Quick thoughts on why the AK Mayoral result isn’t a seachange to the left

Some, like Matt McCarten and the odd newspaper, are trying to say that the AK Supercity results are indicating a swing to the Left in AK that augers badly for National. Certainly there is a swing (what with the Left-Wing Mayor and Council and all) but I don’t think it can be taken for granted that it shows National are in trouble.

I think it is less cut and dried than that for a couple of reasons when looking at the Mayoral result – the Council is a bit different and is definitely a swing to the Left – but that may be as much to do with terrible Right candidates as anything else.

Anyhow – Mayor first:

1- The Left candidate didn’t scare the horses.

For both Left and Right it is fair to say neither side fielded the absolute dream candidate. But of the two Brown was acceptable to the Right and Banks was not acceptable to the Left. And that is what I think has happened – the Right didn’t back their candidate. They didn’t even bother to mobilise at all. The Left did – but the Right didn’t spend-up or advertise or rock the boat at all. They were eerily quiet. Where were all the bagmen that come out at General Election time – the Employers and Manufacturers Assoc etc? They just didn’t mind that Brown might win.

2 – Right wing protest vote.

The most interesting thing for me is that Colin Craig pulled 1/4 as many votes as Banks. This shows that the Right had a significant protest against the candidate they were meant to back. Also turnout from traditional Right areas like the North Shore was low – especially early in the returns. This shows that the Right wasn’t really behind their candidate – and didn’t feel threatened enough by Brown to mobilise.

The Left on the other hand pulled behind their candidate and got the machine going – all the unions and Labour activists were out there working it.

3- Post Left and Right – This isn’t even an issue for many AK voters

I think Brown is like John Key – he is not, at essence,  idealogically driven. He is fundamentally a decent person who wants to help – and doesn’t look at every issue through a party political prism – and people can sense this. I think a lot of voters like this. They are turned off by ideologues. I think that a vote for Brown in this election was not a vote for Labour for many people. It was down to personalities, and at the heart of that I think, was decency.

4 – Decency

I think for many the vote really boiled down to the fact that Len Brown is a decent man and people wondered if Banks really is. From the discussions I have had with many voters they were voting more against Banks than for Brown.

5 -Alternative:

Before anyone gets too carried away thinking about this as a turning red of AK think about this: What if Don McKinnon or Sir Douglas Graham or Ray Avery or Paul Holmes or even Paul Henry(pre GG slur)  had stood for the right? I think that it would be difficult to be confident of the same vote split. Colin Craig benefited a lot from the lack of a strong conservative candidate. And perhaps Brown did too?

I am stoked that Len Brown won. And he was definitely the best candidate and it is a great result. But I don’t think that it can be seen as a turning against National in the new National heartland.

Council:

I think when you get down to the other layers the Left’s showing is indicative  -but not so much of a swing away from National as a fear of the corporate. I think that the business focus of the CCOs and Hide’s fingers everywhere gave people pause about the Right wing crowd. And the Left Council will probably serve as an interesting balance.

I really think that the calibre of Right wing candidates was terribly low and those they did field were often linked inextricably to the crap wider AK has previously been dealing with.

C & R were so shambolic they couldn’t even get their own choices elected in their own power-base – with Brewer showing that the Right really left voters no choice but to opt for something different.

Anyhow – you’ll see there are a lot of ‘I think’s in this blog. That’s because I think it is a bit early to be as certain as some quarters are that this is bad news for National. Perhaps people in this conservative country like the balance – they want a National govt and a Labour Queen City.

But I really can’t see this being a sign that Labour have taken Auckland. At this stage that might be a little bit of wishful thinking.

post the vote

This is a concert free to people who bother voting in the Supercity Elections!

Come see:

The Situations, then The Mots, then The Earlybirds
On this Monday night, October 4, two days before the voting closes.

Free entry if you take a photo on your cell of you posting your vote in the Supercity elections and show it to us on the door.
Get in for spot prizes by sending your ‘Post the Vote’ photo
to postthevote@iconz.co.nz now!

That is iconz with a z.

If you get there at 7 there is some Sals NY Pizza as an extra treat. RSVP your 7 o’clockness so we can cater for you!

Without the photo it’s $10 on the door.

WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT?

In Auckland in every general election about 80% of people vote. But in the local body postal elections it’s more like 40%. So half of the people who do vote don’t. The election affects everyone, not just homeowners. If you pay rent then you’re helping pay rates. Have your say. Post the vote by October 6.
Post the Vote is the most important idea. Get it off the fridge or out of the drawer by the phone and actually post the vote.

Thanks to 95bfm, the artists, Sals NY pizza, Otis Frizzell, The Kings Arms and Adrian Duff, Don McGlashon and Trilby Crowther for helping make this happen.

Go register on the Facebook event page here if ya like.

but when Hone Harawira is right….

I was disagreeing pretty strongly with Hone Harawira the other week over the kids with pakeha discomfort comments – mainly because I was disappointed that someone I respect was being an egg.

Thing is -I agree with Mr Harawira more often than not – so long as I get the whole story. I subscribe to his lively Ae Marika column from the Northland Age and it is by far and away the best of the MP newsletters. And week after week I am right with him on what he says. Like this week.

I’ll print the whole thing below as it isn’t on his website yet.

Ae Marika!

A column published in the Northland Age

By Hone Harawira

MP for Tai Tokerau

07 September 2010

To comment on this column please go to my website www.hone.co.nz

THE INJUSTICE OF IT ALL

Sometimes I get so mad about the injustices in this world that I just wanna cry – like listening to people prattle on about how Maori are getting a special deal when I know that kids are starving and young parents are trapped in a cycle of poverty that they don’t even understand let alone know how to get out of.

And here’s an example of just what I’m talking about. Last week I picked up the Herald and in it were two stories.

Story One: Two youths have been jailed over the theft of a packet of pineapple lumps worth $2.90. Darcy Te Kiri, 20, and Boudene Gerry Walden, also known as Mahiawere, 21, were both jailed in the Rotorua District Court after pleading guilty to the aggravated robbery of Jeram’s Superette in March this year. The judge noted that there was no violence or weapon involved in the incident, but still sentenced Walden to 20 months and Te Kiri to 2 years and four months.

Story Two: South Canterbury Finance’s Allan Hubbard and his boy wonder manager Lachie McLeod blow more than a billion dollars of other people’s money on a whole range of dodgy deals, and guess what? Government is going to bail out these pricks and it’s going to cost every single man, woman and child in Aotearoa $405 each to do it, a total of $1.775 billion!!! And guess what? There may be a long way to go with this story yet, but what’s the bet that neither of these guys goes to jail?

New Zealanders have lost more than $4 billion in the collapse of finance houses and other investments over the past two years and no-one has been jailed for any of the fraud or theft involved.

Oh yeah, and I know people really hate me for pointing out racial differences but I can’t help it – if you’re going to go for investment fraud, being white will help your chances immeasurably (more than 90% of corporate thieves in this country are white).

Labour’s Charles Chauvel said it politely when he said the other week that “In this country there is no justice for the poor and it’s been like that for decades. Maori communities will tell you that as well as poor communities. The discrepancy between those who steal from the local shops and those who steal millions of dollars from investors highlights the fact that there is no justice if you’re poor and don’t have privilege.”

When you’re black in this country and you see a couple of young Maori guys get hauled off to jail for pinching $2.90 worth of pineapple lumps while a couple of white guys get away with stealing millions of dollars of hard earned New Zealanders savings, you can’t help but get really pissed off with the lack of justice in this world.

I guess the moral of the story is simple – if you’re gonna steal from people, whatever happens, don’t threaten to hurt anyone and don’t hit anyone – just start a finance company, use a prospectus instead of a gun, steal from lots and lots of people and steal as much as you possibly can, because if you do, you won’t go to jail. Honest.

Yuu can find back issues on his website: www.hone.co.nz – or his Press Sec sends them out weekly.

Gotta say. I totally agree. The differing treatment of white collar crimes from all others is appalling. If you have criminal instinct make sure you’re born rich enough to go to uni.

Also – I would love to see the white-collar criminals racially described when referred to in news stories. I’d love it if they said – Alan Hubbard, Caucasian of Timaru….. but when is that going to happen?

ymedia – splendid initiative

yMedia is a group that bring together students, the communications industry and not-for profits in a thing called the yMedia challenge.

Over 8 weeks teams are formed where students and an industry mentor are given a not-for-profit and the task of using information communication technologies (ICTs) to help get their messages across and help them do what they do better or solve some problem in their work.

The idea is that often these groups do not have expertise in the tech world – yet more and more a web presence and identity and ability to use ICT is needed. On top of that there are many programs that can help not-for-profits function efficiently – such as google apps for spreadsheets and word processing – -or things like give a little for fundraising.

These teams then compete to do the best project. It might be branding, it might be web design, it might be a name change or it might be an initiative like forming a committee made of school kids – like one group did for Artstation when their brief was to build links to those very same youth.

It is a super cool idea run by some very switched on people. I recommend heading along and checking out their website:
http://challenge.ymedia.co.nz/

And having a look through some of the blogs outlining how the teams went about their tasks – these are the final videos from all 20 teams this year:
Team 1: http://peopleeater.tumblr.com/post/925770096
Team 2: http://team2.tumblr.com/post/925734123/final-video
Team 3: http://cedproject.tumblr.com/post/925883366/final-video-blog
Team 4: http://wasteresourcestrust.tumblr.com/post/925539894/our-summary-of-our-project-for-ymedia-challenge
Team 5: http://cpag.tumblr.com/post/925509852/final-video-blog-thing
Team 6: http://ecpatymedia.tumblr.com/post/923822069/as-part-of-the-ymedia-challenge-2010-t6-has-been
Team 8: http://team8.tumblr.com/
Team 9: http://groupnine.tumblr.com/post/925717644/wow-what-a-journey-these-eight-weeks-have-been
Team 10: http://team10.tumblr.com/post/920792367/a-team-10-overview-final-vlog
Team 11: http://designasaurs.tumblr.com/post/922005982/check-out-out-last-video-enjoy-xo
Team 12: http://force12.tumblr.com/post/925637679/the-fourth-and-final-video-of-the-force12-video
Team 13: http://group13-tracks.tumblr.com/post/925579626/our-last-video-blog
Team 14: http://group14ymedia.tumblr.com
Team 15: http://urbanpantry.tumblr.com/post/921266698/our-final-video-for-the-challenge-whooooooo-8
Team 16: http://ymedia-ae.tumblr.com/post/925415590/our-final-video-update
Team 17: http://thunder-inc.tumblr.com/post/921895217
Team 18: http://teamyouthworx.tumblr.com/post/925027024/final-video-unfortunately-this-is-what-happens
Team 19: https://gmx.com/dereferrer/?target=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D76g-TrhWT5Q
Team 20: http://ymedia20.tumblr.com/post/925156383/final-video-cant-believe-it-think-we-are

The winner is announced this Thursday at an event I’m helping to host – and I am tremendously looking forward to it – it is really quite inspiring that this many students got this much out and gave this much to this project.

So -if this is something you are interested in go and talk to them – -maybe you are a student and would like to be involved next year, maybe a non-profit that could use a hand or maybe an old advertising bod that might want to give a bit back.

For further info:

A good overview story by the ever-excellent Sean Gillespie:
http://www.theaucklander.co.nz/local/news/watch-that-magic-happen/3917643/

An Interview with one of the forces behind yMedia:
http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/news/tbi-qna/71336-tbi-qa-jade-tang

A very useful document outlining where you can find free helpful ICT thingimajigabobs:

http://challenge.ymedia.co.nz/resources/

And the yMedia Press release:

http://www.stoppress.co.nz/news/2010/06/not-for-profits-fixed-up-soon-to-look-digitally-sharp/

A bigot is a bigot is a bigot

UPDATE: at the end of this piece there is now a link to Hone Harawira’s full statements.

So here is Hone Harawira saying that he wouldn’t want his children to date pakeha and complaining that Andy Haden didn’t get such a hard time over his ‘darkie’ comment as Harawira did over his ‘white motherfucker’ comment.

I think it’s very sad.

Hone Harawira is a very interesting person and a much more nuanced figure than he comes across in the media. He is a businessman, media owner (he owns a Country and Western station!), he’s an educational leader -he established kohunga reo and Kura, he is a leader and a thinker and a charismatic and committed man.

This doesn’t often come across in the media where he is regularly painted as a troublesome radical saying stupid things.

Some of those things – like the White Motherfuckers thing – -don’t bother me. I figured that his saying white motherfuckers in the context of an angry email was a throwaway line. I didn’t believe reading that that Hone Harawira hated every white person. I didn’t think it was a particularly clever thing to say, especially not in writing – but it was a formless cuss against people that oppose Treaty Settlements. Or so I rather favourably thought.

Because on the basis of the current statement I think Hone Harawira actually does hate white people.

In my opinion by saying that he wouldn’t be comfortable if his kids dated pakeha he is no better than any other racist bigot.

That’s all there is to it.

No-one white would be good enough just because they are white. Swap that round to Maori or Jewish or Black or anything and it is not cool. It shows a real failure of humanity. A whole lot of hate. And a closed mind. That’s why I think it is really sad.

And I really don’t think Hone Harawira is right when he compares his treatment to Andy Haden. At the time of the ‘darkie’ comment I said that I thought that what Andy Haden said, in the light of his starring role in the Cavaliers tour (where players circumvented an official ban on supporting Apartheid South Africa through sporting contacts) did not look good. But that it wasn’t some kind of active racism.

The white motherfuckers line was so much worse than what Haden said it doesn’t bear comparison. If Haden had sat on the show and said that Canterbury have a policy whereby they only ever hire three black motherfuckers then he should have got the same treatment as Harawira. But he didn’t say that. Because I don’t think for a second that he thinks like that.

To say someone has a three darkies policy is an example of  using an insensitive and stupid word. There is no hate or malice in what he said.

And with Hone Harawira’s latest statement he leaves the Andy Haden call and the comparison he was drawing a million miles behind.

I think  that there is malice in saying that you wouldn’t be comfortable having a person of another colour date your children.

If Harawira had wanted to make the point that he put Maori issues at the front of his thinking then that would be cool. He could have said -

“well – if they date a pakeha it might take a bit more warming. But in the end good people are good people.”

But it appears he doesn’t believe that and it is really sad.

So I reckon that Hone Harawira – who I spent a week with in Kaitaia and I built up a lot of respect for him in that week – I reckon he needs to have a bit of a look at himself and see if he isn’t just as bad as the people he has spent a lifetime fighting. People that would keep someone down because of the colour of their skin.

UPDATE:
So – the Herald released Hone’s full statements.

First thoughts:

Pretty irresponsible to run with such a provocative statement and not the next sentence. Shouldn’t be surprised but still. There is a difference between I am not comfortable with pakeha dating my children and I am not comfortable with pakeha dating my children because they don’t have a Maori expectation of how we operate.

It still isn’t a wonderful way to look at the world. But is a long way from it being just about pakeha. There is still room now for a pakeha that had that viewpoint. Not a lot. But enough that the story responsibly should have included it. It now reminds me of a very Christian parent saying that they want their children to bring home someone that understands how they operate – and not, as it did, a racist saying I don’t want no whites in my house. I still think that in the Christian case it is still a failure of open-mindedness and humanity – but not quite as bad as without the qualifier!

Most of what I thought initially still stands though – -I think it is that kind of blanket-cover thinking that caused the mess we are in. But the Herald, when lighting a fire with that headline does have a responsibility to give all the surrounding statements.

That said – he is still eclipsing Andy Haden by a mile and should still have a good think about whether his reflexive anger and closed-mindedness is getting in the way of getting things better. One way I could perhaps suggest avoiding discussions up and down the country about whether you are a good person is to not say things like I wouldn’t be comfortable with my children dating pakeha- whatever your reasoning.

Matt Campbell and My Little Funny

This is a quick post about a cool project an interesting guy I know has going on.

Matt Campbell is a New Zealand born artist and advertising creative director.

He’s worked across a bunch of interesting jobs – from beginning in design at Flying Nun a fair few years ago  through to designing fabrics and prints for Japanese brand Hysteric Mini and also having spent time in New York heping run an artist led gallery and as design and digital director at ad giant BBH.

While at BBH Matt worked on some massive work launching Axe – what we call Lynx. They pretty much invented that category and hold the record for the fastest product to reach the 100Million sales mark. He also won awards from pretty much everyone that gives them for that work.

I do a bit of ad creative as copywriter to Matt’s art director and have very much enjoyed meeting, working, and laughing with Matt who is an astute observer and enthusiast for life’s ludicrous side.

Which is all a rather roundabout way of introducing an interview we did with Matt for Public Address Radio on MyLittleFunny.com – his new project.

Matt has a long interest and expertise in the graphic arts and world of comic characters. For MyLittleFunny.com Matt has paired up with comic legend and good friend Kaz and is making his long running strip Underworld into short animations.

Underworld is little known here outside of comic circles but is widely circulated in the States – in alternative weeklies like The Village Voice and the SF Bay Guardian. Kaz has also, according to my friend wikipedia, worked on SpongeBob SquarePants.

Underworld is wry social commentary and dark humour all in one but is not cynical for the sake of it.

The plan with MyLittleFunny – which you can sign up to to be kept abreast of the latest updates as they make more videos – is to keep growing the database and find a way to create more and more of this great content.

Even the loading guy is cool

Have a listen to this interview Damian Christie and I did for Public Address Radio here to learn more about the process,  about Kaz, about why they are doing it and where they hope it will go..

And do go have a nosey on the site here.

Suicide Reporting

Running With Scissors Idea Generation

Running With Scissors are an outfit that I have done a bit of work with over the last couple of years. They have impressed me with their take on the world. So when The Ad Show wanted to do a show on creativity we thought it could be cool to show the RWS approach to idea generation (that’s brainstorming for people in the non ad-world).

Quite a few companies claim that they are not doing traditional advertising and they are not like other agencies. But RWS actually do do things differently.

They get people from different backgrounds along to the brainstorms -- the idea goes that if you just get ad people you will just get advertising ideas.

The projects I have worked on with them -- like Mission Motuihe and The Nikolai Organisation in general, were a bit different to your everyday advertising. I am writing up a bit of a case study of the NO thingy for my new website but in the meantime here is the story on the RWS approach:

It should be stressed that this idea generation session approach is pretty much step 1 and 2 of a longer creative process. After the ideas come in from the brainstorm they are then analysed against a whole set of criteria to work out what new directions could be found.

I’ve been involved in a few of these and have found that they really do take you to some unexpected places and that there is something kind of kinetic about the ideas sparking off each other when it is working at its best.

MEDIA MOMENT – How to Watch TV Online.

Here are some notes to go with the chat with Nick D on georgefm.

I love TV. For most local TV I watch it on demand on the TVNZ and TV3 and C4 services. I find them often buggy and hard to use and have to swap browsers and redownload flash every five minutes – but I love being able to watch shows whenever. I haven’t watched any TV at its broadcast time in about three years except the news and live sport.

I really like to keep up with international shows. I review media and work in TV. I find it very helpful.

What I don’t love is waiting months for NZ TV to show it. Or perhaps never to show it. So luckily for people like me there is the internet.

There are a number of very helpful sites that allow you to keep up with all the best international TV.

These are places where you can watch international shows – pretty much anything great you can think of:

www.ninjavideo.net

http://tv.blinkx.com/

http://www.tvduck.com/

It is as simple as going there – choosing what you want and following some links.It may take a bit of persistence – not all links are good.

For all of these you have to be careful about spyware so be very careful what you click yes to. DON’T give email addresses or credit card details to ANYTHING.

For most of these you should be able to find a megavideo or ninjavideo link that is free and good and requires no registration.

For many of the links you might get a message that says that you are in the wrong region.

We can fix this. What you need is a proxy IP address. What this means is a way to trick the internet into thinking you are in the right country. It is kind of like changing your number as it would appear on other people’s caller ID so they think you are somewhere else.

One easy way to do this is to use the firefox browser and download an extension called foxyproxy http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/

What you do is download this and follow the instructions. They have video tutorials on how to use it. You will need to get a proxy ip address for the country you want to pretend to be in. Sometimes foxy proxy manages by itself – otherwise you click add proxy and submit a proxy address you can find here:

http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/

Once you have these powers you can watch anything in the BBC iplayer which has A-feckin-mazing content – - see the tutorial here:http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/help.html

or you can try and go on sites like Hulu.com – which is a bit harder to crack.

Another interesting option for watching stuff as it airs – like live sporting events is Justin.Tv. This started as a lifestreaming site as Justin broadcast his every move. But it has now changed to also offer live streaming of all sorts.

This can be of a goldfish in a bowl right through to the NBA finals. The best way to find out what live stuff is where – I have found – is to search twitter for justintv – -people announce what they are about to play. Because this is real time it is hard for copyright holders to take it down before you see it!

It can also be cool to go on there and simply search entertainment and watch whatever movie happens to be on.

In entirely unrelated news I cancelled my sky subscription the other day.

As ever if you have helpful information around other sites or can improve what I have here please add a comment! Sharing is good.

Of course nothing here supports or encourages copyright theft etc. This is for the purposes of review etc. Don’t sue me etc.

Ad MASH 20/5/10 All About Experiential Advertising

Experiential advertising is a bit of a cover-all term applied to activities that engage the customer in some real-life way.

The category can include Guerrilla, Ambient and Promo or PR activities.

One general rule is that there is some kind of experience involved (as you would have guessed…) -- like this nice example from Coke:

We had Steve Kane from DDB on to talk Experiential on The Ad Show -- he particularly liked this campaign as he said that it didn’t need an end tag to let you know who it was for. He stated -- and I think that is a very good thought -- that you ought to know from the experience what it is for.

Which is somewhere that this fantastically interactive work for Volkswagon actually falls down a bit. It isn’t essentially about Volkswagon or Volkswagon experiences.

What they did was stage a series of actions to make things fun.

Like here where they turned stairs into piano keys. This drove more people to take the stairs.

They were attempting to prove that if you make something fun more people will do it. Tune in next week when they prove water is wet. And attach the Volkswagon brand to it….

Not that the work wasn’t cool -- -here is another nifty long bow from the campaign:

The rest of the campaign is here.

Sometime Experiential can be like a public artwork or sculpture -- like this wonderful local work for the Rodney District Council by Saatchi and Saatchi.

It won up big at Axis and is smashing (groan) and rather deserves to be seen by a wider audience.

Experiential can also take the form of one of any of a million flash mob ripoffs, like this one for H&M clothes in San Fran:

Othertimes it can be quite technological -- like with this augmented Reality Rock Paper Scissors game for magazine T-Post -- where the shirt plays you:

Some Experiential activities can be full-on events that actually accomplish something cool -- like this work I did with Hadleigh Averill for Smirnoff -- -350 people went to an island and planted 22,400 trees.  That was an experience.

Often Experiential actions are undertaken with an eye to generating media coverage. Like Air New Zealand’s Cranial Billboards that, unlike the scalps, were well covered.

So -- -although I’m sure people could quibble about labels and where some of these might fit elsewhere it is probably safe to say that at it’s heart Experiential is about individual interaction. Which has limited effectiveness -- in that the reach could be restricted to however many individuals you could individually interact with. Thankfully (for experiential advertisers) the internet now serves to store and spread the ideas and the engagements.

As with this vending machine idea for coke. While it was only experienced by a handful of people it has gone on to be viewed nearly 2.5 million times on YouTube.

In fact Steve, referring to that idea  said that in a way YouTube islike  the broadcast arm of experiential. He was very entertaining -- you should check out his turn on The Ad Show, I’ll post a link once it is online.