The most shocking thing to happen today is this woman's attitude

Pretty bad stuff today with the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. I'm going there in February. I don't know why I said that, I have nothing more to offer on that. I'm sure it will be fun and I won't die, but maybe if I do this burgeoning blog will get global recognition or infamy, either would be good. Anyway, I was just disgusted with what this Australian woman said was so "tragic" about today's events in The Age. I can't believe they printed this, I wish she was a public figure so we could criticise her. Here's what she said...  

"They are targeting every suburb in this city but the most tragic thing is that for the first time ever they are targeting big-time foreigners and five star hotels," she said.

"There have been a lot of bombs in India and they normally target marketplaces and the poorer society but where we are at the Taj Mahal Hotel, they have eight foreign hostages"

Who Am I? You Am I

hola!   (this thing won't let me copy and paste an upside down exclamation mark, damn!!!!)

I have just finished my second year of a Bachelor of Media and Communications degree at the University of Melbourne. I go by the name 'Bones' to preserve my anonymity, although I'm finding this to be ineffective because Bones also my name on Facebook and people call me it in the street because I am somewhat of a Melbourne d-lebrity (I think I was the first to coin that term just now). I've got into this blog underground world because I want a job in advertising/ marketing/ PR when I get out of Uni and maybe this could help potential employers view my skills. The most likely outcome is that it will reveal how little I know about anything and leave me chasing the music dream again. But yer gotta put yerself out there, yer just gotta. I'm also doing this because I often have mad-capped marketing thoughts and this way I can see if I'm actually insane or whether some other people feel the same way. I love music, association football and the many brandchildren projects of Timothy 'God' Rogers. Let's be friends eh?

TVCs not in our cuppa tea?

A little thought which I'm sure has been raised a million times already, especially with the death of the newspaper/tv etc argument doing the lectern rounds. I'm 20 years old and I rarely watch TV. I live with over 300 other people my age who don't watch it either. My friends who live in shared houses don't watch TV, most of their boxes are broken but they never realise because they never use it. So, I can confidently say most of the 18-25 market cannot be reached en masse by television commercials, even in shows targeted at us. Obviously there are huge concerns across all demographics, but I still know most families watch a lot of TV, but us young adults have definitely switched off for good, turning to DVDs and online thievery. 

Marketing moustaches

So by now 'Movember' is in full force, it's shaping up to be the biggest fundraiser for men's health with over five million dollars donated already. It's good we're finally seeing more and more fundraisers for men's health problems, especially when more people die from prostate cancer than breast cancer, yet the pink ribbon movement is so much more developed and out in the open than male cancer fundraisers. Maybe the lower fatality rate from breast cancer is testament to the awareness campaigns, but more people are diagnosed with prostate cancer than breast cancer as well so...maybe not. Anyway, I've just been seeing these Movember posters all around the university and thought that maybe they could be more effective. First of all, the posters are almost a vomit yellow colour and did not attract my eyes straight away, though I obviously looked at it eventually. I took the above picture without flash with plenty of backlight then took the below photo with flash. I think if the poster was brighter yellow it would be more of a novel stimuli and demand attention, just like I remember the Kill Bill dvds lined up at the video shop in dazzling yellow.

Secondly, I think there is a bit too much text going on. This isn't helped by the dudes who have written over the poster in marker with their phone numbers for you to donate money to them, but there is still a bit too much clutter and irrelevant (and not exceptionally entertaining) information on it. I think maybe the moustache logo could be a bit bigger. Anyway I do approve of the moustache style guide...

I think they should have printed more of those out, they are funny (could have funnier names though) and it is a striking poster.

And I found this with a simple google image search to see where they borrowed the idea from...

Nevertheless, Movember seems to be a wild success, and it is a priceless picture seeing 15 grown men with moustaches lined up at a Grilld store waiting for their free burger. And the Movember boys who created this 'charity' event appear to be laughing all the way to the bank, from what I hear.

What do you feel like?... Rebranding Donut King!

I've been working on a detailed advertising plan as a major assignment at university over the last month. I chose Australian doughnut outlet Donut King as the brand I was going to devise a plan for. My plan extended to a few thousand words but I'll just lay down the bare bones of it here, because I think Donut King should listen!

A little bitta background: Donut King has been Australia's only answer for deep-fried batter cravings for over 25 years. Competitors have come and fallen, leaving Donut King to comfort a nation with almost 300 stores dotted across the great southern land. King's monopoly, however, seems to have met its judgement day. The purveyor of this misery: the yanks. Krispy Kreme has exploded on the scene through a gob-full of word of mouth. KKs are only getting bigger and now dominate the dozen doughnut box market. The Donut King is being usurped by the Krispy Prince, but your majesty surely will not give in. After all, he still owns much more land (about 15 times as much) even if turf wars are being declared every week. So what will the King do to keep his crown?

Current marketing plan: Donut King's marketing slobs are clearly shaking in their hot dog slippers and have had stabs at campaigns using competitions, internet games and tie-ins with movies. All of them have been pretty unsuccessful if you ask Barry the Plumber on the street. Worse yet, King is now trying to cut the Prince's snack lunch with its new Sensations range, which imitates KKs soft filled doughnut range (very poorly too, which I discovered after a bit of market research).

Donut King should not be imitating though, they've got to keep some sort of product difference. The Sensations range is a cheap imitation, but it is actually more expensive than Krispy Kreme!!! So what we've got to do here is play to strengths and set up brand difference.

Strengths: Donut King is much cheaper than Krispy Kreme. A luxury mud cake doughnut (my favourite) from Donut King will set me back $1.80 (and just last month it only cost me $1.20, suggesting a price rise in line with food shortages but also because of market averages- this means the product could plausibly be cheaper if we wanted it to be) while a similar decadent doughnut at Krispy Kreme will take away $2.85 in coinage. Even more tragic, Kreme's doughnuts are fluffy, inflated shells while Donut King has a bit of dough substance to it, whether people desire such an attribute in a doughnut is feverishly debated on doughnut forums. So in the current economic climate, which hasn't really hit home for many of us yet apart from a bit of raised fear and caution, the King may have the upper hand. But we all know the product has got to be good too. 

Target Market: If Donut King keeps low-price as a priority they could tap into the mines of Australian suburbia, which are laced with doughnut diamonds. We saw the fervour Middle Australia holds for doughnuts with the hysterical arrival of Krispy Kreme and its continued success. Donut King is perfectly positioned to win back the affections of the big comfort food spending sector of middle Australia as it already has its outlets placed in just about every shopping mall food hall. But they can't keep going on the way they have, their current brand image is too novel and bright and similar to Krispy Kreme's branding, so its time for the King to move on, but to move up.

The Rebranding: Krispy Kreme doughnuts are mainly made behind closed doors in Australia, unlike the US, whereas Donut King products are crafted within view of the customer, behind the counter in a little baking kitchen. Unfortunately, most of these kitchens are dingy grottos with a  none-too-tasty-looking mote of oil surrounding a conveyor belt. Nevertheless, the products are made in front of you. They'll have to clean this up a bit but the concept of watching the products being made will form the backbone of Donut King's rebranding as a 'fresh' and trusted doughnut outlet. And to complement this change I suggest the rubbishing of the garish pink uniforms and chubby outdated logo, and the spawning of 'DKs'. It'll be less like Krispy Kreme and more like Gloria Jeans, but much cheaper to keep those purses full. DKs should become trusted as a brand that will use the 'freshest ingredients' and offer timeout for families, with coffee for the parents and doughnuts to keep the kids interested. 

This is only the skin of the nutshell of this idea, I provide can a lot more justification for why this would work with Generation X parents in suburbia and creative and IMC strategies for getting the message out there.