Media Tonic

It’s the third year of the WA Web Awards; who knew? Looks like they haven’t got around to a logo or a proper web site yet. Anyway, here are the winners.

While we’re on the local blog scene, here are a couple of good initiatives.

Perth Norg is a local citizen journalism site; not that we need any more journalism in this state, already having two very fine local newspapers. It’s best you don’t ask us what a Norg is because we’d only have to make something up.

EnjoyPerth is a Dullsville Events Blog. It’s updated daily and there is a summary of forthcoming weekly events. Enjoy!

Marketing Charts is a site that aggregates abstracts of industry market research. Usually you can follow up with the researchers to get the full reports. The chart below shows media expenditure by segment in the US for July, the most recent data available. Free-to-air television is running at 35%, cable 21%.

Footnote: this site also led us to some research suggesting ‘conversational marketing’ (blogs/social software/podcasts etc) will outweigh traditional advertising by 2012. Survey respondents were ‘communications professionals’ who currently spend less than 2.5% of their budgets on ‘conversational marketing’ *looks skeptical*. Anyway, the Perth branch of the new media mafia are gathering next weekend at Perth Podcamp, which is free and all kind of Open Source.

We found it. It’s here.

This is not optional. The last five minutes of The Sports Factor (October 5th) contained a segment on soccer commentators who went SERIOUSLY over-the-top when their national team beat an important rival. It’s great fun. Listen for the Winston Churchill reference lest you forget.

You’ll be impressed with how similar Norwegian, Dutch and Scottish sound.

A soccer ball is apparently a combination of pentagons and hexagons, but when it’s stuffed and pumped up the faces are not flat. Probably this is why we call it a ‘ball’ and not a ‘polyhedron’.

Two happy, young readers in magazine heaven…

Readers may be completely unaware that we represent a number of magazines, including Recipes +, Bluff Magazine, Football Budget and IN Magazine.

Free research is available on the effectiveness of magazines as a medium. It’s provided by the Magazine Publishers of Australia and includes Australian case studies and some fantastic overseas research if you like that sort of thing. Certainly we at Media Tonic are keen on fantastic things and recommend them whenever we meet smartly dressed people at istockphoto cocktail parties.

One study we read claimed to show magazines as the leading medium on these criteria:

• Bought something as a result of advertising
• Makes me aware of products and services
• Ads are relevant to my interests and lifestyle
• Brands advertised are quality and trustworthy

Who knows, it could all be completely true.