Reclassifying one more contextual aspect of the speech - Swan’s use of the terms “This Government” and “The Government” to represent the Rudd Government, and “government” to represent other aspects of the government reveals a budget speech that’s quite clearly talking about policy delivery without constantly chanting the party brand. Admittedly, this is a recode of the Swan speech to isolate “Government Department Spending” from “This Government’s Commitment” so there’s a manipulation of the qualitative data. Still, this is very consistent with the predictions of the Hughes and Dann political marketing analysis that the Rudd Government would take every opportunity at the outset to reinforce the brand choice by constant reminders of the policy promise and its corresponding implementation. Commitments comes up eight times as a key term, and three of those statements happened in the opening act.

At the start of the speech

These are the commitments the [RuddGovernment] gave to the Australian people at the election. Mr Speaker, this Budget honours those commitments.

In the middle, with the subtle header of “MEETING OUR COMMITMENTS”

Mr Speaker, this Budget honours the [RuddGovernment's] commitments, and allows us to look Australians in the eye and say we delivered the policies they voted for last November. We are doing what we said we would do.

And finally, in the closing remarks

A coherent package of reforms based on four principles: honouring our commitments; delivering for working families; investing in the future; and beginning the new era of economic responsibility we need, to sustain growth in challenging times.

This was a budget speech that was heavily soaked in relationship marketing theory of emphasising the trust / commitment aspect, and deliberately emphasising the reciprocity between the Rudd Government and the Australian voters. As Treasurer Swan puts it…”It is a Labor Budget for the nation”.

Second analysis of the budget using tag clouds, after key phrases have been coded so that “1.8 per cent per year per child per family” style phrases didn’t make ‘per’ the most common word.

The main story out of round 2 of the analysis is simply that government talks about itself a lot, and for a proclaimed long term focused budget, there’s a whole array of four to five year statements in the mix of policy and promise implementation. It’s amusing to see a Labor Party budget say “Five year” quite so frequently - Marxian or Freudian slip?

“Back in the Game” May 12, 2008
by Hryckowian (Image from Flickr)

Presumptions, presumptions, presumptions.  Marketing College has a post about marketing used by the “bad guys”

However, we’re also aware of that other element that is out there. The “bad guys”. The people that prey on the suffering of others to bring in their income. Among the most insidious of these are the people in the drug cartels and the dealers that distribute their product. Recently, a new trend has developed in the marketing of drugs: Fruit flavored cocaine has begun to surface in recent drug busts.

The question is: Who is this being marketed to? The answer is obvious; they are marketing this product to the very children we tuck into bed.

Since the comments system over there is…unique (and flawed), I’ll post my reply here.

It’s interesting that a flavour based derivative of a core product is automatically assumed to be “for the kids”.

What if this is a premium brand? The elite end of the meth market, where it’s not just enough to make a decent product which does the same core offering.  This could be market segmentation, luxury goods or any other differentiation approach.

It’s not automagically for children just because it’s improving the flavour - why does any adult orientated product have to taste lousy by default?

I see this same sad argument of premium quality flavour being used to “target the children” because there’s an assumption of adult based products having flavours, or fun, or a non-serious aspect to them is making it “for the kids”.  Grand Theft Auto is an R rated video game for adults. Alcohol is for adults.   Having a flavour in a beer doesn’t make it a product for kids, it makes it a flavoured product for adults.  Making an adult product more attractive to adults is a part of the business of doing business.  Yet somehow, making it attractive to adults can only be done in “serious” ways, otherwise you’re targetting “the kids” (Which begs the question of who the hell people think buys the flavoured condoms.)

It’s a flawed assumption, and one that’s a discredit to the adult orientated goods and services we’re trying to tailor to adult markets.

Image by Bryan Sutter via Flickr

Sunday Night, I found myself loitering around the TF servers, and in a match where on the Red Team were between four and five members of the (GCS) clan, who are very good at what they do in TF2.  Sufficiently good at it to completely school my side for a few rounds.

Then came the last round of the night, which consists of four levels.  We were comprehensively monstered over the first levels, and really beaten back in the last level with the Blue team cutting through our line in what felt like record time.  At seven minutes and forty seconds, the cart was within a heart beat of Blue winning.

At 4.03, I had enough presence of mind to snap a screenshot as I came off a respawn.  The cart had been in that same spot for several minutes.

In fact, at the 7 minute 40 mark, I thought we were gone.  For seven minutes, 30 seconds, the cart would go no further than about four cart lengths from the end, and get within that same nail biting proximity until Blue swamped the point with 10 seconds left.

For seven minutes, I was playing one of the most intense video sporting matches of my amateur career, against a squad of good (and possibly even pro) players.  Not only that, but playing such a hair raising defensive game that my usual level of video game cursing was way off the charts for emotion, intensity, and…well… me completely losing the plot because I screwed up a defensive move and thought I’d cost the game (it didn’t…but wow, the intensity).

What was especially sweet was playing a glorious defence game… as an offense orientated soldier.  Not my usual support role as medic, or defensive sweeper in the Pyro, but a straight out aggressive Soldier spot.  Not bad, not bad at all.