The Australian Republican Movement (ARM) has launched a brand push led by a video ad featuring a variety of Australians trying to sing ‘God Save the Queen’.
Many of the singers fumble through the song, and forget words, before the ad delivers its tagline: ‘It doesn’t sound right anymore.’
The brand refresh, created by sri lanka cell phone database McCann Melbourne, is the biggest brand push since the 1999 National Referendum.
“This new campaign is all about connecting with regular folk and making the case for change,” says Tim Mayfield, national director of the ARM.
“Independence must be placed in the hands of the Australian people, not politicians,” he says.
The new logo, a yellow arrow in the shape of Australia, first appeared in December as the backdrop for a speech by PM Malcolm Turnbull.
Other brand action includes a website relaunch, and appearance at Australia Day events across major cities tomorrow, where volunteers will hand out ARM merchandise and film locals becoming members of the movement.
Brands and agencies must accept their role in the age of fake news sites, and can play a role in stopping it by eliminating its source of funding, concludes a new report.
Technology and market research company Forrester has released a report defining fake news and outlining what marketers must do to protect their ad spend and brand reputations.
By placing trust in automated ad-buying strategies, brands risk their reputations and their ad-spend going to fake news sites generated for no reason other than to generate traffic, concludes the report titled ‘Fake News: More Proof that Advertisers Must Choose Quality Over Quantity’.
The report advises ‘fake news’ should not be a catch-all term, and that marketers must diligently act in their own best interests and media planning in a programmatic ecosystem which makes it easy for low-quality inventory to flourish.
Fake news is not to be confused with satirical news sites, opinion sites or any other slanted coverage of events. The report breaks its definition into three key facets:
Fake news has nothing to do with politics: While the fake news scandal has surrounded political issues such as the US Presidential election, it is not politically focused. It’s point is to generate large audiences to make money. Various fake news sites about politics have been successful as politics is a hot-button topic.
it is intended to defraud advertisers,
it exploits ad networks: programmatic ad spend follows traffic, including that of fake news sites.
So, how can those who invest in programmatic avoid their ads appearing on fake sites?
Forrester recommends balancing context with automation.
Acknowledge the problem and your role in facilitating it: marketers have embraced programmatic for its efficient, accurate media buying, but place trust in others to manage that aspect of their advertising. The only way to protect their brands from fake news is to get more involved in programmatic decision-making. Mitigate exposure to fake news by taking a more active role in managing whitelists and blacklists of media sites.
Establish whether your brand values must guide your media strategy: Do your brand values trump the ability to reach an audience at scale? The report uses the example of the controversy Kellogg’s and Nissan faced when advertising on Breitbart (not a fake news site, a far-right news and opinion website). Kellogg’s responded they “regularly work with media-buying partners to ensure ads do not appear on sites that aren’t aligned with (its) values as a company.”
Nissan, instead, advertises “in a variety of sites in order to reach as many consumers as possible.”
Treat publishers like partners: publisher relationships have taken a back seat to data and technology partnerships since programmatic came to the fore. Ensure you are buying high quality, controllable digital inventory through stronger publisher partnerships, and demand transparency from these partners about where your ads are running.