The Final Recline

It's time to unrecline the recliner and put the thing on e-bay. This is the last post....although like all good rock bands there'll probably be a 10 year reunion tour when the money starts to run out.

It's interesting to look back at some of the stuff/crap I've written in that time...

Transmedia Planning
And to think at some point I actually entertained this as a valid concept. But it's not. It's just a fancy term for coming up with a well rounded media plan. And that's challenging enough to get these days without overlaying an over-thought planning model.

Mount Franklin's Pink Bits
I thought Mt Franklins sponsorship of the National Breast Cancer Foundation would work well with women, but alienate blokes. Well I got that wrong! It's in it's 3rd year now and clearly very successful.

Barry Dawson - The Cougar
Barry and his bad mo are responsible for about half of the visitors to this site. The man has class!

Guiness - still crap
They still can't crack a good local campaign despite running killer ads overseas that position the beer in it's rightful spot amongst the beer brands.

Get Stuffed
NowI know why companies like Reckitt Benckiser use stupid animals to sell air fresheners and toilet cleaners. It's so they don't have to spend a fortune on talent costs when they roll out their global campaigns.

MOTHER (Marketer On The Run)
I'm still a mother. I don't read Adnews. I don't read B&T. I'm too busy doing my job, and so is everyone in the marketing team around me. These mags are interesting, but do we really need two weekly mags where everyone in advertising talks about each other and bla bla bla. At the end of the day, if a Creative Director at Watkins, Spruce and Gribley thinks a competitive ad for Fruit Loops is crap, who cares. Ad folk could spend more time educating their clients rather than their colleagues, but that doesn't win new business does it?

Second Life is still weird
Not only is it still weird, it's dying. Two years ago media agencies were getting a little bit too excited about stuff like this. To bring up Reckitts again, that company still spends 90% of it's media dollars on TV, and is by far and away the most successful household cleaning company in the world in the last 5 years. They say they'll change it when less traditonal media proves that it can sell millions and millions of products at required company growth rates.
I don't work for RB (anymore) and they're aggressive and arrogant, but they're good operators.

The Lada
I also get a lot of people to the site after searching for one of the world's finest motor vehicles - the Lada Kalina. Not sure an article about Archie Thomson is what they were looking for.


Blogging wrap up
I've had almost 20,000 hits. At some point this blog was part of the top 300 marketing and advertising blogs in the world (but since plummetted to 736) and it's ranked 66 in the top 100 Australian Marketing blogs. Not bad for what really is just my personal diary on stuff I've observed in the marketing world.

Do I think I've had any impact on the marketing world? No, not really.

My observation is that there's a small community of online bloggers who are passionate about (and very good at) what they do. Everyone checks out each others blogs and makes comments and engages etc - it's fabulous. And granted there are some blogs that attract a lot of attention.

Overall though, I still think it's pretty niche. Most marketers and ad agency folk I know have little time to get involved, and choose to spend their time at home with their families or other interests.

At the end of the day, it's a great community and for those involved there's some brilliant stuff to keep the marketing mind fresh and challenged. It certainly did for me for a couple of years. But my spark has gone and as much as I often think about adding a new post, I choose to watch Flight of the Conchords or Entourage instead.

I have really enjoyed being part of the scene, and will keep checking out my favourites like Brand DNA and Scamp.

Thanks for checking in over the years. Happy blogging everyone.

Cheers
Vando