╠ Infotalk? Or just Telstra talk? ╣

I noticed an Infotalk ad on TV a few weeks ago, basically it was another 'Brand Power' style ad however this time for technology. What they basically do is act as a third party and say 'We looked into it and like this company.' The problem with this however is they usually fail to mention 'By the way they paid us to say that.' Of course it is kind of stand out if you're a bit cluey but it does work on some.

On a basic level it is deceiving, it's buying credibility as opposed to actually earning it. To prove how sketchy some of these companies are Gen Y podcast discovered that the company What's New(Not the retail store) ran a product of the year competition where if you got shortlisted you owed them $5,000 and if you won you owed them even more in order to be able to advertise that you won. That's right, they actually ran a competition where if you even placed, you owed them money. Now obviously there is value in saying you won and that's why brands enter and are willing to fork up, but overall it doesn't seem quite as accurate and unbiased product of the year competition when you start to expose it bit by bit.

Now what got me about Infotalk is that it's only done one brand, Telstra. I waited for about a month to see if this changed in any way, see if they mentioned any other brands to give them credibility, however the site still appears as you see it above as just a push for Telstra. I dn't know if it will change in the future but my suspicion is that Telstra may have been responsible for propositioning the brand power group in order to make a brand power that was more suitable for their market.

I personally think some of these ads border on lying to consumers when they make sure to appear to be independant and think something should probably be done about it. What are your thoughts?

╠ AniBlog - Gruen brought Sexy Back╣

This aniblog recognizes the performance of the Greun Transfer TV show in being able to spark further interest in marketing as a career, however also comments on the possible downsides when you consider the economic climate they will all be entering into.

As usual comments are always appreciated on these things as they do take a while so I like to get them right. Anyway here's what may be a slightly inaccurate script

Media has had a history of turning specific careers into what we call sexy careers. CSI did it for forensics, Scrubs for doctors and Dragonball Z for bleaching your hair, flying around and trying to blow up planets with your energy balls!

The Gruen Transfer seems to be the next installment for this as it has made Marketing into a much more appealing job. Unfortunately when I say The Gruen Transfer though I mean the ABC television show as oposed to this blog

sigh

Unfortunately the only relation the blog share to the show is the name which is simply the moment where when you go shopping all of the stimuli such as advertisements makes you buy items you weren't planning on usually followed not soon after by the statement 'Why did I buy all this crap?'

Universities have seen as much as a 30% increase in students wishing to do marketing since the show started. However as a current marketing student I can't help but imagine that this may be bad news for me. As soon as these kids come out I'll be losing on the experience front to those who have been sacked and on the youth side to these new kiddies.

So this is my call out to the Gruen Transfer. Please stop being so damn sexy! At the moment out of ten you're bottled Jelly from a particularly spirited jelly wrestle fight. If you could tone it down to perhaps a pair of ladies underpants bought from a japanese vending machine, not my thing but I'm sure there's some sex appeal to it. But if you could do that it would be much appreciated.

╠ AniBlog - Skittles are my BFF - A reply to Gen Y Podcast ╣

Finally another AniBlog has been prepared. This one is a reply to the Gen Y Marketing Podcast. The particular one I am replying too is Number 44 I think, there's a bit of confusion with the numbering. Also I've included Skittles in all my examples as they are actually a brand that does seem to be more active with the trying to be a friend, or at least that's how I perceive what I've seen of them on facebook. Anyway for those of you who struggle to understand my horrible voice here's the script. (May not be 100% accurate.)

Apologies for the going awol but over the holiday period I got this thing called a life that everyone else seems so fond of and as you with lives would know when you have one you do more stuff, however this means you do less things. Unfortunately animated blogs falls into the things collumn like the unloved children that they are.

In my absence I discovered the Gen Y podcast. Unforunately I don't know to just who I'm replaying because I've yet to grasp just who and how many people there are at Gen Y. There could be ten or just one guy who's good at putting on voices. In fact that sounds like a bit of fun I may try that.

I concur

What one of them brought up was that he did not want to interract or communicate with a brand,

which is something brands have actually been pushing as of late.

Instead he believes more that he's only their for value, he's only going to interract with a brand if there is something in it for him. Now I'm trying to be careful to not get this wrong but I think it's because he doesn't want brands as friends, he doen't want them to be part of a conversation.

He wants to use them for their value and tell them to piss off.

This really got me thinking because I found it to be a valid point. Brands aren't our friends, they aren't part of friends circles, yet some of us do allow them to technically be part of the conversation. Here's my conclusion

I was thinking of the value added as a tangible element but this is not what brands are offering in these situations. It's their social value. The value added by you being associated with that brand.

Basically it's the value added on things like facebook where you become a fan of a product.

You may not consciously know why you're so eager to be a fan, but it's because you're aligning yourself with a brand that you like. You can learn a lot about a person by what they like so therefore there is value added by sometimes communicating with a brand in the mix.