I Believe

Mars has just renamed their bars, Believe, in Australia in support of having a Tasmanian AFL team. At first glance, the only difference to the packaging is the name change to Believe. When taking a closer look however, there is small writing on the side which gives a brief comment, "If you believe in a Tasmanian Footy Team sms a phone number."

The Tasmanian Government entered a sponsorship deal with Mars in order to help promote having a Tasmanian footy team. Now mars has done this before in England to show support for England in the soccer World Cup in 2006.

I believe this WOULD have success, however the support for a Tasmanian AFL team, would be minimal outside of Tasmania. Most AFL supporters aren't supportive of the two teams that have already been announced to join the AFL.

If this were hypothetically about "believing" that an already existent footy team should not fold, ie the Melbourne Football Club, I think it would have greater success, as more people would be supportive of not losing a club, then introducing a new team into the competition.

The other negative of the campaign, is the question of what do the consumers get? The Mars Bar was renamed, and if we believe in a product we have to sms a number. No sign of anything to win, so the only positive is potentially having a Tasmanian Footy team, great for Tassie but the rest of Aus? Not so sure.

An Explanation

I just thought I would take this time to give a little bit of an explanation of where I am at the moment, which might give a slight indication as to why I havn't blogged in about 2 months.

First off, I have decided that social media, or new media as it were, is not my thing. Whilst I am part of Gen Y and spend most of my time online, I dont feel like it is my calling.

That being said, it is no excuse for not posting in two months. That blame lies solely with the fact that I don't think like a blogger. When I see something that might be something worth posting about, it doesn't really enter my mind. That being said, it has started to come back to me a little bit, so I am hoping that my brain will start working like that again and hopefully I will be a little bit less spaced out then 1 post every 2 months.

Secondly, I can't think of what I was going to write secondly.

As I said, I am hoping that I will get back into the jist of things and start having more semi-regular postings although most likely won't be related to social media, or marketing in general, I'll see how I go.

Also, for those of you reading this, it means that after not making a post in 2 months, you have kept me in your reader, so thanks for not ditching me, I will try make it up to you.

Simon Oboler: Proud sponsor of Simon Oboler

Watching television the other night I saw two advertisements that just made me think "what the hell are these guys doing?"

The first I cannot remember what company it was for, however at the end of the ad, along with the logo and all of that is the phrase "proud sponsor of value". I am not sure what channel this was on either, however I am pretty sure it was on channel 10, if not then Channel 7 the olympic broadcaster. As if that wasn't bad enough, the very next ad finished up almost identically with the phrase "Proud sponsors of Lifes Good". No points for guessing which company that was for.

Obviously the Olympics are on at the moment, and specifically on Channel 7 basically every single Ad that comes on TV is a company that is either worldwide parter, or broadcast partner, or proud sponser for the olympics, those are fair enough. When these two ads came on and were "sponsoring" value and life's good, it was clear that they had gone a little bit too far in trying to find something to sponsor.