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Archive for ‘Social media’

Limiting Your Online Footprint

October 20, 2018
online footprint

After thirty-ish years living on this slow-dying planet with only a vague idea of what the stock market is or how to engage with it, I’ve finally decided to teach myself how to trade. While doing some basic research — like which online stockbroker to use, which stocks are blue chip, what ETFs are, how dividends are paid out — I read articles from a group of different sites for a few days. You’d think from the ads I’m now being served that I’ve become some kind of Aussie Wolf of Wall Street. Website after website have been serving me ads along the lines of “Don’t buy another share until you read this!!!” and similar breathless screeds from sites like the Motley Fool. Fast forward a couple of days. I’ve been browsing cat food, trying to find something hypoallergenic that isn’t soy pellets. Now every ad I get involves cats in some way, which admittedly is an improvement because the photography is cute.

Here’s what I saw only just this morning when reading an unrelated article on The Atlantic, an American news site:

Programmatic ads know that I have a cat, that I’ve been dabbling in stocks, that I work in Burnley, and that I’m an expat. Never mind the FBI agent in your laptop meme, tech companies like Facebook and Google already know everything about you. If you like targeted ads — and sometimes targeted stuff, when crafted well and with a traustworthy message, do appeal to me — then move on from this article. If you think things are getting a little TOO creepy, read on.

Going Dark

Want to get rid of creepy programmatic stuff? It’s possible. “Wait, wait,” I hear you say. “You work in advertising — why the hell are you telling us how to get out of being advertised to? What’s your game?” I believe in targeted ads, sure, but I also believe in strategic ads. Ads that come across as too creepy, or that aren’t relevant, or worst of all — annoy the public — don’t work. Advertising online isn’t just a matter of slapping some images and text together and uploading them through the Facebook platform. As a representation of your brand online, they also need thought. At Starship, we routinely create targeted strategies for integrated digital campaigns that hit KPIs while being a solid ROI. Clients who go off into the advertising wilds by themselves without professional help often risk blowing their budgets on little return.

For everyone else frustrated by unwanted ads, here are things you can do right now to limit the ads that you get served:

  • The Do Not Call register is a secure register by the Aussie govt where you can register private/personal phone numbers. Advertisers who aren’t charities won’t therefore be permitted to call you (exceptions apply). You can report anyone who contravenes this — I have.
  • Reporting unsolicited SMS spam: You can report any sort of commercial SMS that is unwanted or unsolicited by forwarding it to 0429 999 888. You should then block the number. Sadly being on the Do Not Call register does not stop you from getting spam SMSes. It works: Service Seeking Pty Ltd was recently fined by the ACMA to the tune of $50k for SMS spam.
  • Using fully anonymous browsers like Tor to browse the internet: This will affect your net speed though.
  • Using VPNs like Private Internet Access to scramble your true IP address: This often gets me served hilarious mis-targeted ads. I tended to get a lot of USA voting ads this way.
  • Check your privacy settings on your favourite websites/social media. Many sites like Twitter etc will have options where you can limit your ad tracking.
  • Do a full Cookies etc clean as often as you can stand it.
  • Remove yourself off data broking sites.
  • Remove everything you’ve ever searched from Google. While you’re at it, you can also remove all your Location data.
  • Delete yourself off websites that you no longer use. Close old email accounts.
  • Limit ad tracking on your phones. There’d be an option to do this on iOS: Go to Settings – Privacy – Location Services – System Services.
  • Opt out of Ads Personalisation on Google.
  • Switch to Firefox: it’s much better with privacy, and highly customisable. It does seem to run hotter on my Macbook Pro than Chrome, and is iffy with Tweetdeck, but hopefully that’d all be fixed soon.

Let us know if there’s anything we’ve missed.

The Dark Side of Stock Imagery

September 1, 2018
firing clients

If you’ve been hanging around the ad agency echelons of Twitter, you’d have seen this thread:

Unfortunately for Shubnum, although the photographer’s since taken her images off their website, as her images already exist on various stock imagery databases it’s unlikely she’d ever be able to regain control of them completely without an expensive exercise in litigation. And while large websites like istockphoto are clear about what can be used in advertising and what cannot, Shubnum’s plight reminds us in the industry not only to be more conscious of how we use stock imagery, but why we’re using it.

LOL Stock

There’s a definite stigma about using stock imagery in advertising and design, but the fact is not many clients can afford a photographer. It’s our preference that they use one, naturally — and we maintain a number of contacts with some highly talented photographers and videographers whom we love to work with — but for clients working on a lower budget, well-chosen stock imagery can work in a pinch. Not as well as unique, art-directed photography especially taken for their brand, but in the end, it’s a client’s commercial decision.

Unique photography that’s carefully art-directed and shot by a professional can add a huge visual boost to your brand, particularly in industries that sell a consumable product. Doesn’t have to be food and drinks: great photographs, in our opinion, are a huge part of selling any product, even stuff like car oil. When you can’t afford unique photography, edited stock imagery can be a good substitute — if your agency’s been strategic and ethical about it.

Where the stock image involves people, can you be sure whether using it is OK? Some quick rules:

  • What are you using it for? If it’s on possibly controversial topics like politics, don’t use stock if possible. The person in the image might not support your message or candidate and it’s possible to come off as inauthentic, in an industry where authenticity is given more and more value each year.
  • Check the licenses carefully.
  • The type of stock image can hint at what it’s meant to be used for. Bunch of business people doing business things? Using it for business purposes is likely OK.
  • Take down the image if the person within it complains. They might not have meant for their image to be used for such a purpose.

Any questions? Check in with us.

Storybook Marriage UNICEF

March 23, 2016

UNICEF has partnered with wedding blog Bridal Musings to raise awareness of the effect of child marriage on young girls. The campaign is hosted on Bridal Musings, and runs through Instagram and Twitter as well as YouTube. Launched before International Womens’ Day, it also highlights actual stories of victims of childhood marriage.

UNICEF and Child Marriage

According to UNICEF, child marriage, or a marriage or informal union before the age of 18, happens to both boys and girls, but girls are by far the most likely victims. It’s sadly widespread through the world and can lead to a lifetime of deprivation and trauma. Although it has decreased over the past three decades, it’s still a practice that is common in some countries. Worldwide, over 700 million women alive right now were married as children: more than 1 in 3 of those were married before they were 15. Girls who marry before they turn 18 are less likely to remain in school, and more likely to experience intimate partner violence. Young girls have a higher chance of complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and their infants are more likely to be stillborn are die within the first month.

“The world has awakened to the damage child marriage causes to individual girls, to their future children, and to their societies,” said Unicef Executive Director Anthony Lake. “This is critical now because if current trends continue, the number of girls and women married as children will reach nearly 1 billion by 2030 – 1 billion childhoods lost, 1 billion futures blighted.”

About the Campaign

You can help to spread awareness by sharing the images on the Bridal Musings site or contributing to UNICEF.

An Instagram Old Spice Adventure

August 7, 2015


Wieden+Kennedy have created a hilarious ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Instagram adventure for Old Spice by hacking tags. Best played on mobile. Clever, fun way of using Instagram to engage the brand’s customers in a funny, very meta sci-fi brand story. From Creative Review:

The campaign makes clever use of Instagram’s image tagging function to allow Instagrammers to navigate their way through the story. It opens on the image below, which offers the chance for users to ‘go toward light’ or ‘grab old spice’. Depending on the choice made you either meet with a swift demise or are allowed to venture further into the tale. It’s difficult for advertisers to be charming on social media, but this playful approach by Old Spice (and its agency, Wieden + Kennedy Portland) does a good job of drawing users in. Aside from the ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ style, which is absorbing in itself, the brand delivers its campaign with a knowing wink, presuming its audience is savvy about marketing and online advertising, and happy to be in on the joke.

Best (US) Govt Instagram Feeds

July 28, 2015


Gizmodo has the list, along with NASA, the White House and more. Not to mention the TSA’s Instagram, for stuff that people have been caught trying to smuggle across the border (inert tank projectiles? Grenades? Really?). Speaking of which, one of our agency’s designers once experienced someone trying to smuggle durians within check-in luggage through Singapore’s Terminal 3. You don’t need sniffer dogs to find that kind of thing…

Government departments have increasingly turned to social media to get their message heard and to interact positively (or try to) with the public. This has been spearheaded by the White House itself, which is heavily involved across twitter, tumblr, Instagram, Facebook and even on SnapChat: the First Family is highly conscious of how to use emergent media channels to their advantage.

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