This is a great brand message for Hyundai, moving the perceptions of their audience further into that of a quality car manufacturer. It may not be the most exciting TVC but the message is strong and single minded, ‘Hyundai makes quality steel’. Hyundai has taken a unique selling proposition and created a need for buyers that may not have existed before, ‘my car needs quality steel’.

Who knows if better quality steel means that your car will be stronger, safer and last longer…I don’t. But because Hyundai decided to sell me a unique aspect of their car production which no other car manufacturer has done, it must be true. Now I believe that all the other cars I have owned in my time have been inferior.

I need quality steel. Hyundai has quality steel. Therefore, I need a Hyundai!

John Brunckhorst
Hyundai lover &
Account manager
trademarkDM

Ever wonder whether traditional direct mail still has a place in today’s online insta-world? Consider Christmas cards for a minute.

Millions of us become direct marketers at this time of year, dispatching about 70 million cards throughout Australia.

And when you think about it, the humble Christmas card between friends is a neat example of business principles like relationship management and brand image. How many friends haven’t seen each other for decades but faithfully maintain a connection via an annual piece of cardstock printed with snow and evergreen trees? And what is the dreaded family newsletter insert, if not a slightly dodgy press release cranked out on the home inkjet?

Sure, faster and cheaper media are available today. And e-cards can do all sorts of things you can’t in print. But there’s nothing quite as personal as opening an envelope and reading your friend’s handwritten news. Christmas cards have been around since 1843 and just quietly, I think they’re looking good for a bit longer.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to start making this year’s list.

Prue Oxford

Senior Copywriter

THE DM GROUP

Well Pete happens to find it necessary to tell stories…a lot of them…horrible ones. I don’t mind stories but these couldn’t be any more uninteresting.

It’s not like the material is unimportant because, in truth, we can all relate to the stories he tells. The problem is we don’t care about the people in Pete’s stories. To make a good story work is to get your audience involved and emotionally invested into what happens to your characters.

Take Pete, perhaps you are still reading now because you feel as though you could relate to Pete from the description I gave. If you are going to care about my story, you have to first care about the person or people in it.

Always think about how you will portray your characters to the audience. This seems simple, but is usually overlooked and then you’ll end up telling a story like Pete.

John ‘Pete’ Brunckhorst
Account Manager
trademarkDM

Ever had one of those months where it all just seems to come together?

Our buddies at HOSTPLUS just did, and what a month it was!  November 2011 will be a month that the entire team will remember with a very deserving sense of pride for some time to come.

From the very successful launch of their brand new website (assisted by our very own clickDM team), to a swag of industry awards (6 in total), the team, led by Wayne Sullivan have had a cracker end to a very big year.

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) had their night of nights in November, and there’s no doubt that HOSTPLUS came out on top, picking up four awards.

Cook for your Career, a competition designed to engage young and aspiring chefs providing grass roots support for one of HOSTPLUS’ key industries picked up 2 awards, Innovation of the Year, and Best use of Public Relations got the night off to a great start, but it was only going to get better…

The Quality Campaign, developed in conjunction with THE DM GROUP, picked up Brand Campaign of the Year and then went on to win the Grand Prize, The inaugural Comms Award – Campaign of the Year.

Add to that two more gongs from the Australian Institute of Super Trustees (AIST) and it is certainly a month worth remembering.  The Marketing team picked up the Super Member Services Award for Excellence, and Cook for Your Career picked up Gold in the Communication Awards for Excellence.

So to Wayne, Michelle, Jen, Jane, Gary, Nick, Aneta, Matt, Shelley & Andrea and all at HOSTPLUS, a big congratulations from all of us at THE DM GROUP, and here’s to another big year in 2012.

Well Done guys.

Craig Hockley
Digital Planning Director.

Growing up I always worried about Bill Posters.

Who was he? What did he do? Did they ever catch him?

If the makers of This Space Available get their way, old Bill may still end up in front of, well, The Old Bill.

Subtitled the Grass Roots Movement Against Visual Pollution,
the documentary depicts activists ‘who want to reclaim the integrity of their cities against an onslaught of visual pollution.’

Cool.

But for one thing.

Why does a film decrying the visual pollution of billboards and commercial messages have a promotional poster?

Bill Posters would be proud.

Stephen Flewell-Smith
Business & Creative Director
THE DM GROUP

The recent death of boxing ledgend ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier sparked a thought…why was he called ‘Smokin’ Joe?

This drove me to think about the different names of boxers. Or all fighters in general.

UFC’s Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva, George ‘Rush’ St Pierre (a.k.a GSP) or boxing’s ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, ‘The Greatest’ Muhammad Ali and ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson. They had created their own identity, something for their fans or anyone watching, to remember them by. Their career is their campaign and the way they promote themselves is by creating a personality, or brand, for the ring or octagon.

These men didn’t always have these names and of course each athlete must still perform well, but these are the brands that you’ll remember.

So when Joe was told to keep punching till smoke came from his gloves, a legend, a symbol, a brand was born.

Johnny B ‘Dangerously’
Account Manager
trademarkDM

Remember the good old days when YouTube was advertising-free? No 30 second ads before film clips, no pop-up ads tempting us to ‘meet singles into cycling’. YouTube has always been free to use, but now we pay for it with snippets of our time and attention. In other words, we’re subjected to advertising.

‘Getting something for free when you watch an ad’ isn’t a new concept.

Telco’s started offering free international calls years ago – the hitch being advertising messages ran sporadically over your conversations. Next came free video calls from your web browser and, while the connection was being made, an ad ran. Then Skype completely changed the program: free video calls, minus the subjection to advertising. Needless to say, Skype came out trumps.

So where’s it written in stone we have to watch video content through YouTube? When you think about it, YouTube just provides a platform to upload and view videos. So if a similar platform existed without advertising, would you use it? Yeah it would take a while to catch on, but nothing’s as permanent as it seems in the digital world.

People have never liked being sold to, and they never will. For us advertisers, it’s a good thing. It forces us to constantly innovate, and create advertising people will want to engage with. Because if we ever accept the tried and true approaches as formulas, we’ll get left behind.

Andy McInerney

Creative

Don’t be deceived by the youthful looks of clickDM’s new web designer. True to his switched-on generation, Elliot Birch has been working online all his life – in web design, podcasting, gaming and just about anything else he can get his hands on.

Elliot’s a big fan of open-source systems and the way they make useful information available to huge communities of users. He’s also passionate about new front-end web standards. “Getting this stuff right means that websites are more accessible than ever. Even if they’re blind or colour-blind, people can still get all the benefits of your site.” And he’s equally enthusiastic about using emerging technology to keep organisations a step ahead: “With HTML5 and CSS3, we can build great features into your website now that are ready to go as the browsers catch up.”

Even if those aren’t terms you use in your everyday conversation, Elliot and the rest of the clickDM team can show you how they will get your clients talking. Give us a call  if you’d like to talk about taking advantage of what’s around the corner in the digital world.

Fast forward 60 years and building relationships is still the foundation for marketing brands and products. The basic fundamentals, whether face-to-face or via social media sites, are essentially the same – to develop trust and permission to continue the conversation.

Today, the internet provides the opportunity to conduct multiple conversations with, and ultimately market to, many more potential prospects. Unlike the ‘old’ days these conversations are accessible to audiences located all over the world, broadening network opportunities and ultimately changing traditional selling markets.

Direct selling organisations such as Avon, Amway, May Kay and Nutrimetics have recognised the power of social networking for their brand and their distributors. Social media has an integral part to play in the strategy and marketing mix of direct sellers. These organisations have realised that social media, combined with direct marketing, is a way to position their brand with new audiences, extend purchase channels and support their distributors to grow their networks.

Distributors can use Facebook and Twitter as tools to direct market to ‘friends’ – telling them about offers and promotions, and even ‘pushing’ special offers to customers based on past purchasing behaviour. They can develop and deepen relationships without the restrictions of time and place, and relationships can be developed with many people at same time.

So was the Avon lady simply using the principles of social networking to sell product, and are those principals as relevant today? We think so, but the advantage is that many more doors can be knocked on.

THE DM GROUP can help you create and leverage an effective social media strategy for your organisation. We would love to show you how we can help your brand take advantage of technology to deepen conversations with prospects in today’s marketplace.

Carolyn Mead – Account Service

 Inspired by this experience I did a bit of digging and discovered the brands I’d found are just the tip of the iceberg. Just check out the variety at USA Foods. 

This all got me thinking, is it my unfamiliarity with the products and their names  that attracts me, do americans love lollies more than we do or do they know something about naming that we have forgotten or never learned?  I think it may be the latter.

When you read names like these and see the packaging you can almost imagine the creative process of product development, research and trial. The names might seem strange to non-american consumers but they demonstrate a connection to the target audience and it’s tastes, plus a real understanding of how to use simple words to connect to a population that is obsessed with its candy bars.

At THE DM GROUP we believe that the best communication, whether product name, headline or story, contains a truth about a product or service, expressed in words that have meaning to the audience we are talking to. We’d love to talk to you about how we can bring your next  ‘Whatchamacallit’ to market, so why not  give us a call.

I leave the final word on the subject to George Costanza, enjoy.

Malcolm Harvey Client Services Director