Kim Duthie: Just because you can doesn't mean you should

KIM DUTHIE is the 17 year old schoolgirl of St Kilda footy players photo fame / shame. It’s a story that puts nearly all involved to shame. There are four key players; Broadcast Media, Social Media, Kim Duthie, and us. All have played a role in her dramatic fall from a normal life (I can only imagine how aspirational normal feels when you don’t have it). All may be responsible for even more tragedy if we don’t show some restraint.

The way I see it working is like this. A psychologically unwell girl demands attention. Broadcast media happily obliges parading her (and family) in a cage through the streets on a Sunday night. The social media crew with their front row seats hurl vomit, vitriol and metaphorical shit at the poor girl. The rest of us stand and watch tut tutting. Then psychologically damaged girl – now smeared in the towns vitriol, but with the attention she craves demands it happens again, and again broadcast media provides the platform, social media the abuse and we all shrug our shoulders. So what can the key players do to stop it happening again (and again)?

Broadcast media? Show some bloody restraint. Simple. Obviously you have a business to run, and that involves chasing ratings. However, even Kerry Packer pulled a show or two when it failed to meet the basics of human dignity. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Social media? I’ve written about the damaging impact of social media here. I’ve suggested cyber-bullying needs to be checked. She has received countless death threats, and the most damaging comments I could ever imagine attacking everything from the way she looks, her parents, to her morals. Check it online if you want to be mortified. To the people making these postings. There are a few things to ask yourself a) where is your anger coming from?, b) think about the harm you’re doing to another human being (are you proud of your actions?), c) show some compassion for someone who is not well. Above all again show some restraint. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Kim Duthie: Kim has courted the media since this began with many on and offline appearances. She’s changed her Twitter account from @its_k_isabella to @its_k_isabellas to @kimduthieworld in an effort to shake off the vitriol from other Twitter users. She started a blog, but quickly after disabled comments as so many were grossly negative. She’s threatened to kill her followers “I’ll slit your throats” before deleting the threats and posting happy messages the following day. She posts semi-naked photos of herself and naked photos of others. Lies about being pregnant, and has an alleged affair. To a layperson she would be ‘an immature girl who is all over the shop’, to a psychologist she’s a mix of personality disorders, with pressing mental health issues. All of which need addressing – urgently. Kim Duthie, again show some restraint. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Finally there is US, and our mistaken belief that people have complete control over their own destiny. We don't. Nobody is born saying I want to lead a tragic, lonely, dysfunctional life. People make decisions with the information and resources they have available – and yes they make bad ones. People don’t learn from mistakes – we learn from success. Hence the people making the mistakes will keep on making them – much to the frustration of the working class shock jocks who think ‘well I’ve made it, so should they’.

We’ve paraded Kim in front of the masses. Smeared her in vitriol and spat her out. She needs help - this will be difficult and complex to implement. Those who have exploited her / harmed her the most are probably in the best position to put something in place. Think they will?

Segmenting the Prison Population: Who eats who in prison

Here's the Adnews March 2011 article.

Ever been to prison? You’ll quickly discover not all inmates are the same, a quick and dirty segmentation reveals a wild array of characters. Like any market you can segment it in different ways; what ethnic gang they belong to, or what mental illness they have, or even what level of ‘dangerousness’ they are (C1, C2, or C3). However, the unofficial segmentation preferred by the inmates and officers is behavioural – and based on what crime you’ve committed. Here it is.

At the top of the tree, the most respected inmate by officers and other inmates alike is the old school armed bank robber. They rob as a career choice and importantly they are not drug effected. They are brazen, cock-sure, and relatively intelligent. They’ll regale everyone with their narcissistic stories. Next, it’s the murderer – but only if the victim is another male, and again is not committed in a drug-affected state. The murderer often walks around with a calmness and intensity reserved for those who are clearly not quite like us. Next in the hierarchy comes the rapist. Sad but true that sexual violence against a woman is (at least partially) condoned whilst all other violence towards them is condemned. After these relative opinion leaders it becomes a little messy, but next up would be the general drug effected petty crims doing B&E's and other crime to support their habit.

Then, at the bottom of the prison animal kingdom we have the groups who are not tolerated by the rest of the prison system. They are sometimes put into segregation or protection* (or indeed there are special prisons that house only these types of inmates). In this group we often have those who have murdered or bashed women. Second to the bottom are those who have committed infanticide, those who killed children (interestingly infants make up over half of all murder victims). At the bottom of the segmentation is the pedophile, delightfully named ‘rock spiders’. The pedophile in prison has a very difficult time of it (interestingly even within pedophiles there is a hierarchy – at the top are people with older female victims, men having sex with very young males (toddlers) and many victims are at the lowest). A clear segmentation understood by everyone who operates within that market.

It surprises me that so few marketers fully understand the market they are playing in – and the influences that exist within it. I’d say approximately 50% of marketers have an operational segmentation, and only a quarter of these understand the relationship between all of the different segments. To not only know your different segments but how information and influence flows across them is a marketing gold mine. However, it takes discipline and 3 months work to do it. Further, it takes a long-term vision of success – the investment won’t be paid back within the first year.

With the opportunity to do multi-modal communications these days and have different messages targeting different segments it has become increasingly important to understand how your market segments, and these information flows. Within the prison system if we wanted to institute a new behaviour, or in some way change something we knew exactly who to get on board with the message. We knew which groups were the opinion leaders, who were the disseminators, who were the receivers, and whose opinion didn’t matter.

The prison system is a controlled market. However, so to can be the market you’re operating it. Take a strategic approach to understanding and segmenting your market, and you’ll be able to ‘control’ it much more efficiently. Consider taking these for steps to understand and better control your market:

• Define it
• Segment it
• Understand its key dynamics
• Understand and exploit the emerging opportunity areas

*Even today in Australia some inmates on ‘protection’ are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day for weeks or months on end - truly barbaric.

Marketing, Advertising, Play

There has been a lot said recently about the powers of play, and how marketers can harness this philosophy. As we see it marketing is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do. Play is about people doing what they enjoy doing. The more marketing can be delivered through play then the more these two concentric circles overlap.

Here is the article appearing in The Australian on Naked Communications launching its new Play initiative headed by Naked Communications Japan Founder, Johnny Shaw (apologies for the editing - and obviously click on the photo to make it readable).