Today’s post is a guest post from Matt Bowen. Matt is the Brand Communications Officer for the University of Western Sydney, the founder of charity Chasing Rainbows and publisher of media and marketing blog, Why Not Y. He is one of the few people that spends more time using his marketing powers for good rather than evil. I also like him because he keeps you on your toes and just like me, will do his best alcoholic lobster or pale whale impersonation if left out in the sun. 
Here he talks …

In primary school, I had a friend that I was friends with because his Mum used to pack him doughnuts for lunch. He got doughnuts everyday. Doughnuts weren’t a big deal for him. But I loved doughnuts. Loved ‘em! And he knew this. So every lunch he would share his doughnuts with me. This meant that I spent fifteen minutes with him at little lunch every day. There wasn’t much talk during this time, just doughnut eating. That was it.
I never hung out with him in class, on weekends, after …

It’s been a little crazy around these traps lately. And that’s a good thing. But before I push on to new content I want to stop and acknowledge a few people who have helped bring important issues forward or who have supported me in their postings. Here goes:
The Starlight Foundation’s Livewire Project
On the weekend, Rachel Browne from the Sydney Morning Herald wrote about the Starlight Foundation’s Livewire project under the headline of ‘Charity project under fire‘. This is the first mainstream article questioning the project.
Matt Granfield and I …

These were the headlines on the homepage of two of Australia’s major news sources yesterday :

Different stories, same day, same headline. I’ve got a feeling someone was saving these headlines for a rainy day or they might just be a bit wet around the ears. Boom tish! 
Credit to a very pretty and intelligent lady who found them. 

I will never understand why chocolate is advertised in the weeks following Easter. At the moment, the prospect of chocolate is as alluring as the mystery dish in Chinatown.
However, this week there were two great pieces of advertising – both traditional – from Cadbury which I want to point out.  
1. Cadbury Eyebrows
This is the scene I witnessed in the office the night after it was first shown on TV:
Co-Worker1: “Did you seen that Cadbury ad last night?”Co-Worker2: “The one with the gorilla drumming?”Co-Worker1: “Nah the one with the …

There’s been a bit of to-and-fro this week about brands acting as ‘friends’ to consumers. First, we had Jye Smith suggest that marketers should think about what they like in a friend and act that way to consumers. Then, we had Adam Ferrier tell marketers that this advice (and much advice like it) is wrong and that brands should friend each other, not the consumer.
Both posts have valuable takeouts (the comments are well worth a read as well). But if I’m a marketer with limited social media experience, I read …

I’ve worked with ABC Learning Centres for almost three years now. This is from the days of Eddy Groves and over 1,200 centres to the realities of today where they work with receivers to keep as many centres open as they can. While the business operation of ABC has been constantly changing, the one thing that doesn’t change is the fact that childcare is a bloody important (and necessary) service which lends itself to being an extremely passionate topic of conversation.
With this in mind, I am happy to (and will …

It’s not a fun week to be in the fast food business. Have a look at three social media disasters which have been served over the past week:  
1. Domino’s add boogers and farts to their topping options Result: Over 440,000 views. Almost 4,000 predominantly negative comments. Major press including the BBC, Sky, The Sun and News Limited run the story. Employees fired and threatened to be arrested.   
2. McDonald’s boost kids entertainment with temporary trash adventure grounds

Result: Over 26,000 views. Over 100 predominantly negative comments. News Limited run the …

When loading, the Commonwealth Bank iPhone layout looks like this…

One of their competitors, Suncorp, has a logo which looks like this…

Notice anything unusual?

It’s been a crazy couple of months. First, there was the new that De Pasquale, the agency where I work will merge with Gallery Group to create Gallery De Pasquale. Secondly, for me it means a positional and title change. Previously, I was working for De Pasquale as a Senior Contact Planner and working on DP Dialogue in my downtime. Now I will be working with Matt and Gino full time in DP Dialogue.
This is an exciting time for me as it has been a short-term goal of mine to …