The two hottest rappers coming out of Melbourne

University is now over forever. I'm happy with that. People keep gone on tellin' meh that I'll miss these days, and I probably will, but I hope to see a bit of that Earth globe next year, so looking forward to that. Should probably even start planning that soon too. But right now I'll get back to my neglected, the little Devil in you.



First up we have "your baby boy Bangs' out of my hometown-Footscray. 'West Side'. Yeah. I don't know if he's actually from Footscray but I know that's the only place you can buy his hot new record. Bangs of course is a star in the same mould of chocolate rain nerd, but he really deserves even more fame I reckon. Snob Scrilla recently got him up on stage to perform his gentlemanly grind 'Take u 2 da movies' at the Prince of Wales. Obviously loving this dude falls into that uncomfortable realm of cultural condescension and 'we're actually laughing at you, not with you, we don't think you have talent'. Clearly the poor guy has received a fair load of hate mail, and has disabled comments on the vid, and from what I found on other vids of his there was a bit of race hate ranting going on, which is always sad and again makes this sorry barbaric country look exactly that. Obviously there is potential here for some brand to steal Bangs for their promotion and give him a few grand that even his great artistic integrity will find hard to refuse, but I want to put out this plea to all agencies- PLEASE DON'T BUY BANGS. Can you not see it doesn't work when huge brands take a homegrown webstar or 'weblebrity' (as J. Cole has coined) and make a huge hollywood production to sell a product? Chocolate Rain kid did it and it ended him (well, it wasn't gonna last anyway), the youths online savaged him. 'Sell out', 'Lame' etc etc. This technique fails because it takes away from the honesty and simplicity and character that made the youtube stars famous, and also extends the joke too long. So please, if you care about your brand, please let Bangs stick to his making sweet independent music, and don't put together a two-month production that hits screens when the joke is over.

Okay second up we have the contentious web and TV campaign from Optus



Basically, this campaign presents the story of fictional Sydney rapper 'Dutch' and we get to choose at the end of each mini-ep what his next decision is. The most popular audience selections ran as long-from ads on Channel V and the whole series, with all potential storylines, is available here on Youtube. I read the little spiel on this campaign on Mumbrella and it alluded to the terrible acting in the videos. In the comments section everyone was backing this up to, saying it was a lost opportunity and the acting was just so bad yada yada. I really couldn't believe I was seeing this, everyone I had spoken to about this campaign my age (21) had enjoyed it and knew that acting was meant to be bad. That was mainly what made it funny. I left a comment to this effect, and then got caught in a violent comment war with some dickhead, but I think I won. Anyway, concludo numero: this campaign was funny, engaging, very lame in a good way, and made me spend a lot of time interacting with the Optus brand. Result: I'm with Optus already so ain't gonna sign up, but I do feel less enmity towards the company now. My bills are too high because the cap coverage is pretty ordinary, but my hate has subsided just a little because of Double Dutch's sweet rhymes.

How to lose a subculture and alienate customers

The latest Bonds ad. I could stop there. If you're familiar with the ad, that sentence is enough to get your groans going. It depicts a dainty collection of ethnicities striding the streets with the underpants pulled up embarrassingly high, in an attempt to emulate the low-riding slouch fashion of jean wearing young folk have taken to. They look at a bunch of old dudes with their pants strung up really high, the opposite to the young gen, and both groups have a hearty cackle at the other's fashion misfortune. Unfortunately for Bonds, the old dudes in the Fletcher Jones pleats come off way cooler then the delinquents. The colourful underwear and its untasteful display could surely only serve as a wake up call to us young folk to see just how ridiculous we look. I can't see myself or my friends wanting to look like the tools in the ad. Secondly, the slouch pant fashion of course is originally derived from true delinquency- prison. A subculture. It's meant to be a mean subculture, a subculture that says "I am a subculture and I'm wearing my pants like this because you don't like it", a subculture that is actually mainstream culture now but still one that represents a disrespecting attitude. Putting that in an ad and legitimising it as the norm, could surely only serve to kill what's left of this trend. I can only hope so, I hate it that my jeans are made to fall low. Now, where can I can get me some of them pleats?

Sponsorship and Sampling- A couple of thoughts from experience

Look at that gut. This woman has clearly had a few too many Buds. That's what this ad means, right?

Sponsorship: If a brand is going to sponsor an event by providing free product (a beer brand giving away free hooch at a discoteque), the sponsorship should be downplayed, even hidden, to enhance mystery, consumer confidence and brand allure. If I go to a club that's having a free beer night and I don't see the beer brand plastered all over the walls, I develop positive energies towards the brand and attach it to having a good time (because I'm not paying for drinks). I'm thinking more "what is the meaning of this ridiculous generosity? Surely they are losing so much money. And I think that the venue also endorses and values the beer brand they're serving. There's connections all round. I say this from experience, as I went to Roxanne Parlour a few months ago and there was free beer, and my friends and I were thinking “this is awesome, Roxanne is so generous. And mmm Budweiser is so good when it’s free.” Maybe we were stupid for not thinking the event was part of Bud’s marketing budg, but being duped made us love the bud even more.

Sampling and giveaways: We all like free stuff, but if a product is too often promoted with giveaways and free sampling, I find that I am no longer willing to pay full price for a product (forget about Bud for a minute, that was rare). The perceived value of the product has depreciated because of over-sampling. I've found this to be the case with Red Bull amongst my friends. It is often freely available at parties we're at, we get it so much for free we wince at the though of paying for it. If sampling IS to be used, then, it should be a smaller version, a simple teaser for the larger product that leaves you wanting immediately more. Like a quarter of a doughnut or a mini can of Coke.

Why did Telstra create the great wall of China ads? To keep the consumers in

Just heard this on the train...

Man: I love those ads with the Optus boy, you know, the one where him and his dad go to all the big things in Australia.

Woman: Yeah. yeah. The great wall of China ones, that's, like, the smartest thing ever.

Weird people, sure. But no one in the group cared to correct the bloke or even knew to. It's a Telstra ad. Let's hope for Telstra that their brand subconsciously penetrated these people's peabrains.

I've said it once, I'll say it again- The nice brands finish first

Another example of my previously mentioned notion that consumers become more brand loyal if they are treated well, purchase or no purchase. I go into MagNation a lot in my lunchbreaks and crawl into one of those egg chair things that were once all the rage. I never buy anything in my lunch break, I just read AdNews or B&T or Jmag or NME or any other rag with someone funny lookin' on the cover, and then head back to work. No one working there ever encourages me to buy, and they're all smiles when I leave having stolen an hour's worth of information. But when I do want to buy a magazine, I go to MagNation. Even if it's way outtathaway, I'll make an effort. Mainly because I know they'll have what I want, where other newsagencies aren't always stocked, but also because I feel a loyalty to the store for letting me browse. Compare that to the newsagents up the other end of Collins Street where I once flicked through a magazine in under thirty seconds before being told by the dirty newsagent apprentice "This ain't a library buddy, you better buy that?" I guess it all comes back to that notion of Fare Evasion Karma, eh eh eh!!

PS. I hate it when people call me "Buddy", "Big Fella", "Champ", "Chief" and even sometimes "Mate". Condescension.

Bing a ding ding dead

So I chooned into Late night with Jimmy Fallon the other night to witness the car crash of awkwardness, pauses and presenter self- doubt that we usually see. There was an added layer of uncomfortableness this time, though, with a skit that bombed for different reasons from the usual. 

It started with Fallon donning a fake mustache, hilarious already right. He then said as follows...

"Does everyone know that new search engine'Bing'? It searches the Internet differently from the other ones. So we're going to play a little game here now we'll call 'the bing ding'. 

A visual came up that read 'the bing ding...presented
by microsoft'. The audience laughed, presumably finding the idea of corporate sponsorship of a skit funny. Fallon then invited three audience members down to three computers adorned with the Bing logo and asked them a question and the first person to get the right answer would win.There were shots of the contestants searching the Bing website and it seemed pretty effective in getting the answers quick. We then got to see the college white boy winner grinning when he was awarded a laptop with that Bing logo on it. 

So as it turned out, the whole thing was clearly an informercial, and actually was presented by microsoft.

Do you think this is the future of advertising on network television? Is this a desperate effort that is doomed to fail? Will consumers stomach this content or turn away from the provider? 

There wasn't a shred of comedy in the skit, and I sensed an uneasiness or confusion in the audience, but you know what I did during the ad break:searched Bing. So maybe there is potential, even if it is as awkward as Fallon's charisma

Image courtesy of Bing.

The big JD bet

A while back, I went to the Prince ah Wales in St Kilda and saw the undisputed greatest band in the world: You Am I. It wasn't my first time of course, but it was the first with free entry. It was the JD set. JD is for jack daniels, for those who are soft. Jack Daniels have put their foot in the rock room before with the Jack awards and are clearly trying to buddy themselves up with rock music much the same as triple m
does, but hopefully In a cooler and silkier way. 

You am I may have actually played the best gig of all the times I'd seen them, and I've shelled out 45 bucks to see them more than once, so we all left thinking it was a great night and feeling slightly like thieves, which is always better than feeling ripped off. So I left with respect for JD on one hand, but couldnt help thinkin they could have done more to seal the deal. There was a lotta punter goodwill for Jack Daniels in the Prince and most of my group were keen to sink a few of the real man's tipple. However, the feelings of lameness in asking for a bottle of the malt outdid the novelty factor. Everyone was drinking beer. But most of us expected to come and only be able to drink JD. Maybe the variety generated even more positive brand feelings from some folk, but I think a big sign 'Jack Daniels $7' would have got hundreds of punters sampling the stuff. When watching the adverdoco on The Bacardi Express on Channel V all I saw were bright cans of the white rum being shaken about by bogans. Anyway, I thought JD missed a good opportunity. 

One brilliant thing they did do, though (even if it was unintentional), was providing dozens of posters to punters as they exited. The shiny posters had a picture of my favourite ageing rockers on it so I taped it up on my wall. I then stared at it and of course saw the JD branding all over it. Jack Daniels has now entered the home of dozens maybe a hundred fans. The poster will remind them of the great night, bring up those good brand feelings again hopefully and of course also acts as an inescapable awareness advertisement. JD got itself into the home! It's like the Four N Twenty Salad Plate.

Kudos or laughs must also go to the tagline on the JD posters in the venue: 'Know when to unplug. Drink Responsibly'. Haha. We thought it was funny, and made sure our friends were unplugging when they'd had enough. Now this phrase has entered our lexicon. Good or bad? Who cares.