Masters of Spin 2019-8-24
Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 5:34PM
Matthew Bywater

On this week's Masters of Spin we discuss Twitter suspending Pauline Hanson, Ronaldo's shopee ad and the laetst in the Vegemite V Marmite Ashes battle

You can watch the segment here, transcript below.

Basil Zempilas: Welcome back. Twitter is under fire from Senator Pauline Hanson and her supporters for removing a video she posted and suspending her account.

Monique Wright: Now the One Nation leader says it was all just tongue in cheek when she suggested using a cattle prod on climate change protestors blocking Brisbane streets. But Twitter has ruled it breaches it's code of threatening behavior.

Pauline: You know, I reckon the solution, let's use one of these on them. I think they'll soon move. Maybe we should give the idea to their [inaudible 00:00:33] see if she's got the guts to actually give it to the police to actually start using these.

Basil Zempilas: Pretty stupid video, but if it was a joke, it was a joke. Our Masters of Spin join us. They'll tell us what they think. Advertising and marketing experts, Adam Ferrier Ferrier and Matthew Bywater. Adam Ferrier, let's start with you. Twitter is well known for the abuse that goes on. Just have a look at my account. Is Senator Hanson right to complain about being targeted when so many others get away with it. What do you think?

Adam Ferrier: I think Senator Hansen does a really good job of getting attention and you've got to applaud her for that. So in her head, this is just a PR stunt. However, I don't think she's really thinking it through that it's pretty harmful, it's pretty disrespectful. There could be some crazy people out there who kind of take her up on the offer. So what she's actually doing, I think is really harmful and I think she shouldn't do it, but go get all the PR you want. I also think she just kept becoming a little... I'm actually a bit worried about her, to be honest, she's becoming more and more weird.

Monique Wright: Matthew Bywater, although Pauline is saying that it's double standards, she's been the subject of abusive tweets, especially recently, people supporting her death or injury when she was climbing Uluru and nothing happened there. So she says it's hypocritical, but is this, she is a public figure. Does that then put her into more of a position of power where we should be cracking down on this?

Matthew Bywater: Yeah. So back in June, Twitter called up some new rules where anyone who, what they deem as an influential government official, that has more than 100,000 followers, that they're going to be held under stricter guidelines. Now Pauline doesn't have a 100,000 followers, she has about 55 or 56,000 followers, but still they crack [it there 00:02:07]. But Twitter doesn't know what they're doing right now with this. They got caught in a problem in America right now with a US Senator, where he had been retweeting hateful things about himself and they actually deplatformed him for a while, suspended him, because it was hateful. Yet the people who had actually said the hateful things, were still allowed to keep their accounts live. [crosstalk 00:02:28] So Twitter's really trying to work out what they're trying to do here.

Basil Zempilas: So it does break down. Alright, we want to get to these. He's the most famous soccer player in the world. He's worth a reported $900 million, give or take a dollar. But Cristiano Ronaldo is also accused of making the worst TV commercial ever for a Singaporean company. Have a look.

Ronaldo: Shopee.

Speaker 7: [singing 00:02:52].

Speaker 7: Shopee nine nine super shopping day.

Basil Zempilas: That is so bad. Now Matthew Bywaterhew, I know you spotted it, I mean this has got to be good because it's bad, right? I mean he's a squillionaire.

Monique Wright: That's just bad.

Basil Zempilas: You wouldn't... this must be deliberately horrendous.

Matthew Bywater : This will not hurt his brand at all, and the thing about it is, is that this is aimed at the South Asia market, it's going to be spot on there. I think it's going to work tremendously well for Shopee. He's already got his billion dollar lifetime deal with Nike, he makes nearly $100 million a year. It's no problem for him financially. It's not a bad ad and likely for those of us who follow football, we know that his best moves still are on the field and that's [crosstalk 00:03:32].

Monique Wright: Oh my gosh. [crosstalk 00:03:34] Imagine them saying to him, "Okay, no, it's going to be really funny, Cristiano." Yeah. Awesome.

Monique Wright: Now Adam Ferrier, one that you've got a hand in, the latest installment of the Vegemite versus Marmite war during the Ashes series. We love this. Vegemite have just released this radio ad in Britain.

Speaker 8: If we start each day with Vegemite, the Ashes are a shoe in, regardless of their carry-on, they're jeering and their booing. It gives us the resilience to get back up off the deck, even after copping a bouncer to the neck. Love or hate your Marmite, England, Aussies are decided. We all adore our Vegemite. It keeps us all united. With Vegemite on our side, there'll be no Ashes failure. Because victory is sweet and it tastes like Australia.

Monique Wright: Oh Adam Ferrier.

Basil Zempilas: Bravo, bravo.

Monique Wright: You're one of the great minds behind this. It's a lot of fun. Who's the target here and when will it end?

Adam Ferrier: It'll probably end when the Ashes end, I'd imagine. But luckily for Vegemite and Marmite, the Ashes does go for quite some time, which is very fortuitous. The target market is definitely Australians and trying to get Australians to rally behind the Australian cricket team and to rally behind Vegemite as well. It's just a bit of fun.

Basil Zempilas: Well, I'll tell you what, great ad, but they never quite look good if they're not winning. But after last night, [crosstalk 00:04:43] it looks like a brilliant ad, doesn't it?

Monique Wright: Yep.

Adam Ferrier: Yeah. They had their Vegemite.

Basil Zempilas: Good stuff.

Monique Wright: Apparently they were eating Vegemite. [crosstalk 00:04:48] Thank you so much, Adam Ferrier. Thank you. Matthew Bywater.

Basil Zempilas: What about the Shopee do do do do do do do do do?

Monique Wright: That's really bad. [crosstalk 00:04:52]

Basil Zempilas: It's a bot of baby shark, isn't it?

Monique Wright: It does. I think you're enjoying that. He's so dad-like, isn't he?

Monique Wright: Coming up for your weekend sunrise, the Rolling Stones rock on Mars, an out of this world honor for an iconic rock band. That is ahead. Just stop.

Basil Zempilas: Not for long.

 

Article originally appeared on Matthew Bywater | Marketing Strategist & Media Commentator (http://matthewbywater.com/).
See website for complete article licensing information.