Coffee Club's image turns to water......

The Coffee Club, which tries to promote a sustainable image with its UTZ certified brews, gets a dressing down in this letter to the editor published in The Daily Examiner yesterday:

Water wasters

I was disappointed the theme for one of the Coffee Club's Franchise of the Year events was a "water fight", which asked customers to buy a bottle of water and encourage their friends, work colleagues and family to do the same.

Don't they know bottled water is one the most wasteful products sold in Australia, particularly in towns like Grafton which have an excellent water supply?

Bottled water is expensive and is not worth the cost, either to the consumer or to the planet.

It has a high environmental cost at all stages - during its production vast amounts of oil and water are used, during its transportation more fossil fuels are burned, and then there is the problem of disposing of the discarded bottles.

All up, the amount of oil required equals about 20 per cent of the bottle's volume.

Australia's annual use of bottled water generates more than 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases - the same amount as 13,000 cars.

Bundanoon became the first town in Australia to ban the sale of bottled water a year ago due to concerns about its environmental impact.

I presume there is no Coffee Club franchisee in that town.

A much better stunt for the Coffee Club would have been to ask its franchisees to sell reusable bottles, which could be filled for free from the tap.

JANET CAVANAUGH,
Secretary,

Climate Change Australia (Clarence)

Fast food giant McDonalds 'enraged' over PCRM's public service announcement [video]

Washington-based health lobby Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has commissioned a provocative new fast-food commercial drawing attention to the link between heart disease deaths and fast food.

Reportedly this advertisement was recently aired on American television and has "enraged" fast food giant McDonald's.

Given that McDonald's Australia is on schedule to impose its presence on the small NSW coastal community of Yamba before Christmas 2010, I'm sure that this ad is being noted and that residents will bring it to the attention of Clarence Valley shire councillor Margaret McKenna who brazenly argued that McDonald's food was "nutritious" before voting for the multinational's development application.

The Nationals and political advertising cons

The three days preceding the political advertising blackout at midnight on Wednesday were more than a little painful, as television screens were blitzed by campaign advertising by all major political parties. Here on the NSW North Coast it was a veritable snow storm of spin.

However, what really took the top prize was the Nationals running with one ad which brazenly stated that it was the only party which helped to get an increase in the pension.
Not even lipservice paid to truth there. In fact, putting it bluntly, that would have to be a blatant lie.

The Nationals were not the only party debating pension increases over the last three years and, I can recall that in 2008 they supported an increase of only $30 a week and even then not for every class of pensioner. Remember that vacant space in their initial argument when it came to disability support pensioners?

Every Nationals candidate in 2010 from party leader Warren Truss down to novice Kevin Hogan seems to have conveniently forgotten that fact.

1 more sleep until polling day and......

...the NSW North Coast Nats candidate in Page (and former Croweater) Kevin Hogan's campaigning is beginning to smack of desperation - he's got his wife sending out personalised letters spruiking the cause.

The missus wants to tell a few voters all about Kevvie's virtues as "a husband and father, rather than just as the political candidate you see in the newspaper or on TV".

Apparently he has too much "humility" to tell us himself that he's a "man of integrity, commitment and intelligence".

Unfortunately for the luvverly Karen (pictured) she doesn't have all that much material to work with and I'm left wondering what the Nationals campaign team thought they were achieving this late in the piece.

For the record here's an image of the letter in question and while I'm at it - a chapeau tip to Clarencegirl and someone she calls R's Dad for passing this little gem on.

5 sleeps to polling day and .......

....the Nats Kevin Hogan is still providing laffs on the NSW North Coast.

This time a give-away note pad (below) proudly proclaims that he did not use taxpayer's money to produce the pad.

Er, you're a first time candidate Kevvie - not a sitting MP - so you're not eligible for any taxpayer funded printing allowance.

There's no virtue in claiming to abstain from what you can't access in the first place!

The 'republicofeveryone' shows Australia what a first class political ad looks like

republicofeveryone August 11, 2010
Our ad for the Greens which aired on Gruen Nation on August 11.

The YouTube political ad they couldn't kill

News of this ACTU political advert's demise was greatly exaggerated in The Australian today: "AN ACTU animated video showing two budgies flying into Tony Abbott's bathers has been suspended by YouTube for violating the site's terms of use. The peak union body uploaded the viral ad earlier today, calling it a humorous attack on Mr Abbott's workplace relations stance."
Because it was still displaying on YouTube this evening:

2010 Election Campaign Day 16 - Political advertising

Can you find any legible authorisation on this official National Party campaign pic gracing candidate Kevin Hogan's Facebook page?
























Nup, didn't think so.

Keeping track of all those election campaign leaflets in 2010

Citizens Electoral Council leaflet understood to have been authorized

by R. Barwick on behalf of Craig Isherwood

At last! Somewhere to go to check out those 2010 federal election campaign leaflets.
You can even upload images of those examples that are beginning to litter your own letterbox.
ElectionLeaflets.org.au

Browse at your leisure and spot those breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act as they are posted online.

2010 Election Campaign Day 12: Hustled by Christian Louboutin?

Maud up the Street (who enjoys public access to Teh Netz at her local library) alerted me to the oamimb website which is offering a very odd service:
"This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress."

Click on image to enlarge

Stuffin' letterboxes

Maud Up The Street is hopping mad - this week she found her letter box stuffed with advertising even though a "No Junk Mail" sign was clearly displayed.
What makes her even more annoyed is that of the 5 separate bits of bumpf lobbed at her by Woolworths, Aldi, The Reject Shop, Crazy Clarks and Cellarbrations - only one of these stores is in her local area. The rest are over 50 klms away.

Australian Federal Election 2010: So who thinks neither rule nor law applies to him?

What's wrong with the pictured letter and attachments?
These three documents (letter, flyer and petition sheet) came in the same envelope - as part of a bulk mailout by the Nationals Federal Member for Cowper sent to voters in the neighbouring seat of Page which held by a member of the Rudd Government.
Worked it out yet?
I'm sure many of you are already starting to count the (ahem) breaches.....

Small hint; The entitlement must only be used for parliamentary or electorate purposes, and must not be used for: (a) party business and As of 1 October 2009, Senators and Members have had the option to submit a print ready copy of material proposed to be printed using their printing and communications entitlement for vetting by the Department of Finance and Deregulation. As part of the vetting process, Finance will assess the print ready copy against the parameters of the printing and communications entitlement, and Senators and Members will receive written advice on whether or not the item is within entitlement. and The AEC takes the view that the election period for these purposes will - at minimum - be the period from the announcement of the election or the issue of the writs (whichever is the earlier) to the close of polling on election day. However, in circumstances where there is considerable speculation surrounding a possible election, the AEC may consider that the election period has commenced, notwithstanding that there has been no announcement or issuing of the writs.

Seems Luke Hartsuyker MP didn't bother to consider his actions against current policy, rules or law and that's not his only problem, even if his spokesperson 'appears' not to understand when questioned by the media.

Click on images to enlarge

Name and address of recipient redacted from letter

Want to do a Woolies 'price check' comparison online? First sign a confidentiality agreement!

Woolworths went to the media with the big news that now one can do a price check online of 5,000 items it carries in its supermarket outlets across Australia.

Not only was this so-called pricing transparency met with a big yawn it was also somewhat misleading.

However, what was really interesting about this PR exercise was the fact that a visitor to the company website had to agree to the conditions set out below before the gatekeeping function allowed a search to begin.

So don't you dare print out a page and hand it on to your neighbour or the big bad Woolies police will come a-knocking.....lol, rofl

Price Check Terms & Conditions

Restricted Use

This website is only for personal or domestic use and only in relation to shopping at Woolworths. Unless otherwise indicated, without Woolworths' written permission, the content and information on this site cannot be:

• adapted, reproduced, stored, distributed, printed, displayed, performed or published, and no derivative works can be produced from any part of this website
  
• on sold or provided to any other person, in a material form, or
  
• commercialised, or used for any commercial purpose.

The site's URL may not be displayed on any website without Woolworths' written permission.

I have read, understood, and accept the above terms of use.

Ralph Lauren brand owner hits out at blogger for laughing at advertisement blunder and blogger hits back

PRL USA Holdings, owner of the brand Ralph Lauren, issued a DMCA notice on 2 October 2009 to the blog PsD: Photoshop Disasters, for laughing at a Blue Label advertisement of a super skinny model (with distorted dimensions) which is still being displayed in Google cache as I write.

PsD now has a second Lauren advert posted The hits keep coming with a photo allegedly taken in Sydney - proving once more that displaying a humour deficit can lead to more people finding out about your company's photoshop blunders than if you had originally just taken it on the chin.

Image from PsD post The hits keep coming, 14 October 2009

Something from the "What were they thinking?" file

Last Wednesday I was emailed this copy of a Queensland Government advertisement concerning state-wide electricity rebates which was published on page 8 in The Daily Examiner that day.

Now this newspaper has a catchment which is some hundreds of kilometres south of the NSW-QLD border and a daily circulation of around 17,000 copies.

So what on earth was the Queensland Government doing spending good money to advertise so far from its intended target population and with so little effect?

So this is what passes for NSW regional news these days?

Snapshot from The Daily Examiner, Grafton NSW

It wasn't that many days past since The Daily Examiner editor Peter Chapman was sounding off about ABC North Coast Radio's limited news coverage.
In fact I commented upon his views in this recent post Chapman uses Chaser blunder to hit back at Media Watch.

Well, Mr. Chapman continues to exceed himself, with blatant advertisement masquerading as reporting turning up in the newspaper under his stewardship yet again on 11 June 2009 at page 6 of a 32 page issue.

So enchanted is the editor with this no-brainer form of faux news that the article is also on the newspapers website, where one can happily learn that the principal dealer is committed to taking Clarence Valley Auto well into the future and that he will look after the local community and offer the best possible deals I can on Ford and Hyundai, as well as the best service.

One cannot help wondering if all these not so stealthy advertisements are paid for or if they are freebies for friends.

What they are definitely not is news reporting.

Dodo duds again, ACCC pounces and ISPs have started to filter the Australian Internet

On 7 May 2009 Computer World reported:

Dodo has been ordered to refund customers after charging almost double fees for plans advertised as free.
The discount telco was slapped with the penalty following an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) of its '"Free $29.90 Mobility Cap Plans" which promised customers a free Eee-PC, fuel or cash.
The regulator found the telco had deceived customers by advertising the gifts as free when comparable standard plans were up to $30 a month cheaper.......
Dodo has been blamed for a record spike in telecommunications complaints to the industry regulator, and was slapped with a $147,000 fine last last year for breaching the Do Not Call register.

According to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman 2008 Annual Report:

• We received 149 742 complaints, an almost 50 per cent increase on the year before.
• Each complaint raised one or more issues. This year we dealt with 268 645 issues
– a 61.0 per cent increase on the year before.
• Landline service issues increased by 77.7 per cent.
• Mobile service issues increased by 58.3 per cent.
• Internet service issues increased by 32.3 per cent.
• 91 per cent of the people who complained were consumers.
Eight per cent were small businesses.

Trying to decide on your next Internet provider?
Whirlpool hosts a number of forums and a Broadband Choice ISP Directory.

ISPs you might want to avoid just now because they are gearing up for the Rudd Governmnet live trial of its mandatory national censorship scheme:
Nelson Bay Online, OMNIConnect, Primus Communications, Highway 1, Netforce, Webshield, Optus and Tech2U (most will be starting to filter by 8-11 May 2009 and last already filtering).

How Google Ads see the Clarence Valley

I was having a bit of a browse at The Daily Examiner online when I noticed something strange about Google's targeted site advertising there.

So many of the pages contained ads for fat reduction or flat stomachs and one page contained a single issue overkill:

Search Criminal Records

Instant Criminal records lookup. Criminal records online database.

Criminal.GovtRegistry.com

Online Criminal Records

Search anyone's criminal records. Unlimited Access to GOV. Databases.

Criminal.australian-records.com
Criminal Records
Search anyone's criminal records Online criminal record resources.

Criminal-Records.Gov-Reports.net

With another page plugging an ad combination:
Criminal Background Check
Detailed & Unlimited Criminal Check Never Pay Per Report. Search Now!
Australian-Records.com
1 Rule of a flat stomach:
Cut down 9 lbs of stomach fat every 11 days by obeying this 1 tiny rule
FatLoss4Idiots.com
Background Checks
Instant Australia background checks Online background record resources.
Background-Check.Gov-Reports.net

It looks suspiciously as though Google thinks that the Clarence Valley abounds with obese, low IQ lawbreakers.
Perhaps it's all those screaming headlines DEX editor Chapman now favours.

Taking the p*ss out of the IOC, Beijing's running man and that 'sacred' flame

Just when you think that the world has decided that everything worthwhile comes from elite sports, an Aussie comes along to tilt at the tall poppies of the International Olympic Committee.

Toohey's has an online ad campaign For the Love of Beer which pokes fun at the Olympic torch relay using a little sketch of a running man.

Flashplayer link here.

Logo found at Media Channel

Only in America......

Well there it is - an advert with the words Swiss, gold and terror.
I guess that it would only be in America that the history of gold, particularly Swiss gold, could be completely forgotten by advertising agencies.
For heaven's sake - towards the end of the Nazi era Swiss banks were allegedly accounting dental-grade gold from Germany, according to Adam LeBor's Hitler's Secret Bankers.
This internet image is not the smartest way to puff up an 'investment' firm which apparently specialises in US gold and silver coins.
Image came from www.worldnetdaily.com with this blurb.