Beached Whale

'I'm beached az, bro.'

Beached Whale, Bro YouTube Video

This is the funniest phenomenon going around on YouTube right now. It's gotten so popular that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is creating an 11 part series about the animated whale and it's encounters with New Zealand creatures.

It's about an Australian whale that gets beached onto New Zealand. In obvious trouble, he tries to speak with overpronounced Kiwi colloqiualisms to get some help from a local New Zealand seagull.

When I first watched this, I didn't understand why it was so funny to Aussies. Apparently, you need to know and understand Kiwi slang and that Aussies constantly mock Kiwi lingo. It's a great introductory video for someone who doesn't know the difference between Aussie speak and Kiwi speak.

Here's the transcript:

WHALE:*gasp* ah, no. ah no. I'm beached bro, I'm beached is! Hey bro.
KIWI: aw Hey bro! ...What're you doin bro?
WHALE: Dude, I'm beached is!
KIWI: ...Oho, shit! You're beached is!
WHALE: Tell me something I don't know.
KIWI: ....Ooh, You're heaps beached iss!
WHALE: So beached! ....Beached is!
KIWI: ...D'ya wanna chip bro?
WHALE: As in a chop?
KIWI: Yeah, chip.
WHALE: A potato chop?
KIWI: This one, chip, a chip.
WHALE: I would bro, but I don't eat chips,
KIWI: Is that so?
WHALE: naaah, I only eat plankton.
KIWI: Plankton?
WHALE: Can't chew, bro?
KIWI: Try a chip, bro.
WHALE: Nah, I can't chew.
KIWI: Just try a chip, bro.
WHALE: You don't understand, I might look big, but I can't chew bro, I only eat plankton.
KIWI: That's very deceptive!
WHALE: I know, it's very misleading. Do you have any plankton?
KIWI: I might, I'll go and check over here.
WHALE: Do you happen to have a bucket or a hose, bro? I need to get wet ASAP?
KIWI: Are you pretty parched?
WHALE: I'm parched is. And I'm beached bro!
KIWI: You're beached is!
WHALE: I know...see if you can find some plankton.

Some things you need to know to appreciate this video:

• Kiwis say 'bro' after every sentence like Southern Californians say 'dude'
• Kiwis say 'is' after a verb (beached is 'az')
• Kiwis say 'az' when they mean 'is'
• Kiwis and Aussies say 'heaps' when referencing to 'a lot' of things
• Kiwis say 'chip', but sounds like 'chop'
• Kiwis make statements that sound like questions (?)

Oprah Down Under

Oprahfy Yourself

http://www.oprah.com/packages/oprahfy-yourself.html

Huge news! Oprah is coming to Australia in 14 December. To celebrate 25 years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, she put out a bid for countries around the world tor try convince her to go to their country as part of the final season's celebrations. Australia won with their special offer of dubbing the Sydney Opera House as the 'Oprah House' during the 2-day filming. She announced it on the opening show of the season on 13 September with a bang. She rolled out a Quantas airplane onto her stage with John Travolta dressed as the pilot. 300 lucky guests will be sent to Sydney for the taping and then to travel around Australia for 8 days/7 nights. She is providing transport, lodging, and tickets.

Apparently, the Queen of Talk's visit is costing the Australian public $3 million, but that's nothing compared to the $30 million Australia tourism spends without return on investment. If you know anything about the 'Oprah Effect', everything she touches turns to gold! These episodes will be aired to $40 million Americans and screened in 145 countries. Imagine all that plus all the endorsements, follow-up stories, and advertising potential!

Since the news hit Australia, the media has been in an Oprah frenzy. Every program I've been watching, every person (mostly girls) I've talked to and even my boss has their attention focused on her arrival. Tickets are going to be tough to come by since they will be given lottery style. I've already set up reminders on Google calendar to text and email me when I can put my name in. Hopefully she'll have a 'Favorite Things' episode while she's here!

Speed Dating With Journalists

On Wednesday 29 September, I had the pleasure of going to my first professional training day. My manager at Taurus signed me up for The Media Insights Seminar by MediaConnect. This seminar is designed to help PR agencies and departments improve their knowledge and understanding of the media and help improve their skills and techniques when pitching to the media.

New to the PR world, attendees got a chance to ask questions to tech journalists about what they like and don't like in regard to media relations ie. new pr professionals who are naggy or don't know their products. Although I've worked in PR through my past internships at Shearman & Sterling LLP and Altria (parent company of Philip Morris), I still feel a little uneasy about pitching stories to journalists especially since I'm new to the Australian media landscape.

Working in an agency, you have to be accountable to your client and deliver on the promises you've made. For instance, your client may pay you $10,000 per month to get 4 pieces of coverage whether it is in newspapers, trades, broadcast or online. In PR, you always want to go above and beyond the 4 pieces so that your client is happy and will confidently continue to do business with you. It's kinda of a lot of pressure if there is no news for that client or journalists aren't responding to your pitches. This is where this seminar helps with the 'dos and don'ts' of pitching to the media.

When I arrived, we were greeted by the MediaConnect CEO Phil Sims (former tech journalist). At the end of the conference I personally applauded him on founding MediaConnect - a database with all the Australian journalist's contact information similar to Cision in the U.S. It really makes PR easier when you don't have to go hunting for emails and phone numbers. Like freshman on the first day of school, we looked around the room judging each other while we each gave an mini introduction.

'Hi, I'm Shadiyah. I'm from Taurus Marketing. I just moved to Australia from the U.S. Being new to the Australian market, I'm here to learn more on how to effectively communicate with journalists.'

I wasn't afraid to be there with all the young Aussies. There were even some guys! - the PR world is known to be mostly made up of girls. There were actually a few UK professionals from very prestigious agencies that kind of intimidated me. Spread out amongst 7 tables were 20 novice PR professionals either new to their job or have been in the industry less than a year. Being out of the game since I decided to move to Korea and teach English after graduating university, I felt a little old. Most people were fresh out of uni. I expected this room to be eager sponges. Unfortunately, very few questions were asked. It's disappointing because we paid hundreds of dollars to go and most people didn't prepare questions or mock pitches. There was one obnoxious girl who asked 90% of the questions followed up by hardcore brown-nosing.

'I constantly need to review new products because I have 2 talk-back radio shows. I don't have anything to talk about on my radio show tonight. I'm still working on it.' - broadcast tech journalist

'I actually sent you three emails. Did you get them? If you don't have anything to talk about tonight, I'll have my agency send you a product. It will be at your office by mid-day.' - annoying girl

I did make friends with two girls who sat on either side of me, one being my client's competitor! We found common ground based on our hatred of said girl.

Throughout the day we listened to tech journos ranging from consumer, lifestyle and trade magazines, broadcast, online, blogs and even The Australian (US' New York Times). We also listened to a panel of PR professionals who have been in the business over 20 years or have just started their own consultancy. The day was broken up into 8 panel discussions, 2 being new and produtct pitching sessions where the journalists moved from table to table in frames of 10 minutes. Sounds like speed dating huh? We were all kind of nervous because these were the very same people that we email and call on a daily basis to get our client's products or services in the news. Now we are face to face with them. Fortunately, my group of girls devised an introduction of 'We're quite new to pitching and would rather chat with you about what you like and don't like about pitches.' Thankfully, the journos were totally cool and chatted with us as if we were friends. They gave us helpful pointers about what to include in an email, whether or not they like being phoned or emailed, or what they want in terms of participating in media launches for products. One journalist said, 'If you want to get in with the tech journalists, just come hang out with us. If you are the person that stayed at the pool when everyone else left, we'll be more likely to remember you when you call us about your client.' Eek, sounds like greek life!

All in all, the day was really helpful and taught me a lot of tactics and organisational planning that I can bring back to my PR team at Taurus. I even got some business cards! My one complaint is that there was no happy hour to end the day where we could have done some real networking. I wonder what kind of training days are ahead of me now.