A weekly roundup of media news and talking points, sans effort
Thought for the Week
“This party is the trade union for children from the poorest estates and the most chaotic homes; this party is the union for the young woman who wants an apprenticeship; teenagers who want to make something of their lives – this is who we resent.” Big DC, AKA Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, does it again- accidentally declaring his party hates the most economically disadvantaged in society, spurring on a flurry of Twitter activity, creating the hashtag #freudianslip and encouraging people to make images such as the one shown above.
Weekly High
When done properly, there’s nothing more memorable, and therefore effective, than reactionary marketing, advertising and public relations. Take this example from discount supermarket Lidl, which pokes fun at the fact a Sainsbury’s store accidentally put a poster designed for employees up in the shop front window, encouraging staff to try and get every customer to spend 50p extra.
Weekly Low
Given our choice of Weekly High it seems appropriate to use Sainsburys’ shocking error as the Weekly Low. Just to reiterate then, a poster that was only ever supposed to be seen by employees in the back of stores was accidentally stuck up in one of the supermarket giant’s shop windows. The sentiment is simple- persuade the customers who keep the brand in business to spend 50p more than they intended to between now and year-end. Not just a mistake then, the policy itself is pretty shocking, and very bad in terms of reputation preservation.
Stories to keep an eye on
Facebook has apologised for conducting a secret psychological experiment on 700,000 users, whereby it tampered with news feeds to show an abnormally high or low number of negative or positive stories to determine whether emotions could be manipulated through content. Shudder.
Twitter and Kantar Media have launched the UK’s first ever metric for determining the social reach of TV shows, reflecting the increasingly close relationship between broadcasters and online networks.
Morrisons has become the first major UK supermarket to price-match against discounters such as Lidl and Aldi.
Just in case you missed it
The new Parody Law has come into effect in Britain this week, meaning brands can have their copyrighted materials infringed providing the use is for parody. PETA has already launched an assault of mock-websites, pointing fingers at Burberry, Fortnum & Mason and KFC. Read our take on it here.