Peter Bray

Peter Bray

National Client Services Director

Peter is an industry mover and shaker in the purest sense, and we’re not just talking about his love for Salsa. Recently named as one of Australia’s most influential people by Men’s Style Magazine for his thought leadership in the marketing and not-for-profit sectors, he is also a Director of CHOICE, ensuring he has intimate knowledge of the FMCG and retail sectors and the National Vice President of AIMIA. Before joining Sputnik Agency in 2011, Peter was at the helm of full service agency The Brand Shop, working with brands such as Kotex, Moet Chandon, and The Australian. Prior to that, he owned multi-award winning digital agency Clear Blue Day, leading strategy for Unilever, Lynx and numerous Diageo brands.

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Posts by Peter

On Mastery

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote in his 2008 non-fiction book Outliers that the key to success in any field is to practice for 10,000 hours. This has been reinterpreted by many commentators that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.

I am going to disagree. Vehemently.

Mastery is more than mechanical proficiency, it is more than being able to do the exact right thing at the right time. This “something more” isn’t magic, nor is it the acquisition of soul. It is something else.

I know a lot of really good marketers. I am happy to say I have met and had the pleasure of working with hundreds of them. But I have worked with very few masters of the craft.

So what is the difference? I think there are two main issues at play. Read More

How Much is a Like Worth?

Advertising, Brand, Social influence, Social media, Strategy 1 Comment

Nothing. Zero. A Like on Facebook has zero value.

Yet so many brands are obsessed with Likes, as if this is the ultimate indicator of social media success. In award entries I judge, there are boasts of hundreds of thousands (or millions) of likes, which to me has all the credibility of a businessman boasting to his friends that a stripper in a gentleman’s club (has there ever been more of a misnomer?) winked at him. I know the love, or in this case the like, was bought. Most of the time, the more dollars you put into attracting (buying) Likes, the more Likes you will get. And Likes by themselves are of no value.

Before you slam me in 140 characters, let me explain. Read More

The Twitter twits

Social media, Uncategorized 1 Comment

A funny thing happened last week in the Twittersphere, something that has gone unnoticed by most.

There was a lynch mob. There was baying for blood. There were rallying cries against the big corporation. People were saying how ignorant the big corporation was, how the big corporation didn’t understand social media, how the big corporations didn’t understand online marketing.

The funny bit is that all these “experts” were wrong. They had been the ones sucked in.

I am referring to the ArcticReady website, and the reaction it caused. Read More

Bet on Facebook or Google? Probably Google.

Advertising, Brand, Marketing, Strategy 0 Comment

Friends outside the industry have been asking me a lot recently about whether I think Facebook is over or undervalued. Now to be clear, though I have had a number of finance clients in the past, I am far from an expert on the workings of the stockmarket.

What I can tell people though, based on experience as an agency working with Facebook, and having an understanding of why brands advertise, is that Facebook is going to struggle (though even Google has some impending problems). Quick disclaimer: Google is one of our clients. Read More

I was wrong about anonymous comments

Inspiration, Social influence 4 Comments

Around 5 years ago I wrote an article for a well known print magazine where I advocated the need to allow anonymous commenting.

I talked about the fact that allowing anonymous comments created greater good than the perceived harm that resulted. I talked about the fact that we had to put up with negative anonymous comments because of the liberty that anonymity affords.

I now put my hand up and admit I was wrong. I was very wrong. Read More

The weight of opinion

Strategy 0 Comment

With everyone now able to have their 15 minutes of fame, in theory the power is with the people. But what happens when those voices are not a harmonious song, but the offkey catawauling of bombastic nobodies?

To understand the issue, we need to step back and look at why people use the web in the first place. The web is predominantly used for connection, information or entertainment. We place a high value on the accuracy of information and would rather retrieve qualified information quickly than trawl through tens of websites. This is why Google has been so successful. Read More

A word to the not-for-profit sector

Sputnik Agency, Strategy 0 Comment

One of  Sputnik’s not-for-profit clients recently asked me to participate in a workshop, run by them, about their website. Alarm bells went off when I read the structure (and they fact that for some reason digital was being considered in-situ) and despite voicing my concerns, it went ahead. They were extremely bullish about the possibilities. Fifteen employees were pulled together from different departments, and for an entire day all of us sat around a large table musing about how the web was going to change their organisation. Read More

Avoid Bangkok alleys

Creative, Strategy, UX 0 Comment

I recently had the unpleasant experience of being dragged through a Westfield shopping plaza, looking for bamboo toothpicks (don’t ask!).

While traipsing around, I noticed advertising signs in many of the shop windows, each offering discounts off recommended retail prices – usually with a tiny caveat below saying ‘up to’. Read More

The blog lifecycle

Strategy 0 Comment

What better time to write an article on blogs than for the launch of Sputnik Agency’s freshly minted blog. There is an old joke about the number of bloggers outnumbering the people that read them. And for this new blog, that may be the case as we have quite a few contributors. But we have a feeling this blog may just catch on.

The key to success for a good blog is quite simple: have compelling content.  However having a successful blog isn’t quite so simple. Read More