Media agency MPG takes the blame for using ‘Abo’ search term for Tourism NT

“Tourism NT did not specifically approve this search term as part of 128,000 search words employed for their business.” That would indicate either MPG did or no-one did. Both of those are a slight on the agencies ability at paid search.

Come on guys – sort it out

Whilst this should not have happened in the first place, and they will need to assure the client a repeat can’t happen, good on them for doing this.

Chris, agreed that the best policy was to stand up and be counted but within paid search the devil is in the detail and one of the most important things in managing a brand is the negative keyword selection so that they don’t appear against terms like this and also the initial keyword selection.

This should have been picked up on both counts.

but yes, fair play for hands up.

Come on – the client also needs to take responsibility.

The term shoud have been proposed as a negative keyword OR the client should not have signed it off…..

But fair play to MPG for c’arrying the can’

surely you hire an agency to manage your search to prevent these things happening and the agency should have controls in place to make sure these words are not even included.

If the client is expected to trawl through 128,000 keywords and approve each surely this negates part of the reason for having someone manage the search?

I highly doubt there are 128,000 keywords…..there is not that much to say about NT!!!

Kind of agree. Whilst good on MPG for taking the blame, i think us clients can’t hide behind the agency when things like this happen. The agency only has as much autonomy as they are allowed, and therefore – like – all things the client is permitting that autonomy. And therefore is responsible.

Doubt MPG would get the credit for all campaign successes. We can’t have it both ways, i think!

As an exercise in PR Crisis Management good on Media agency MPG for standing up or carrying the can depending on how you look at it.

However also feel that NT Tourism should have issued an apology or at very least a statement.

Someone at NT Tourism signed off these keywords / SEO campaign and should issue an apology on behalf of organisation.

At end of any crisis PR event you ask what damage has been done and who comes off carrying egg on their face. So far it looks a little like NT Tourism….

Shane , have you been up here recently.. you should come up sometime..there’s plenty to say!!!

I don’t know 128,000 different words.

I’d be shit at search marketing.

Come on, it’s the responsiblity of the media agency to professionally represent their client. In this case, they have failed to do while being offensive along the way! A search term doesn’t just get inadvertantly selected.

I agree Shane, I doubt there is 128,000 keywords and if there is I bet 100,000 get 0 impressions.

I also bet that not many client actually are asked to approve keywords by any agency, generally campaign ads are the only thing clients get to approve.

128,000 this is Bad bad use of PPC campaign.
Of course client didn’t approve – Who has the time and intelligence to select 128,000 keywords?
Have your heard about negative keywords?
Too easy.

i’m politically correct but my boyfriend isn’t. we’ve fought over this in the past, and he says that abo isn’t an offensive term, but an abbreviation. keeping an open mind, can it be interpretted as that?

btw, he’s not a racist. he’s in an interacial relationship and has aboriginie friends. the word does get to me, though.

At least someone said sorry about something for once.

Actually I think they missed a tricked by not issuing a statement mimicking Kevin Rudd’s sorry speech when I think about it.

I doubt very much that NT buy 128,000 keywords, the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use.

What a waste of money and time! You should employ an agency who is focused on your target market.

The term keyword is deceiving as it can relate to individual words but also phrases, in the context of search marketing. So, 128,000 keywords is a lot, but nothing compared to say an airline who might have over a million keywords.
I get the feeling a lot of agencies build out search campaigns with so many keywords to justify the fees they are charging, even if the majority of keywords get zero impressions. And of course approving this many keywords is a joke, but they should definitely have approved a negative keyword list.

This is mental.

It’s fine to use “wog boy” as the title of a movie but it’s front page news on SMH and other news sites that some random dude picked up on an agency were bidding on “abo”.

Come on Australia…sort it out.

Let’s remember that this was brought to light by a guy who works at an agency that is likely out there looking for SEM business (and he’s done very well out of this by pointing everyone to his blog and the company’s site). So of course any errors they find they want to highlight as “incompetence” as he says. Which is fine, all competing companies try to find errors with each other, but lets not all be so critical and quick to point the finger.

I don’t think I have seen one SEM campaign that is perfect and error free or couldn’t be done better. So I suggest a few of you get off your high horse and deflate your egos as to how good you think you are 100% of the time. MPG admitted the error and I am sure they will move on and learn from it. This is a SEM process error, yes potentially a PC issue too, but it’s hardly bringing down the stock exchange is it. Move on people.

Thumbs up to the agency for taking the fall on this – as they should. If I had time to run my own SEM campaigns I wouldn’t emolpy an agency – the responsibility sits with them.
Gem, the social connotations of ‘wog’ and ‘abo’ are entirely different. Wog can still be highly offensive if misdirected, abo is always a term of offence.

so…are we going to the NT or what??

Dar wins everytime

I find it funny people think its impossible to use 128,000 keywords. I have seen clients in the past use 600,000+ keywords. I guess it sounds a bit funny for some one who does not work in the search marketing game, you must remember theirs the dictionary terms, you mix those up with keywords and then you also add in some miss spellings.

The problem is mistakes can happen, this one has been a costly lesson for MPG, yet I commend them highly for comming out and appoligising in full.

You see companies like Nestle facing a big problem and they run and hide and bring in the lawyers to remove negative comments.

(Edited by Mumbrella)

Have to agree with Michael – 128,000 search terms in a PPC campaign is far too many. That is like firing at a target blindfolded, hoping something hits the bullseye – a sheer waste of advertising budget.

You don’t need 128,000 words to trigger reasons to visit the Northern Territory; just one: “Barramundi”. Mind you, you could also throw in the abbreviated version: “Barra”.

true – 128,000 is OTT – what did they do upload a dictionary?

@Jono ……….
“have seen clients in the past use 600,000+ keywords”

“you must remember theirs the dictionary terms, you mix those up with keywords and then you also add in some miss spellings.”

Obviously in your SEM experience you target people with webbed hands

Seriously, 128k keywords is not that much when, as people have mentioned they are actually key phrases with multiple words and often including misspellings and their combination in the phrases.

Just the phrase “tourism in northern territory” could generate 200 misspellings.

If you understood search you would understand.

Also, for those searches with zero impressions, they may have an impression now or in the future and if you are the one with your ad there when others have ignored it then the consumer has a higher propensity to click on your ad as you’re likely the only one who is appearing.

Anyway, 128k is not the issue, in fact it is like the agency is using that as an excuse. It was a cock up, they have seen it and fixed it and admitted to the issue. It goes to show some of the issues of running a search campaign with large volumes of keywords/phrases but also shows the level of quality control that should be in place on both an agency and client side.

Add to that if you have the exact phrase it is more cost effective than having the broad match then it makes sense to build the whole thing out to all possibilities of phraseology to give the most cost effective result.

NT Tourism is desperate to show any sort of progress or to
justify their relevance.

The ad agency would have been asked if they would like to continue with their
contract and to take One for the revenue stream…i mean team.

Do TourismNT marketing managers ever get fired?

I bet this issue, woke a lot of people on the fourth floor of Moonta House as well as the
Hon Malarndirri Barbara Anne McCarthy who says about 4 words a year.

“Gem, the social connotations of ‘wog’ and ‘abo’ are entirely different. Wog can still be highly offensive if misdirected, abo is always a term of offence:

So if I call someone an f”ing wog or f’ing abo one is more offensive than the other it? Of course this is all about context and personal interpretation.

One thing I find amazing is that every Aussie I know doesn’t think the term “paki” is offensive for example. I think it says a lot.

On the PPC 128k keywords…definately overkill – I would think there are probably 30-40 head terms that drive 90% traffic and I would be amazed if the remaining “long tail” accounted for the other 10% on a consistent basis. The perception that quantity of keywords is a huge factor to look at in a PPC campaign is prehistoric online marketing and if that is what your agency thinks, sack them immediately – My mum knows more about PPC that they do.

So in summary:

It’s not that big of a deal, it is a minor process issue between client > agency being leveraged by others for personal gain

Number of key words is irrelevant and does not incur the client additional cost – as long as the campaign is being optimised to the right metrics of course

Terms ‘Wog’ versus ‘Abo’ – far too many shades of grey/acceptability to come to a definitive conclusion

Fionn is clever and likes his giant iPhone….. 🙂

I’d like to hear from more PR professionals on your point of view on this issue. I completely agree with am’s recommendation that NT Tourism must issue an apology. By keeping quiet & letting the agency take the blame is poor PR, as publics (including media) will make a link back to NT Tourism. A statement apologising for the error is important to maintain their reputation & to diffuse the situation. This is crisis management 101.

I thought it might be that Fionn!

Well it’s not like there are that many Fionn’s out there!

And it’s not a giant iPhone, it can’t make calls :o)

I just want to know how many hits they actually had on the blunder!

Is Comment 15 trollin or stoopid?

HAH! Love it austen tayshus (1)
Really, just how much can we Koalas bear?
Enough already mUmbrella and let the “news-cycle” go…