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And so this is Christmas. And what have we done? John, Yoko? No Christmas presents for me. I choose to eat latkes in celebration of Hanukkah this time of the year. I still enjoy the Christmas spirit that surrounds me – I love me some carols, get joy from the smell of fresh pine, participate in the office Kris Kringle and wish those around me a very Merry Christmas, not ‘Happy Holidays’ (after all, not everyone actually goes on a holiday over the break). A Christmas tree I will never have, but the traditions that surround this particular holiday I will continue to learn from those who share in the tales – in the same way colleagues and non-Jewish friends enjoy hearing about the many holidays I celebrate throughout the year. That’s part of the magic of Australia – cultural differences aren’t just accepted, they’re embraced. We celebrate celebration.

Travelling through India two summers ago, I couldn’t help but notice the Christmas cheer on the streets to make travellers feel welcome – in a country that mixes Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and many other traditions and cultures. More irony for you – I’m writing a blog on Italian food, but have absolutely no Italian heritage and have never been to Italy (I’ll get there one day!). Amongst all the Christmas decorations in the public spaces of our Como office building stands a large Menorah with a plaque explaining its significance. When Chinese New Year rolls around early in 2012, we’ll enjoy the fireworks and there will probably be a few red parcels shared around the place.

For now, your Christmas is about giving and my Hanukkah about light. Put them together: if we continue to give light onto each other’s beliefs, cultures and traditions, we can only be a better and merrier place.

Merry Christmas all, and Happy Hanukkah.

Some snapshots of the Porter Novelli Christmas cards in action

In the Porter Novelli Australia and New Zealand Digital Insights 2012 I predicted Tumblr would go mainstream next year.

Why? It’s fun. It’s easy. It’s visual. Sharable. And it’s growing rapidly.

So to start you off with some great Tumblrs to follow when you sign up (yes I am that confident), here are my top 10 Tumblrs for 2011.

1. Clients From Hell
I couldn’t work in an agency and not include this Tumblr page.  The title explains it all, and it will make you feel better about your day to day interactions.

2. Accidental Chinese Hipsters
Anything fashion/humour/meme-worthy will include an abundance of hipsters.  This wins in the hipster category for being funny AND true.

Runner up Hipster Tumblr: Dads are the original hipsters

They really were. Only not at all cool.

3. I Love Charts
Marketers will appreciate the humorous spin this site puts on traditional pie and graph charts. Marshall from How I Met Your Mother would be proud

Marshall’s Charts and Graphs

4. The Daily What
Reblog for automatic coolness. That is all.

5. Is Ryan Gosling cuter than a puppy
Is he? I don’t know. They’re both so adorable. You’ll have to keep checking to help you decide.

6. ANIMALS TALKING ALL  IN CAPS
ANIMALS! FUNNY CAPTIONS! SOCIAL MEDIA GOLD!

7. Awesome people hanging out together
Want to see David Bowie and Elizabeth Taylor hanging out together? This is the place to find it.

8. Mashable
A behind the scenes look at Mashable HQ. Not as informative as the Mashable website but a daily insight into the organisation and something other companies could emulate.

9. We are the 99 per cent
Regardless of your opinion on the Occupy Movement, this is the first Tumblr to really utilise the power of visuals and ease of sharing information for a cause, and has done so very effectively.

10. Barbie on Holiday
Okay, this is actually a shameless plug as it is my own Tumblr I started a couple of months ago. Because life IS a holiday when you’re a Barbie. Submissions welcome, and be forewarned, don’t tell me you’re about to go on holiday without expecting me to present you with a Barbie as a going away present.

Most would agree that it’s hard to feel sorry for Qantas. Like a stubborn old aunt, they appear all too comfortable with the reputation they’ve created over the years, and unwilling to change.

With the advent of budget airlines around the world, and the success of Virgin, they refuse to make their ticket prices competitive, or upgrade their cabin crew airplanes. Sure they acquired a couple of A380 jets, but we are well aware of how quickly the shine from these new jewels dulled.

They don’t even strive to generate feelings of warmth and patriotism in their advertising anymore. So how do they make us feel about them?

Unless you are a loyal Qantas die-hard, you may feel indifferent towards them. At worst, dismissive.

You might feel that if they had enough money and clout to overcome PR disasters such as mid-air Rolls-Royce engine explosions, and emergency landings, then they might have been strong enough to deal with the rumblings of a few unions. Perhaps you’re slightly disturbed by their nonsensical association with John Travolta. You could be forgiven for thinking Qantas are a little smug.

However, perhaps there is a disconnect between the shininess of the Qantas brand, and the reality of the company’s financial situation.

If the one they call Alan Joyce had been CEO of a struggling fashion label, and grounded his seamstresses who demanded more money, would we have been more forgiving? Perhaps if he were CEO of a publicly flailing book store chain, we would have been more understanding of all involved parties.

Could it be that Qantas’s brand position as the safest, the most reliable, and the most premium airline in Australia have distracted us from the fact that they are just another business struggling to make a profit in a post GFC world?

Much of the media coverage this issue received encouraged people to view it as a union vs corporate matter, and it worked. Australians were having impassioned conversations across the country, whilst in the blogosphere people were slandering Qantas and even defacing images of their CEO.

I was curious as to why people felt so strongly on the subject, and why so many felt so justified in expressing anger at Alan Joyce’s bold decision to ground the entire Qantas fleet.

Hindsight is 20/20 and perhaps Alan Joyce now wishes the company had waited til the New Year before announcing his $2m pay rise, but I don’t think this was the only reason there was such outrage.

I think that many Australians didn’t feel the heavy handed nature of Alan Joyce’s decision was very becoming of the flying kangaroo we once loved, the brand we thought we knew.

In this current economic climate, whether you are a restaurant owner selling pizzas, or an airline selling plane tickets, it’s not that easy to make a profit at the moment. The aviation industry has long been a notoriously difficult one to be in, even at the best of times.

The reality is that most Australians in fact do not fly Qantas internationally. So therefore, no matter which point of view you support, the unions, or the capitalists, the chances are that you’re probably not supporting Qantas at all one way or the other.

And why should you? You have a right as a consumer to choose the most affordable option available to you. Alan Joyce would probably argue that as a CEO of a privately owned business, he has a right to choose the most affordable option available to him in order to carry out the duty he is charged with; keeping Qantas profitable and the shareholders happy.

I’ll start by saying; this should be a Vlog, but, unlike hundreds of thousands of other people, I don’t like seeing myself on camera. Call me old-school – as opposed to some people: I really love cats.

I’ve been spurred on by the sheer number of videos we’ve been creating and intrigued by the announcement of Moby’s offer to provide his music royalty free (If you’re a NFP – jump on this offer).

So, I thought I’d ponder how more and more, we’re creating video to help us spread “the word”.

This is “word” that was once placed in a media release, splashed across collateral and blasted via email is coming to life.  And, whether it’s something to make you laugh on a Friday or enact change on a Tuesday, or simply showcase the work we do, it’s a great space to play in.

I received an email the other day about the power of stories. It made me think about one thing we’re very good at: telling a story. That’s in our nature as ex-arts and comms students, ex-journos and generally people who, at school, were bad at maths and good at English.

In 2010 alone, 700 billion YouTube videos were viewed. The 2010 Neilsen poll on Internet use tracked the amount of Australians who watched video content for September –more than three quarters of our population.  More current figures show that YouTube is the second most viewed social media platform (after Facebook) in Australia, with 10 million unique visitors – up 100,000 unique visitors from 2010.¹ It seems video content is king and it’s not just consumer brands that need to be there.

Newspaper mastheads are now broadcasters and broadcasters use print online bring black and white stories to life. It greatly changes the media landscape. This is something that we teach in media training; “if you have a  handheld recording device, you can report the news.” So, while we usually raise this as an issues management matter; it’s also a lesson of how, with the right tools, we can create integrated media pitches that extend a news story to different platforms.

It’s no new news, things are changing in the land of communication. And it’s fun keeping up.

I leave you with my favourite funny video. And three questions:

1. What’s your favourite video?
2. What do you find compelling, funny or interesting about it?
3. How can that formula be used to help share the story of your brand, organisation or cause?

The answer, may be in a phone call.

Reference 1: http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-january-2011/