Exposes You Won't See On Media Watch

Global news agency Reuters is in a meltdown this week over falsified photos that were sent out 'over the wire' from photographers covering the conflict in Lebanon.

The agency uses local 'stringers' to provide copy and pictures and was forced to withdraw almost a thousand photographs by photographer Adnan Hajj after a US website exposed his fakery.

Hajj used a PhotoShop tool to make clouds of smoke billowing from an airstrike on Beirut look worse than they actually were. But his inept use of the 'clone' tool was obvious to even PhotoShop amateurs who pointed out that Hajj had even duplicated some buildings in the landscape.

The fake was exposed by the blog site Little Green Footballs on Saturday and 48 hours later another blog site uncovered another Hajj photo in which a plane dropping a single defensive flare had been doctored to show multiple flares plus four 'bombs'.

After a firestorm of protest on the Internet, Reuters issued 'Photo Kill' alerts for the images and sacked Hajj whose claims that he was just trying to touch out dust marks under poor lighting conditions didn't wash.

One wonders why he bothered - the scene in his original photo looked bad enough to begin with.

Meanwhile, mainstream news agencies generally are under further attack for their coverage of the Lebanon tragedy. A full video wrap up from US online commentator Michelle Malkin.

Attack Of The Clones

The Clone Tool is one of the most beloved pieces of kit in the PhotoShop box. It's effectively a rubber stamp that copies pixels from one area of a digital image onto another area.

Its most basic use is, indeed, touching dust and scratches off scanned photos and marks on digital shots that result from dust getting onto the sensors of digital SLR cameras during lens changes.

In the past, we've used it extensively to remove such inconveniences as powerlines and road signs from landscapes, and even touched out unfortunate portrait day pimples. Of course, we're not passing our work off as news photos.

Cloning also comes in handy when a photo wasn't composed the way you wish it had been so you might extend an area of a shot, such as doubling the amount of sky so that type can be laid over that area.

The trick is not to let repetitive clone stamping become obvious. You can avoid this by careful selection of 'donor' areas or, if detail is not important - such as in clouds of smoke - by brushing the cloned area afterwards with the Blur Tool.

If only Hajj had known Blur is just two tools below Clone, he might still have a job.

A Shakespearean Tragedy

Sunday Age journo Terry Lane still has his job although he too was caught out perpetuating a hoax the weekend before last.

He presented as fact a story that had been debunked as a hoax months earlier and was caught out by another blogger.

Lane had relayed the tale of purported former US Marine Jesse Macbeth who claimed he'd served 16 months in Iraq and been ordered to carry out atrocities such as shooting injured civilians - except he'd flunked out of basic training and never even been to Iraq.

Sunday Age editor Peter Frey refused to accept Lane's offer to resign and the journalist last weekend portrayed himself as just another victim of the Macbeth hoax.

However, in the days immediately after his first column, he had admitted he'd not looked too hard at the story 'because I wanted it to be true'.

Predictably, his admission sparked further uproar among bloggers who see themselves as waging war on a mainstream media that promotes its own biases between the lines.

Go Google It

Lane might have saved himself some heartache if he'd just 'googled' the words jesse, macbeth and hoax.

Do you know how 'to google' properly? Using phrases (several words in quotation marks) and includes (+) or excludes (-) can make searches that pull in too many irrelevant results more efficient.

The above search should be +"jesse macbeth" +hoax

If you'd searched just for +macbeth +hoax and got a lot of results to do with fraud at the local drama club, you could try +macbeth +hoax -shakespeare

It's All About Me!

Only 11 per cent of online blogs (weblogs) concern themselves with politics. The biggest group of bloggers write about themselves and their lives (Pew Reseach).

But who reads them?

Turning Dissatisfaction Into Loyalty

Reuters might not see the value in it just yet, but by encouraging customers to complain when they are not happy with your product or service, you can turn them into some of your most loyal customers.

A dissatisfied customer is less likely to return if they don't complain. The customer that does - and then receives some sort of compensation - is more likely to be back.

Three factors that affect the future loyalty to a company are:

• response time,


• the number of contacts the complainant made before the complaint was resolved and


• the extent to which the complainant's expectations were met.

The compensation can be something as simple as a free product delivered to them or even a $5 voucher to spend with your company. This encourages the customer to return to your business, choose your product when shopping and generates positive word of mouth.

Of course, much of this is damage control - a quick and effective resolution at the first point of contact is the very best way to go.

The Colour Purple II

The row between Darryl Lea and Cadbury over the use of the colour purple seemed to be over when the High Court of Australia found Darryl Lea wasn't intending to pass their product off as their opposition's.

But Cadbury is to appeal the decision. It makes for continuing interesting times as intellectual property laws make it harder and harder to be original.

Work In Progress

Business Communications Management is currently at work on a number of website developments for clients ranging from health spas to computer supplies retailers, on art design for clients including sports equipment wholesalers and funeral companies, and media relations for clients ranging from realtors selling islands to individuals running for mayor.

The latter is Gold Coast City Councillor Rob Molhoek, who announced his 2008 candidacy for the top job last week.

Quote Of The Month (August)

"Present fears are less than horrible imaginings."
- from Macbeth by William Shakespeare,
English Dramatist and Poet. (1564-1616)

One Good Train Wreck Deserves Another

Who would have thought in the midst of the public relations disaster currently being experienced by the Nine Network that someone else could come up with a gaffe big enough to knock Nine off the front pages?

But Network Ten has managed it with this year's Big Brother debacle. The assault scandal that saw two contestants kicked off the show could result in the show being kicked off the air - or at least not returning next year.

What could, in fact, spell the end for the show might happen behind the scenes as sponsors reconsider their commitment to a program that, while a good rater in its market, is fanning mud far and wide.

At Business Communications Management, we often advise clients on such risk management issues and would suggest 'The Home of Big Brother', the Dreamworld amusement park, might be best to quietly let BB go when this season wraps.

Dreamworld faced protests from a Logan-based family group when the show began this year and must surely now be wary of further fallout from a broader base of offended citizens.

Meanwhile, back at Nine's train wreck, new CEO Eddie McGuire is not exactly smelling of roses following the publication of a former network exec's diary notes regarding meetings with the boss.

Local Losses

Nine is plunging into disarray following the death of media giant Kerry Packer last year and it's hitting home hard on the Gold Coast where one of Kerry's prides, Nine Gold Coast News, has been axed in all but name.

The 5.30 news bulletin has been a winner in the Coast market, providing a valuable lead-in to the Brisbane edition of National Nine News at 6pm.

But, as long time front man Rob Readings bows out with a voluntary redundancy package, the Gold Coast program is being relocated to Brisbane from where Gillian Whiting will read the 'local' news gathered by crews on the ground.

It's a major mistake in a market in which parochialism has been elevated almost to an art form by the media, especially as it's said to be saving Nine a measly $1.5 million.

And one can't help but suggest that centralising news in the face of losses to Pay TV and the Internet is a strange reaction.

Pay and Net have forged huge inroads into the news business by catering to niche markets.

And here is Nine abandoning a successful niche market.
Go fig.

Anyhow, Have A Lark

We're always on the lookout for interesting new advertising but recently our search for TV commercials led us to some classic items at a website by the name of RoadOde.com

It's getting to be a stretch to recall that cigarettes were ever advertised on television, much less that they were equated with fresh air but check out the tragic Inger Stephens playing dumb for Lark.

Then imagine trying to get away with the 'little housewife' scenario promoting Scotkins Paper Napkins (but pay attention to the imaginative picture in picture technique that adds movement to the visuals).

Funnily enough, not a lot has changed about advertising washing powders since 1957.

In fact, Jane Wyatt's pitch for All Detergent is probably brighter - and by that we mean more intelligent - than today's Vanish-Napisan OxyAction Max TVC with its tired psuedo public demonstration schtick complete with gasping audience.Check out more great old ads at RoadOde.

But What Does That Mean?

Dr. Philip Kotler, author of the book Marketing Management, described marketing as 'human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes'.

Other definitions get more complex, such as the American Marketing Association's description:

'An organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders'.

For those interested in finding out what they mean, Wikipedia gets into the topic in detail.

Drunk In Charge Of A Phone

University of Utah psychologists have published a study showing that motorists who talk on handheld or hands-free cellular phones are as impaired as drunken drivers.

Their findings back up Queensland research performed some years ago by one of our clients, The Holden Performance Driving Centre, in conjunction with Griffith University.

One more time...

Hyperbole is a figure of speech that is an exaggeration.

'Every parent's worst nightmare' is just one hyperbole that is out of control in the media.

A quick check of Google finds the phrase in 24,600 entries with 'every parent's worst nightmare' ranging from the death or abduction of a child to leaving the hospital with the wrong baby, a child with colic or learning your teenage daughter is posing in front of her webcam in return for gifts from strangers.

The former two have to be up there (although they can't both be every parent's worst nightmare) but the latter applications are just thoughtless, paint by numbers writing.

We've said it before - avoid stock phrases, verbal or written. At best you'll sound glib; at worst you'll sound cliched. In either case, you won't inspire trust or credibility.

PR Bummer

For some years, a Labrador tyre shop sported signage combining an illustration of Ayers Rock and a cartoon bikini girl's buttocks to live up to their promise of 'rock bottom prices'.

Would you take your business there? The question is moot as the shop no longer exists.

But we've been asking ourselves exactly who thought it was a good idea to resurrect the cartoon bottom fixation to promote a local recycling business.

Their truck is getting around with a logo featuring a ballooning bum and the positioning statement 'We want your glass, not your ass'.

It must have made sense to someone.

Big Business

Big is beautiful in the US marketplace at the moment.

Business 2.0 magazine reports that US sales of women's plus-size apparel jumped 50 percent during the past five years to nearly $US32 billion with designer labels now entering the fray.

But it's the tale of Tim Barry, a 6-foot-1, 365 pound management consultant, that shows real appreciation for a business opportunity.

Frustrated by his personal experience of air travel in planes built for smaller people, he is now is about to turn over $US1 million in his first year selling airline seatbelt extenders as well as other plus-sized items.

Barry has also done it purely by using Google ads.

Quote Of The Month (July)

"Scandal is merely the compassionate allowance which the gay make to the humdrum. Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people." - Saki (H.H. Munro), Author, (1870-1916)

Going For A Rowe

Channel 9's Jessica Rowe was left red-faced when East Timor taskforce commander Brigadier Michael Slater revealed how an interview was being stage managed. News.com.au reports the exchange between Rowe and Slater:

"I'm wondering how you feel about your safety given that you've got armed guards there standing behind you, armed soldiers," Rowe says.

"Jessica, I feel quite safe, yes," Brigadier Slater says. "But not because I've got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good."

The release of the interview footage on the web is part of an increasingly bitter war over ratings between Seven and Nine.

As we always highlight in our media training sessions, it's in the media's nature to want to make things look more dramatic than they really are.

Help For Business Growth

US President Ronald Reagan once quipped: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'."

But Business Communications Management's alliance partner Centre For Business Success has sourced some genuine and non-scary government assistance for small business planning and training.

To be eligible, business owners must be running a company that serves business-to-business and is growing at more than 10% a year.

If you fit the bill, we encourage you to nominate your firm for an obligation-free meeting with the Centre For Business Success by calling 1800 443 734.

Centre For Business Success is a comprehensive business training and mentoring company that specialises in assisting family-owned businesses, community and not-for-profit organisations as well as major corporations achieve their business goals.

Colour Me Shocked

It's always a challenge to ramp up the excitement over a product's colour range by devising descriptive new names for various shades.

Of course, no one could be upset by Vixen (a Ford red) or Raisin Rage (a lipstick shade). But even some members of Kotex's target market for U tampons are expressing disbelief over the descriptor for one of their coloured wrappers - it's Skanky Ho Blue.

The TV ads for the product are equally tasteless, seemingly depicting U's purchasers as, well, skanky hos.

It's all very well to be cutting edge in your advertising but you can sometimes be so sharp, you risk slashing your own wrists.

Ford Faux Pas

Ford Australia has been doing some great work with TVCs for the Territory. The motor company has often been unable to settle on campaigns for any decent length of time but their consistent use of Alex Lloyd's song We Were Amazing has really set up a good on-going theme for the vehicle.

More recently, they've also been amusing with their 'Nice Rig' ad in which the school drop-off zone is populated by truckie-style mums, made rough and tough by the demands of their 4WDs, who admire the car-like qualities of the Territory.

Not so appealing, however, is an ad to promote the vehicle's reversing camera in which the central wife and mother character chides all around her. Does bitchiness really sell?

Peek-A-Boo Two

The downward trend in the prices of 5 and 6 megapixel digital cameras is cause for some delight round here. Some time ago in an earlier newsletter we looked at the way smaller companies (and sometimes bigger ones too) often try to save a few dollars on photography for their marketing activities by taking the shots themselves.

The point a couple of years ago was that snapshots taken on 1 or 2 megapixel digital cameras are just not suitable for professional offset printing, no matter how great they may look on the computer screen or printed from a desktop photoprinter. The good old 'Dummies Guide to...' people explain a bit of the reason why here.

Now, with 5 and 6MP digital cameras being very affordable, we no longer have to cringe when clients say they'll take a few shots themselves. We just tell them to set the camera at the highest setting possible then wait to see what develops, so to speak.

Unfortunately, however, the results are often just bad pics done big. There's really no replacing a good professional photographer who knows just how to set up a shot and the exact moment to press the shutter. We recently produced a budget web site for one such photographer.

Copyright Chaos

One trend that isn't going away, however, is the temptation to 'borrow' pictures from the web. Beware - this is breaking copyright which usually rests with the person who took the photo and those to whom the rights have been assigned.

However, this long-standing rule of image copyright looks likely to get a major shake-up as a disabled Iraq War veteran in the US looks to sue filmmaker Michael Moore and Miramax Films for using footage of him without his permission in the movie Fahrenheit 9/11.

The former soldier, who lost his arms while servicing a helicopter, spoke to the NBC television network from a hospital bed about his recovery and some new painkilling drugs he was receiving. NBC screened the interview on the news but later sold the footage to Moore who edited a selected portion that misrepresented the veteran's sentiments about the war.

If the civil suit is successful, it may completely rewrite copyright law, placing more power in the hands of those in front of the camera to have a say in how their image is used.

Internet Marketing System

This newsletter is the debut of the new Business Communications Management Internet Marketing System and you can use it too.

The system offers a wide range of excellent features:

• Business Newsletter module
• Communication stencil
• Campaign Manager
• Activity Reporter
• Survey Optimiser
• Personalised e-cards
• Contact Manager
• Event Manager

It's all packaged in an easy to use on-line system you can manage from any internet-enabled computer.

You can easily create email campaigns to schedule and send professional, personalised, interactive letters to your contact database to attract new clients, increase your sales and improve communications with your prospects, business partners and customers.

You can also manage your contacts in one secure location. Being able to enter, edit and profile each of your contacts is essential for effective, personalised communication. This tool has been set up so you can select sub groups for each communication that goes out - making your communication more targeted and effective in its results.

We'll tell you more about other great IMS features in future newsletters or you can read all about it all right now by clicking here.

Quote Of The Month (June)

"There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept." - Ansel Adams, US landscape photographer (1902-1984)