Remember FLICK magazine, the new design magazine we wrote about a few weeks ago launching an online version before its hard copy? Its future maybe in doubt after a successful legal case was brought against it by the owners of TAXI Design.
Turns out the mag has been sued by Hills Creative Arts (owners of TAXI Design Network) for copyright infringement and has been shut down.
Hills Creative Arts took offence at Flick’s website and media kit which carried a few lines of material describing Flick’s business, which was apparently copyrighted on www.designtaxi.com.
I spoke to the owner of Flick Design’s website, Kyle Neo, who has had to issue email apologies to TAXI to his contacts, and has had to bear damages and TAXI’s legal costs.
Neo said the material was submitted to him by contributors and he was unaware it was copyrighted material, and wished TAXI had contacted before taking legal action.
He sounded dejected but brave, and will now concentrate on his online design business while contemplating the viability of re-starting Flick magazine in the future.
Neo's letter of apology appears below:
I, Neo Kai Fu, acknowledge that I have infringed the copyright of TAXI Design Network’s website at www.designtaxi.com by carrying the copyrighted material on the website of Flick Design, at www.flickdesignmag.com and media kit.
I unreservedly apologise to TAXI Design Network and all advertisers who have received our media kits carrying the infringing materials.
I have agreed to pay Hills Creative Arts Pte Ltd, the creator and owner of TAXI Design Network, for the costs and expenses incurred in connection with this matter.
Neo Kai Fu trading as Flick Design
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
What's that funny taste?
Poor Zoe.For a while my team and I speculated whether or not Zoe knew about the tagline before the campaign broke, and it appears she didn't. But The New Paper reported she has no problems with it.
"Zoe replied: 'The concept was by the advertising agency, and I thought it was quite novel. I'm not sure why it is so unusual. It's about tablets, and I swallow them.'
'The meaning (of the words) is not this, so there's nothing for me to mind. The campaign may be a bit direct, but I don't see anything wrong with it.'
Her husband Phillip Chionh hasn't commented on the ad, she said, because he's been busy and hasn't seen them."
Thing is, he doesn't need to say anything, the lucky guy.
I wonder which ad agency (in London) did the dirty (pun intended)?
Update: The Straits Times Life! section reported it was British ad agency Karmarama which came up with the line, and the campaign was "conceptualised for a global female audience".
"The same ad will be fronted by different people in other countries, but the tagline may vary as 'I Swallow' does not translate well in certain languages."
It's very common for overseas-produced ads to be adapted for local use. I would have been less surprised at the line if it were from an overseas-created ad which was simply poorly adapted for local use. But it's not!
This leads me to think about how as a consumer, when I see an ad, and I feel it's done in poor taste, the bad impression is placed directly on the brand -- even if I knew which agency did the work, it doesn't matter because the fact is, the client signed off on it. The client commissioned it, selected it out of a bunch of ideas, approved the artwork and then paid for the media space to run it.
Creating controversy through advertising is not a new nor surprising concept. But creating ads in poor taste, now that's being rude to me and my civilised community.
Hey Zoe, no wonder your skin so nice, hor?
Friday, August 25, 2006
One small step for publishing
The Magazine Publishers Association of Singapore (MPAS) Founders' Night on Monday was my first experience at an association function and the event was a quirky but interesting one.
The mood at the event, held at ARIA Bistro & Wine Bar sans the usual tables and chairs, was quite positive at the beginning. Publishers such as Andrew Smart from Fairfax, Gerry Ricketts from Ink Publishing, Greg Duncan from Asia City, James See from Aboutwe Publishing, Gilbert Cheah from Edipress Group and so on mingled comfortably before the presentation.
In total, I estimated around 70 or more print and online senior publishing practitioners turned up.
The event took off with GCF’s SK Ho giving everyone a summary of what the MPAS is about and some of the Pro-tem committee members took turns to talk about aspects of the association such as the state of publishing here, the MPAS mission and values, how to get involved and what involvement means, as well as the controversial topic of audit (oh no here we go again).
The MPAS, in my opinion, takes a balanced position on auditing. The members are convinced of the benefits of auditing and how it will boost the credibility and profitability of the publishing business. However, they are careful not to limit membership to those publications which are audited – what’s the point of excluding the majority when such an association is meant to be a voice for everyone?
Ho said the association will act as a facilitator and educator for publications which do want to get audited but do not know how. But it will not force those who are not interested.
That was when members of the audience started sharing their comments on the issue. Jim Livingstone from Pinpoint Media Group asked that the MPAS be firm and make it a prerequisite for MPAS members to become audited in say, two years of joining the association. The committee said at one of their previous meetings, publishers debated the topic and were split on whether to insist on the issue or not so they decided to take the encouragement’ stance.
Another gentlemen (I cant remember his name), asked the committee to show more clearly what benefits publishers will get from membership and the answer was that, amongst other things, MPAS will lead in better educating students on the business (through the tertiary institutions) and lobbying the government (through the MDA) to make publication auditing mandatory.
By the end of the night, standing in a surprisingly stuffy room, I was surprised to see about less than half the crowd remaining, and even more left before the committee handed out forms for publishers to declare if they support the formation of the association or not.
An email I received the next day read that a total of 33 companies are in favour and “many have indicated to fax their PR-form in the next few days”. “The Pro-Tem Committee will meet in early September to discuss the next stage and course of action.”
To play sceptical reporter for a bit, I’m not sure how far this association can take its cause considering it’s hard to make the majority of publishers set aside personal interests and to spend money to support their industry, and even harder to effect pivotal mindset changes in a controversial issue such as auditing . This is simply the truth about the business.
Regardless, Marketing mag and Human Resources mag have voted in favour of it.
Seriously, despite some publishers’ reservations about the whole thing, at least guys like SK are doing something instead of just talking. It’s for the better of the industry for goodness sakes!
Thanks to Aaron Koh of MediaConnect Asia for sharing his pictures.
The mood at the event, held at ARIA Bistro & Wine Bar sans the usual tables and chairs, was quite positive at the beginning. Publishers such as Andrew Smart from Fairfax, Gerry Ricketts from Ink Publishing, Greg Duncan from Asia City, James See from Aboutwe Publishing, Gilbert Cheah from Edipress Group and so on mingled comfortably before the presentation.In total, I estimated around 70 or more print and online senior publishing practitioners turned up.
The event took off with GCF’s SK Ho giving everyone a summary of what the MPAS is about and some of the Pro-tem committee members took turns to talk about aspects of the association such as the state of publishing here, the MPAS mission and values, how to get involved and what involvement means, as well as the controversial topic of audit (oh no here we go again).
The MPAS, in my opinion, takes a balanced position on auditing. The members are convinced of the benefits of auditing and how it will boost the credibility and profitability of the publishing business. However, they are careful not to limit membership to those publications which are audited – what’s the point of excluding the majority when such an association is meant to be a voice for everyone?
Ho said the association will act as a facilitator and educator for publications which do want to get audited but do not know how. But it will not force those who are not interested.
That was when members of the audience started sharing their comments on the issue. Jim Livingstone from Pinpoint Media Group asked that the MPAS be firm and make it a prerequisite for MPAS members to become audited in say, two years of joining the association. The committee said at one of their previous meetings, publishers debated the topic and were split on whether to insist on the issue or not so they decided to take the encouragement’ stance.
Another gentlemen (I cant remember his name), asked the committee to show more clearly what benefits publishers will get from membership and the answer was that, amongst other things, MPAS will lead in better educating students on the business (through the tertiary institutions) and lobbying the government (through the MDA) to make publication auditing mandatory.
By the end of the night, standing in a surprisingly stuffy room, I was surprised to see about less than half the crowd remaining, and even more left before the committee handed out forms for publishers to declare if they support the formation of the association or not.
An email I received the next day read that a total of 33 companies are in favour and “many have indicated to fax their PR-form in the next few days”. “The Pro-Tem Committee will meet in early September to discuss the next stage and course of action.”
To play sceptical reporter for a bit, I’m not sure how far this association can take its cause considering it’s hard to make the majority of publishers set aside personal interests and to spend money to support their industry, and even harder to effect pivotal mindset changes in a controversial issue such as auditing . This is simply the truth about the business.
Regardless, Marketing mag and Human Resources mag have voted in favour of it.
Seriously, despite some publishers’ reservations about the whole thing, at least guys like SK are doing something instead of just talking. It’s for the better of the industry for goodness sakes!
Thanks to Aaron Koh of MediaConnect Asia for sharing his pictures.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Cold reception at Ink awards
Oh boy did we stir up some trouble with our last blog posting! Two intrepid reporters from Marketing turned up to the SPH Ink awards last night, with the express intention of giving them some coverage in Marketing, only to be accosted by some unhappy SPH staffers.
Just to update you (or you could just read Monday's posting below) we reported SPH's Raymond Teoh as saying clients intending to advertise on websites should ask about the site's auditing and ought to look elsewhere if it isn't audited.
Marketing could not agree more, however we did point out that, at least for a number of its print magazines, SPH did not appear to be a big fan of auditing.
What we saw as fair comment, our SPH friends saw as an unfair attack. We of course stand by what we blogged and remind our hosts from last night that blogs are a free exchange of information, a little lighter than straight news and designed to promote a free flow of ideas and dialogue between our journos and the industry we cover.
For our part we are delighted that our blog has gained such traction after only a few weeks in existence as there seemed to be widespread awareness of that particular blog posting last night!
Keep reading everyone and guys no hard feelings, but a\nword of advice: if you invite the media along to cover one of your events it's not a great idea to give them a hard time and by the way your right of reply is only the "comment" button away, and we'd love to hear your\nthoughts.. we're a very thick skinned lot at Marketing.
Hope everyone (else) had a good time last night and congrats to the winners.
Some pics from the evening:
Just to update you (or you could just read Monday's posting below) we reported SPH's Raymond Teoh as saying clients intending to advertise on websites should ask about the site's auditing and ought to look elsewhere if it isn't audited.
Marketing could not agree more, however we did point out that, at least for a number of its print magazines, SPH did not appear to be a big fan of auditing.
What we saw as fair comment, our SPH friends saw as an unfair attack. We of course stand by what we blogged and remind our hosts from last night that blogs are a free exchange of information, a little lighter than straight news and designed to promote a free flow of ideas and dialogue between our journos and the industry we cover.
For our part we are delighted that our blog has gained such traction after only a few weeks in existence as there seemed to be widespread awareness of that particular blog posting last night!
Keep reading everyone and guys no hard feelings, but a\nword of advice: if you invite the media along to cover one of your events it's not a great idea to give them a hard time and by the way your right of reply is only the "comment" button away, and we'd love to hear your\nthoughts.. we're a very thick skinned lot at Marketing.
Hope everyone (else) had a good time last night and congrats to the winners.
Some pics from the evening:
Monday, August 21, 2006
They audit know better
I nearly choked when I heard SPH’s senior manager for new media Raymond Teoh suggest advertisers take their dollars elsewhere if a website could not show an audited figure. This was said at the first-ever Singapore Online Symposium held at The Arts House on 15 August.
From L-R: Teoh, Jay Shapiro, Grant Watts, Forrest Diddier
Could this be the same SPH which still won't get a number of its magazines audited? At Marketing we are all for auditing of every media, but this is surely a case of people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw Nielsen//NetRatings reports.
Here’s what happened:
Over 60 marketers and internet industry professionals attended the Symposium which explored how online industry players can work together to accelerate internet development in Singapore, and possibly beyond.
The event’s host, internet industry auditor Nielsen//NetRatings, emphasised the pressing need for industry alignment on guidelines related to performance measurement and benchmarking.
Co-panellists and online publishers Dominic Yeo, CEO, Trevvy/Sgboy and Eugene Low, General Manager, Hardwarezone showed support for Nielsen//NetRatings’ Market Intelligence service for its tangible results in terms of advertiser engagement and ad revenue growth upon presenting their advertisers with NetRatings’ independently audited statistics.
The rest of the six panellists also agreed that for our online advertising industry to grow, we have to be audited.
It was near the end of the event when Teoh said to marketers that if they want to put their money online, they should ask publishers, “Are you using NetRatings?”. Immediately after which he added something to the effect of: If not, I’m not advertising with you.
Tonight, I’m attending the Magazine Publishers Association of Singapore (MPAS) Founders' Night at ARIA Bistro & Wine Bar at the Esplanade, a group set up to work towards a professionally successful, reputable and responsible magazine publishing industry (print and online) here.
“For the Association to be effective and meaningful, it is crucial that it represents the majority of the industry and we urge every one of you to find time to attend this event,” MPAS Pro-tem Committee head Ho Sum Kwong said.
SK Ho.
It really is an exciting time, considering both print and online industry players are getting together to set down guidelines for the improvement and evolution of our business environments.
So just as SPH made a very strong stance advocating online auditing, I hope to see Teoh’s colleagues from publishing make the same powerful statements at the meeting tonight.
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