FRANKthoughts

Client of FRANkVizeum ‘Sumitomo Tyres’ has today launched its new Australian website. We recognised from the brand strategy process that Australian roads are some of the most challenging in the world and that’s why drivers and families need the best protection. From this, the Sumitomo ‘Ninja’ was born, a specialised Ninja for every type of protection.
Tyrecorp has been associated with Sumitomo for over a year, previously distributed through South Pacific Tyres. Sumitomo specialises in both passenger and truck, with their hero product the HTRZIII – the asymmetric tread pattern is categorised as a maximum performance tyre.
We look forward to expanding on Sumitomo’s Social Media Strategy in the coming months.

As part of FRANkVizeum’s social strategy for Melbourne’s GPO we’ve just launched our second promotion with the help of our friends from nuffnang and off course GPO’s lovely community manager Sarah Willcocks. As part of the spring racing carnival, Melbourne’s GPO is giving away 3×2 hour personal styling sessions with three of Melbourne’s top fashion bloggers: Fashion Hayley, Lady Melbourne and Sea of Ghosts. The lucky winners will also get their professional shots taken at the GPO and $500 towards their spring racing apparel. For more info visit Melbournesgpo.com, twitter and facebook. Good Luck!

It’s nearly that time of the year where facial hair plans its return across the country as the mo’nth formerly known as November, Movember, is soon to roll around again for a mo’mentous 2009. Things have kicked off very well this week with the new look 2009 Movember website.

Last year enthusiastic Mo Bros & Sista’s raised more than $20 million in Australia for Movember, supporting the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyondblue – The national depression initiative.

There has been great media support again this year which will include TV, radio, outdoor, street posters, cinema, online support and much more.  We look forward to seeing the campaign progression from the official kickoff on October 12th. Stay tuned…

A big shout out to everyone who attended our fourth FRANkademy on Friday, for what was another very successful social media session.  Thanks to MCN, Hardie Grant Publishing, Yaffa Publishing (AdNews), Carat, iProspect, Keep Left PR, Propeller PR and Austereo for their input and participation.

A special thankyou also goes out to our friends at Nuffnang, for making the big trip from overseas!

The session covered off a broad range of topics, including:

An introduction to the size of the opportunity social media presents
The importance of having an integrated social media strategy and not ‘grabbing at the tools’
What is Twitter?  Who is using it well?
Blogging, Blog Networks and Nuffnang Australia case studies
FRANkVizeum’s approach to bought/owned/earned media – a working case study

For anyone who missed Friday’s session and would like to attend our September event, please RSVP here and we’ll look forward to seeing you!

To celebrate Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, Melbourne’s GPO is holding their ‘Fashion at Altitude’ runway parades next Wednesday 2nd September.
There will also be special offers and designer in store appearances on the Wednesday at Melbourne’s GPO shopping day from 10am – 8pm.
The Melbourne’s GPO media launch took place yesterday and got great coverage including home page of The Age online.
A great way to kick of the new website launch which is all about fresh, good, fashionable content!

Thankyou to everybody who attended our third FRANkademy session on Friday.  We really appreciated having an inquisitive audience, and the active discussion about an exciting area of communications strategy.

A recap on what we focused on in the session:

We started out by outlining the size of the opportunity social media brings; with its unique reach now higher than email.  We then introduced the bought, owned and earned media integrated approach to communications planning.  Bought – is media you can buy like TV airtime, radio, billboards, magazine space, online banners and so on. Owned includes assets of the business – logo, packaging, website, retail outlets.  Earned is the conversation you engage with your customers, the word of mouth you generate, customer feedback and comments etc.  Traditionally the first two have budgets, strategies and timelines.  But what about earned?  Shouldn’t everything be aligned?  We made the analogy that jumping at social media tools as solutions is like walking into the toolshed, grabbing a drill, a saw and a hammer, and trying to paint the back fence.  It doesn’t work!

We then moved on to two areas of interest in the social media space – Twitter and blogs.  We looked at how businesses are using Twitter to connect to their audience, harness the power of positive word of mouth, enhance customer service, build communities, and align their bought/owned/earned output. In our blog section we explained what value blogs and bloggers can offer brands through some contemporary case studies, and the best way brands can work with bloggers.  We presented guidelines employed by our own blog network Nuffnang , the biggest blog advertising network in Australia.

After the drinks break we went through a case study for Melbourne’s GPO. This showed FRANkVizeum’s focus on building a long term social media strategy, as opposed to a short term ‘campaign’, through the process of immersion.  This involves listening and learning, developing a strategy with budget and timeline, allocating resource to manage the brand community, and implementing the plan to agreed measurement metrics.  We ended by quoting Google analyst Avinash Kaushik – “Social media is like teen sex.  Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done there is surprise it is not better”.

Thanks again to our audience from TTF, Taboo, Full Circle, Austereo, MCN, Simply Energy, GoSwitch, Channel Ten, RMIT, and all other guests including Richard!

Now… has everybody done their homework?  Visited our Twitter account?  Looked at Twitter 101 For Business?  Played Brandwars?  If not, you can redeem yourselves by commenting on the blog post below, or contributing your own!  What was most interesting about the session?

 The support and generosity of Australians over the past 5 days has been inspiring.

Carsales.com.au last night pledged $25,000 to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire appeal and will also be donating $1 from every new private ad placed on the site until the end of February.

It’s just another great example of how Australians are coming together to support those in need, and how easily we can all make a difference.

 A new contributor to FRANk’s blog comes from Patrick Morrison, in London town. Patrick’s company allmodcomms is “a media company with creativity at its core.” Patrick and i worked together in London and is a good friend. His first post is about how Movember went down in the UK last year…a worthy cause of which Patrick was part of the team.

 There has been some very positive progress for Movember in the UK…which has tripled fundraising levels year on year. The figs are still being counted by people with very large calculators but cash in had passed £1.7m at the first milepost.Everybody is currently looking at all the ingredients which contributed to this great result but in a nutshell:-For the first time there was hands on client leadership in the UK (with JC getting everywhere and doing his supernetworking thing…… he’s an unstoppable force and mixes it with the kind of energy which Byron Bay surfers get when they go big)  There was lots of spreading the word in the regions (going beyond the obvious huge potential of London to include and activate the North (Manchester) Ireland (North and South), Scotland/Cornwall and the Channel Islands (yikes)   Special audiences and cool communities were picked out to get special treatment (a surf contest hosted the Movember Sessions held in Cornwall, with a party after featuring the infamous DJ’s The Cuban Brothers /plus “urban media cynics” activity with Vice magazine) Lots of parties were held ! (god knows how the hardcore Movember and Iris partyheads do it ! but they did 6 consecutive grand partes across UK….and for the final fling a double decker bus took the real hardcore all the way from London to the final final down in Cornwall in true Magical Mystery style)The UK brand partners all got very proactive, with lots of specials from Finlandia in bars and partes plus Wilkinson Sword (who ran Mo’s Moustache Emporium out of Charlotte Street which was a focal point for London’s Mo bros and the media to visit) The UK enjoyed some very positive media value from press, cinema and digital media this year where we used the model developed by FRANk in the Australian market to get coverage and support for the cause. This was added to by a significant strand supporting Mo’s Moustache Emporium which Wilkinson Sword picked up as a part of their commitment.

Whilst the final total is reckoned to triple, this is more than just organic growth for Movember here …clearly it’s a good idea that is still very fresh…..and also it appears to be crunch proof, unlike other UK things right now

This week saw the launch of Movember for 2008 which was held on Wednesday 15th Oct at the Forum theatre in Melbourne and across several other locations around the nation

Held during November each year, Australian men and women register nationally for Movember.  With a clean-shaven face from November 1st, participating Mo Bros spend the month growing and grooming their mo’.  Along the way, Mo Bros and their mo’ supporters, including Mo Sista’s, raise as much money and awareness for male health:

• Prostate cancer – every year in Australia 2,900 men die of prostate cancer – more than the number of women who die from breast cancer
• Male depression – One in six men are affected by depression.  Most don’t seek help. Depression can have serious effects on physical and mental health

In 2007, over 96,000 enthusiastic Mo Bros & Sista’s raised over  $15 million for Movember, supporting the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyondblue

So get united and register!

According to Joan Warner, CEO of Commercial Radio Australia the answer is yes, and it will be here sooner than you might think.

Digital Radio  (DR) is due to roll out in all 5 metro markets in Jan/Feb 2009. Yesterday morning I was amongst 30 industry professionals who got to hear it first hand. In just over the course of an hour, we were taken through how it will work and what it means for both the consumer and the advertiser.  As a consumer, I am very excited! No longer will I be subjected to the static interference that corrupts my ears every morning, as I try and listen to my favourite FM breakfast show while on the train into work.  One of the main advantages to DR will be the strong interference-free signal, especially within built up areas. AM listeners in particular, will be jumping for joy with news of this.  Not only will the sound quality surpass current standards, but it will open up more choices for listeners with extra channels and new digital features. New technology means we will have screens to display dynamic text, images, data & multimedia channels.

For Advertisers, radio will no longer be just an audio touch point. DR introduces a visual element to complement the offering. From product shots to animated logos, contact details and even down-loadable electronic coupons for redeemable promotions. Phones will have the fastest capability to embrace digital radio and for many features will be the most practical hardware (electronic coupons for example) Despite these features you will not be able to display moving pictures; don’t get digital radio confused with Mobile TV.

Although a free service to consumers, an initial investment in a digital receiver will be required. Despite the onslaught of negative press out there I believe that DR will win the consumer over in the end, even if it takes 10 years. Remember Digital TV didn’t happen over night.