equity. Overall, fairly impressed with the strategy and I can tell the research was interpreted well.

I have different sentiments about the Melbourne FC emblem.  It appears cluttered.  I don’t understand the use of the footy + southern cross elements.  These are symbols are common to footy and Australia.  I acknowledge the intention but Freo’s strategy conveys everything Melbourne FC’s does with less implicitness allowing audiences to create personal meaning.

I love the creative execution of this. I’m finding a lot of convenience goods are promoted to be gender-specific as is the case here and energy drinks (but I personally know girls that are nuts over Maxibon).

From a communications perspective, I’m sure this hits every appeal and objective in their strategy.

Perhaps the Australian beer industry is a benchmark for appealing to the average bloke leading into the ‘genderfication’ of other consumer goods.

Unsure whether this strikes any possibility of conversion to sales but I’m sold. JAWSOME!

Nice job by Firedrill to target mothers here.

Well positioned prime time on CH10.

I’m not quite sure whether Barbie motivates young girls to build dreams for the future but I admire the strategy.

Now we wait for the Ken version…  “When I grow up, I want to be a Chelsea boy with a waxed chest and pumped up biceps”

http://tinyurl.com/yctss8r

In Australia, the majority of total users are within the 18-34 years-old bracket.

http://tinyurl.com/ykoahpj

Gen Y biggest social media movers in Australia compared to their US counterparts – could this be because of the lower clubbing/alcohol consumption age limit. Interesting correlation worth researching?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/litji/2898403191/

Though, should I be hiring a Land Rover when I visit the Sahara?

Perhaps Yellowglen and Mediacom could implement a bit of creativity rather than executing the same billboard in varying sizes

Enthusiasts advocate the potential opportunities of ICTs, suggesting that these technologies will reduce inequalities by mitigating barriers to allow for greater information flows.  In contrast, critics caution that the spread disparity of ICTs across the global population accentuates societal inequalities, improving the prospects of those with privileged social standings while denying development opportunities for the underprivileged – the great debate surrounding “the (dichotomous) gap between ICT ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ ”(Sciadas, 2002, p. 2).  Beyond the physical proximity and social status determinants of the concept of ‘access’, Gurstein (2003) identifies the digital divide also encompasses various socio-economic levels in relation to users and users’ access of ICTs. These include as technical infrastructure (from the quality of bandwidth to the basic level of owning electricity), gender (the presence of ICT-conducive environments for females or lack thereof), political (internet restrictions in certain countries), self-decision (technophobes and their obfuscation of technology), linguistic (the largest sources of content are presented in English) and literacy (the textual landscape of the Internet poses obvious challenges for illiterate individuals) (ibid).  Hargittai (2003) iterates that a refined understanding of the digital divide should include wider discussions relating to the quality of equipment, autonomy of use, experience and skill, the sporadic diffusion of the Internet, content production and distribution.

With the growth of Internet users at 380.6% from 2000 year-end to 2009 year-end and global Internet penetration reaching 25.6% of the world’s population, as identified by Miniwatts Marketing Group for Internet World States (2009), in addition to the multitude of new applications the Internet presents the marketplace with, marketing managers are having difficulties keeping up with the pace.  There is an apparent divide that exists between Internet penetration and the surprisingly low percentage of spending toward online advertising as Stine (2008) notes that “few advertising dollars flow to the web, relative to the perceived opportunity”. 

ZenithOptimedia, a market research firm, predicts worldwide internet advertising spend will account for only 12.6% of the total advertising spend in 2009, trailing behind television and newspapers at 38.6% and 23.4% respectively (ZenithOptimedia Group Limited, 2009).  Regardless of the forecasted steady growth, online advertising spend is still predicted to be overshadowed by advertising over traditional media, a trend recognised by Brian Fethersonthaugh (2008), Chairman and CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide, who asserts this reluctance as the “marketing confidence gap”.  Despite the increase in consumer time spent online, advertising spend has not grown in equal proportion (ibid).

Sledgehammer [psydoneum] (2008), a blogger for ADOI Magazine, suggests that as social networking platforms and weblogs “are becoming critical channels of engagement” advertising agencies, in response, are sceptical about monetising their efforts in the same scale used over traditional media.  Relatively inexperienced marketing managers are recognising that internet advertising cost models are diverse and complex, and thus have a hard time justifying the investment toward the labour intensive digital marketing landscape (Stein, 2008).

Considered to be “the indispensable grammar of modern life”, ICTs and the ability to use ICTs in the prevailing information age are rudimentary for social and economic mobility (Wills, 1999:10).  Castells (1999: 403) identifies that there should not be presence of “inequality, polarisation and social exclusion” in the information age but also concedes that “for the moment, (there) is”.  However the scale of recent ICT usage, relatively extensive advertising spend over traditional media channels recognise that the viewing of traditional media such as television and newspapers is more prevalent among the greater global scale – that is, consumers on both sides of the digital divide.

References

Castells, M.

1999. An Introduction to the Information Age, in H. Mackay and T. O’Sullivan (eds) The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation.  Pages 398–410. Sage Publications. London

Fetherstonhaugh, B.

2008. Four Es, not Four Ps.  Keynotes at AdTech. OgilvyOne Worldwide. Reproduced at:

http://digitalwatch.ogilvy.com.cn/en/?p=136, accessed December 2009

Gurstein, M.

2003.  Effective Use: A Community beyond the Digital Divide.  First Monday: Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet.  Reproduced at

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/index.html, accessed December 2009

Hargittai, E.

2003. The Digital Divide and What To Do About It.  “New Economy Handbook”. Edited by Jones, D.C. Academic Press. San Diego, CA.  Reproduced at

www.eszter.com/research/pubs/hargittai-digitaldivide.pdf, accessed December 2009

Miniwatts Marketing Group

2009.  Internet Usage Statistics: The Internet Big Picture – World Internet Users and Population Stats.  Miniwatts Marketing Group. Reproduced at

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, accessed December 2009

Sciadas, G.

2002.  Unveiling the Digital Divide. Connectedness Series 3. Page 2. Statistics Canada. Ottawa

Selwyn, N.

2004. Reconsidering Political and Popular Understandings of the Digital Divide. Sage Journals Online. New Media & Society 2004. Volume 6 (3). Pages 341-365. Sage Publications. London & New Delhi. Electronic document.  Reproduced at

http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/3/341, accessed December 2009

Sledgehammer [psydoneum] for ADOI Magazine Blog

2008.  Advertising Agencies Yet to Cross the Digital Divide for ADOI Magazine Blog. ADOI  Magazine. Reproduced at

http://sub.adoimagazine.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/27/advertising-agencies-yet-to-cross-digital-divide/comment-page-1/, accessed December 2009

Stine, S.

2008. Digital Divide: Why Asia’s Interactive Community is on Fire, but Digital Ad Spend is Lagging.  For Hendrick & Stuggles. Electronic Document.  Reproduced at

www.heidrick.com/NR/rdonlyres/1D2DA564-17E5…/DigitalDivide.pdf, accessed December 2009

ZenithOptimedia Group Limited

2009.  Global Advertising Downturn Slows Despite Disappointing Q1: Mild Global Recovery in 2010; All Regions to Return to Growth in 2011. ZenithOptimedia Group Limited. London.  Press Release. Reproduced at

http://www.zenithoptimedia.com/gff/pdf/Adspend%20forecasts%20July%202009.pdf, accessed December 2009

Wills, M.

1999. Bridging The Digital Divide. Adults Learning. December. Pages 10-11

Jeremy.

<transcript>

Hello.  My name is Jeremy Carreon and welcome to today’s discussion on “tags and tagging” within the World Wide Web.  There is a great deal of attention and useability studies surrounding the employment of tags to gain greater traffic on websites (the quest for the ideal search engine optimisation model) and, today, we’ll be focusing on the relevance of tag use within digital media channels and its association with search interfaces.

Let’s begin with some background.  In its simplistic definition, as described by K. Razikin, et al. (2008), tags are freely determined keywords or phrases that online content producers associate with a particular resource.  Bear in mind, there are no exclusive types of resources tags can be associated with.  James Sinclair and Michael Cardew-Hall (2007) identifies that tagging facilities are associated with an assortment of media forms such as photographs, video, music, URLs and computer games.  Hagans from Text Link Ads, in an online interview about Search Engine Marketing advocates that anything “link-bait worthy” is “taggable” (Sherman, C. for Search Engine Roundtable, 2006).  With the popularity of social media services such as Flickr¹ (with their library of photos), Del.icio.us² (with their archive of bookmarks) and Technorati³ (with their catalogue of blogs), all of whom have successfully implemented the concept of tagging, is evidence there is potential for “collaborative organisation of (any taggable) resource” (Sinclair & Cardew-Hall, 2007).

Gary Barber (2009) suggests tagging is “inherently user subjective” and is very much a bottom-up approach with no approval process or regulation; and therefore does not account for language ambiguities and cultural differences. Clay Shirky (2005), however, argues that all classification systems “are culturally dependant” and tagging systems “exposes (this) cultural dependence” much more than traditional classification systems; and the realisation of this should be considered constructive.

Thomas Vander Wal (2005) iterates that tags are produced by users employing organically individual vocabulary and adding “explicit meaning” from an “inferred understanding of the original content”.  This is especially evident in the blogosphere and social networking sites where tags refer readers, via hyperlinks, to other sources of information.  Michael Yeomans (2005) proposes that, from a capitalist perspective, this cacophony of personalised information is credible consumer data that infers the language of particular social groups and identifies the shared interests and experiences of users.  H. Liang, et al. (2009) recognises, as a result, consumer profiles can be generated and, by observing changes in tagging behaviour, these profiles can be monitored over a period of time.

Furthermore, non-popular and obscure tags (tags that are in the long tail) can be lead to information about fringed and niche social groups. For example, tags can provide consumers with a gateway to locate an item that is not generally sold in the masses (retail outlets that cannot afford to stock anything that won’t sell).  Hearst and Rosner (2008) notes the attachment of tags to content is a “suggestive device” which presents gateways for consumers to alternative resources or products. For a consumer, tags can narrowly refine a search query or provide a serendipitous event.  This is evident throughout online search services such as Google.com⁴, eBay⁵, Amazon⁶, Flickr¹ and YouTube⁷, all of which provide some form of recommendation right on their home page or directly on search query pages.  Such recommendations include “suggested articles” links, “popular searches” and information similar to “customers that bought this item also bought”.

Solely, the noise and fundamentally unstructured property of tags can be viewed as a messy form of classification that does not support effective searching.  However, Chris Mathes (2004) suggests tagging, in combination with in-house search interfaces, should be considered by companies as an additional utility to gain improved search engine optimisation. With the successful leveraging of tags by online search conglomerates just as Amazon, eBay, etc., there is no objection that the collective information derived from tagging systems is opportunistic for potential organisations built around the referral economy.

This is Jeremy Carreon for Digital Media & Society at Bond University and you can view a complete transcript of this podcast along with other DMS topics at adrichingmedia.wordpress.com. Thank you for joining me today.

<end of transcript>

Endnotes

¹ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/

² http://delicious.com/tag

³ http://technorati.com/tag/

⁴ http://www.vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html

⁵ http://google.com

⁶ http://www.ebay.com/

⁷ http://amazon.com

⁸ http://youtube.com

References

Barber, G.

2009. The Art of Skywriting: The Demise of the Tag Cloud. Gary Barber – Man With No Blog. Transcript. Reproduced at:

http://manwithnoblog.com/2009/10/14/the-demise-of-the-tag-cloud/, accessed November 2009

Conrad, H.

2007. Tag You’re It: The Benefits of Social Tagging. The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: January 2007, Volume 6, Issue 1. iProspect.com. Electronic document. Reproduced at:

http://www.iprospect.com/media/newsletter_jan07_conrad.htm, accessed November 2009

Hearst, M.A. & Rosner, D. K.

2008. Tag clouds: Data Analysis tools or social signaller. School of Information – University of California, Berkeley. CA, USA. Electronic document.  Reproduced at:
http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/papers/tagclouds.pdf, accessed November 2009

Liang, H., Xu, Y., Li, Y. & Nayak, R.

2009. Tag Based Collaborative Filtering for Recommender Systems.  Lecture Notes in Computer Science.  Volume 5589/2009. Pages 666-673.  Rough Sets and Knowledge Technology. Springer-Verlag.  Berlin / Heidelberg.  Electronic Document. Reproduced at:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/f66k11352q386379/fulltext.pdf, accessed November 2009

Mathes, A.

2004. Folksonomies – Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata.  Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  Electronic document.  Reproduced at:

http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-communication/folksonomies.html, accessed November 2009

Razikin, K., Goh, D. H-L., Chua, A. Y. K. & Lee, C. S.

2008. Can Social Tags Help You Find What You Want?  Lecture Notes in Computer Science.  Volume 5173/2008.  Pages 50-61.  Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries.  Springer-Verlag.  Berlin / Heidelberg.  Electronic document.  Reproduced at

http://www.springerlink.com/content/5783577131036q60/fulltext.pdf, accessed November 2009

Sherman, C.

2006. Search Engine Roundtable: SEM via Communities, Wikipedia & Tagging. Sherman, C. [executive editor]. Search Engine Roundtable. Online forum.  Reproduced at

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/004322.html, accessed November 2009

Shirky, C.

2005. Folksonomy is better for cultural values: A response to Danah.  Many2Many: A Group Weblog on Social Software.  Online forum.  Reproduced at:

http://many.corante.com/archives/2005/01/29/folksonomy_is_better_for_cultural_values_a_response_to_danah.php, accessed November 2009

Sinclair, J. & Cardew-Hall, M.

2007. The folksonomy tag cloud: when is it useful?  Journal of Information Science 2008; 34; 15. Sage Publications on behalf of Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.  Electronic document.  Reproduced at:

http://jis.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/34/1/15, accessed November 2009

Vander Wal, T.

2005. Folksonomy Definition and Wikipedia. Vanderwal.net. Online post. Reproduced at:

http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1750, accessed November 2009

Yeomans, M.

2005. Taming the Wild Web. Time.com.  Online article.  Reproduced at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1093679,00.html, accessed November 2009

Emerging technologies such as virtual reality are designed to provide participants with a perception of presence, mediated experiences appear real and immediate when presented in a way that does not seem mediated (Lombard & Ditton, 1997).  Castranova (2001) outlines three key events that identify when a user (or avatar driver) has crossed the hurdle of entry into virtual worlds: the similarity of avatar’s attributes to their driver’s personal attributes, apparent emotional investment to virtual world events and recognition that labour in a virtual world can be valued as equally as labour in the real world. This behavioural engagement between avatars is not dissimilar in nature to face-to-face interactions experienced in the real world and thus denotes a sense of reality for participants, albeit those avatars are, in fact, created characters.

Though from a professional standpoint, the widely anonymous nature of virtual world applications presents a variety of challenges for industries seeking commercial opportunities.  Virtual world introduces the anomaly of identity which can be confusing for brand companies that market toward real world demographics.  In the existence of anonymity, there is no line to distinguish between avatar and the avatar’s driver – where does the presence of the driver end and where does the integrity of avatar begin? Possessing a different psychographic to its human driver; avatars can have different needs and interests, and often these interests are fantasy-based and wildly obscure (Meadows, 2008).

There are also concerns regarding regulation within a free and open-source virtual reality programs by virtual reality service providers.  In the case of Linden Labs, there is currently little control over the content produced and the events that arise in Second Life.  , Linden Lab, the developer of Second Life, details in their ‘Terms of Service’ they “generally do not regulate the content of communications between users or users’ interactions with the Service” and have limited control of the integrity of the content produced in Second Life (Linden Research Inc., 2009).  There have been publicised instances of virtual world harassment or “griefing” on commercial residents which can repel potential businesses from operating virtually.  Online protest group, Second Life Liberation Army, in response to the increasing commercialisation of Second Life, gunned down virtual customers at the American Apparel Second Life store in 2006 (Dell, 2007).  In 2007, a Second Life visitor created an S&M sex parlour and carried the NBC Universal name (Fass, 2007). Vandals wearing “Bush-08” tags defaced the Second Life headquarters of former senator John Edwards’.  Richardson (2007) iterates “there is no control of what happens in Second Life” and virtual properties of companies can be damaged.

The deployment of virtual reality applications for internal and operational activities raises concerns about the cost-effectiveness and necessity of this mode of technology.  In a business value study conducted by Think Balm Enterprise (2009), the majority of respondents identify that the lack of hardware and IT alignment is a barrier when considering the adoption of immersive technologies for internal communication.  Virtual reality platforms can offer an alternative outlet for brainstorming, conferencing and collaboration between workers provided that participants know how to operate in the immersive environment prior to attending – training is still required which can be a major undertaking in itself, especially for large corporations (Driver, E. & Driver, S., 2009).  Hamilton et al. (1992) recognises that “virtual reality training exercises could alter the view of what constitutes valuable work experience” and identifies the traditional trade off between real-life experiences versus extensive training.

Despite the fantasy-like graphics presented through virtual world platforms such as Second Life, it is the existence of experiences between users that blur the line between real world and virtual world which Lombard, et al. (2009) suggests bringing presence from “real” human interactions to mediated social relations in mediated environments enriches the human experience.  The anonymous nature of virtual reality is highly popular for leisure users using these applications as a form of social media.  On a commercial level, however, the issue of identity and cost effectiveness prompts businesses to consider whether the utilisation of open source and unregulated virtual reality systems adds significant value.

References

Castranova

2001. Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier. The Gruter Institute Working Papers on Law, Economics, and Evolutionary Biology Volume 2 Issue 1 Article 1. Reproduced at:

http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=giwp, accessed November 2009

Dell, K.

2007. Second Life’s Real-World Problems. Time.com. Electronic document. Reproduced at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1651500,00.html, accessed November 2009

Driver, E. & Driver, S.

2009. ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009. Immersive Internet Analyst Report Series, Issue #2.  Think Balm Enterprise. Electronic document. Reproduced at:

http://www.thinkbalm.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/thinkbalm-immersive-internet-business-value-study-final-5-26-092.pdf, accessed November 2009

Fass, A.

2007. Sex, Pranks and Reality. Forbes.com: Out Front. Reproduced at:

http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0702/048.html, accessed November 2009

Hamilton, J. O’C., Smith, E., McWilliams, G., Schwartz, E., Carey, J.

1992. Virtual Reality: How a Computer-Generated World Could Change the Real World. Business Week. Electronic document. Reproduced at:

http://www.businessweek.com/1989-94/pre88/b328653.htm, accessed November 2009

Linden Research Inc.

2009. Terms of Service | Second Life.  Electronic document. Reproduced at:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php, accessed November 2009

Lombard, M & Ditton, T.

1997.  At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence. Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications, & Mass Media. Temple University. Reproduced at:

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue2/lombard.html, accessed November 2009

Lombard, M., Gamberini, L., & Spagnolli, A.

2009. Mediated presence: virtual reality, mixed environments and social

Networks. Springer-Verlag London Limited. Reproduced at:

http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/VR_SI_Presence_CfP_081215.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-666598-p1127228, accessed November 2009

Meadows, M. S.

2008. I, Avatar. Indianapolis, Ind.: New Riders; London: Pearson Education [distributor]

Richardson, F. & Friscia, T.

2007. Podcast: Virtual Reality. AMR Research, Inc.: First Thing Monday [podcast]. Reproduced at:

http://www.amrresearch.com/podcasts/default.aspx#VirtualReality, accessed November 2009