Letters To The Editor

AdMedia,  Dec 16, 2004  

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Embarrassed

Dear Ed: I have read the last few editions of your magazine covering the debate between Jane Caro & Ruth Mackenzie-White. I only have one comment to make on how this makes me feel - embarrassed to be a woman in business.

Melissa Jenner

Marketing & Communications Manager

NZ Exchange Ltd, Melissa.Jenner@nzx.com

It's called debate, Melissa.

Why focus on the sex of the writers? - Ed

Enterprising

Dear Ed: When is publishing not publishing?

We've been publishing magazines for many years and among our titles is APPAREL, a monthly fashion trade magazine we started in 1968. Now that's long-term publishing.

Back to your Magazine Showcase, beautifully wrapped around AdMedia, and we see another fashion magazine publisher with one hard- copy issue* under its belt claiming eight years of "publication". While in our magazine terms, that is blatantly untrue, they have had a website operating for some years using mainly international pictures and stories. But is that publishing Jim, as we know it? Or am I just seeing Klingons on my starboard bow?

Peter Mitchell

Review Publishing, peter@4rpl.com

*Lucire. - Ed

Weather matters

Dear Ed: Hot only in summer but freezing winter. It's never a dull moment. Here is a shot of Ginza where the office is. And just five minutes from my apartment.

Carl van Wijkvanwijk@tkm.att.ne.jp

Expat adman responds to Auckland weather news (sent out with e- Fastline).

A walk up the I'll

Dear Ed: I presume the new "end-of-isle" promo from M&C Saatchi for Marmite and Tip Top bread (in the AdMedia November) is only available at Cape Reinga or the Bluff ...Micromanmicroman@micromarketing.co.nz

Are they related?

Dear Ed: Take a look at the enclosed ad that we ran for PCW back in 1996. See any resemblance between this and the ACP ad for Woman's Day in Fastline (November 5)? Look familiar in terms of creative? Our ads were originally created by Walkers; not sure who did the ACP ad. As an interesting aside, in looking back at our ad one can't but help notice that PCW readership has risen from 90,000 odd when the ad was done to over 140,000 now!

Bob Pinchin IDG

Bob_Pinchin@idg.co.nz

Black & white

Dear Ed: I agree that Steinlager's Boxer ad presents a welcome consideration of NZ masculinity as a moody, violent identity for which humour is perhaps inappropriate, but it's unfair to say that just because Tui and Lion Red ads make light of it, that they're not just as involved with it. Never mind that.

What strikes me as really odd is that to "know who you are" requires the white lead to punch a black guy in the face. It's even odder that your unattributed article, for all its cultural inquisitiveness, doesn't go into it. The ad leaves me struggling to find a coherent message, and if it wasn't for the tag line displayed at the end, my out-take would be that "Steinlager is the beer of choice for red-necked black-bashers".

Is it then, as suggested, really "heroic black and white"? Given the punch line, black and white could only be considered "heroic" in the sense that heroism is jingoistic, parochial and self-centred. That is to say, black and white is the perfect medium to portray an overly simplistic world in which identity is defined by violence and obliteration of another. It's not the boxing I object to, it's extension of black and white footage into black and white casting, black and white story-telling. Perhaps the beer brand industry is caught between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand: the ironic Kiwi male all dressed up with nowhere to go.

On the other: a serious cultural discourse bent on retarding serious cultural discourse, taking us back to a simpler time, a time of men and beasts.

Just as Boxer finds a viable solution to this dilemma (arty Raging Bull cinematography, the emotionally repressed-but-respectful son- father relationship, the family bach as bequeathed isolation), it suddenly declares skin colour the central issue for its target audience. Why?

James Littlewood

Auckland

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