Business: The Australian Government
Campaign: The Line: http://www.theline.gov.au/
Abstract:
In June 2010 a new Australian Government initiative was launched at the Annual Song Summit. It was called The Line and it focused on teaching young Australians about what is and isn't appropriate behaviour in positive relationships. It is located completely online, and aims to educate kids about what to do if they're being bullied both offline and online (cyber bullying). It is an aesthetically pleasing campaign, using beautiful line drawings and expressive watercolour effects to reflect different moods, but it also has some shortcomings. The campaign may have been deliberately limited to the internet for cost reasons, but if that is the case it could do better to have a more complete online presence, as it is missing some key social networking features. However, the aesthetic style, use of language and appeal to their apparent target market seems to be quite consistent across all of their chosen advertising platforms.
1: Search Engine Optimisation
It has been said many times that every smart company has a website, and usually this website will stand alone as another form of advertising. So what needs to be done to draw people to the site as well as advertising the original idea? Search Engine Optimisation and Google AdWords are two terms that have entered common use when discussing ways to improve an online presence. The Line has strengths is its use of Google AdWords, but falls down somewhat in its organic search engine optimisation. What this means is when you search Google for "the line", "bullying", "bullying au", "women", "relationships" and "Cyber Bullying/Cyberbullying" the first search result will be a paid ad from the Australian Government promoting The Line. Unfortunately, only a search directly containing the words "the line" in succession will wield what is called 'organic' search results, or results not necessarily affected by payment of the company to Google. All of the other aforementioned keywords bring up only a paid ad, and The Line does not appear organically on the first page, which basically means if that paid ad was not there, the site would not be linked strongly enough with relevant keywords to be found in a normal Google search. This can be rectified; the Government just needs to implement some basic search engine optimisation techniques, such as these listed by Angela Knaggs:
"- developing a solid keyword strategy
- creating quality content
- building legitimate links
- maximising spider friendliness" (Knaggs, 2011)
2: Website
The website itself seems to be targeted towards young people of both sexes, with a special section for parents and teachers. The way it aims to appeal to the younger audience is consistent across the whole site, focusing on use of doodle-like images, a young tone of writing, and a degree of participatory content. The parents and teachers' page has a more sophisticated tone, using more complex language and including numerous fact sheets for further reading - something that would not be appealing to youngsters but adds credibility in the eyes of adults. George Miller's "magical number seven, plus or minus two" rule for our processing capacity is used often on this site, regarding the number of links in the navigation bar, words in titles and elements in the main and secondary content sections of each page (see Figure 1). This is an example of web best practices and should be implemented to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed when visiting each page. (Miller, 1956)
Figure 1: Home page of The Line demonstrating Miller's rule of 7+/-2
Some elements are hard to find using the navigation bar. For example, the “follow the line” section with interactive videos appears on the home page, but is then listed as a sub-link under “share the line”. Ambiguous titles like these fit in with the reoccurring “line” theme, but make the site harder to navigate. They are one example of how this site sacrifices usability for aesthetics. Another occurrence of this is the choice to use Adobe Flash, a proprietary software, for their videos. This limits mobile connectivity, and is becoming obsolete, as their interactive 'choose the ending' function can now be easily recreated using YouTube.
The site does incorporate many Web 2.0 elements, including:
- "Facebook Social Plugins" box on the right sidebar which lets you connect to Facebook and 'like' the site without navigating away.
- A "share this" button in the footer that will connect you to most popular social networking sites and share a link to The Line.
- A mini poll on the sidebar which aids in participation as well as research without increasing the "annoyance factor" (Knaggs, 2011) for users due to its simple format.
- A suggestion box on the sidebar where users can enter in poll or blog topic that they'd like to see.
- A pledge statement about respecting relationships that supporters can copy and paste to their profiles, attempting a viral advertising effect.
- A "draw your line" interactive page where users can create line doodles similar to those featured on the site and save or post them for others to see. There are currently 3062 user-created images, and some of these will be used in a music video by Australian Hip Hop artist Pez.
- A blog which welcomes user comments featured on the site under the "share the line" link.
- As mentioned before, there are interactive "choose your ending" videos aimed at young people with an educational message. One can be viewed here:
VIDEO: http://www.theline.gov.au/follow/4
3: Social Media Integration
The extent of social media integration for The Line is somewhat limited, with only a Facebook page being advertised. The Facebook page is consistent with the writing and visual style of the main website, and contains extra social features like a discussion board forum and regular status updates. The Government has also paid for sponsored advertisements in the Facebook sidebar, presumably aimed at young people and possibly teachers. These ads feature the doodle-like line drawings and slogans like "stop bullying" and "know where to draw the line".
5: Room For Improvement
The Line could have better penetration amongst young internet users if it's regular status updates were also placed on a Twitter site, and the beautiful interactive videos hidden away on their website would be much more popular on a youtube channel, like NAPCAN's Smart Online Safe Online video:
If the Government could implement better search engine optimisation, they may not need to spend so much of their budget on Google AdWords. This could give them more money to broadcast their informative videos on television, leaving in the interactive ending as a pull to the website.
Bullying UK also has a free iPhone application available, which could greatly improve recognition for The Line.Bibliography
Knaggs, A. (2011, January-April). Bond University. Retrieved Feb 18, 2011, from Internet Advertising 111: http://ilearn.bond.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_23676_1%26url%3d
