Successful Collaboration Between Marketers and Agencies: Towards a Client perspective on Advertising Development

The relationship between clients and agencies involved in developing quality advertising campaigns has long been an area of interest for researchers. Much of the early research focussed on the factors which contributed to the origins, functioning and dissolution of client agency relationships in advertising. In addition much of this early research had considered these relationships from the point of view of the agency. In comparison this research considers the importance of collaboration in the development of quality advertising campaigns. The research considers the contribution of process and outcome factors in the development of advertising campaigns. To understand how these two groups of factors contribute to the development of quality advertising campaigns it was decided to use a mixed methods approach to conduct the research. Initially a series of exploratory in-depth interviews were undertaken with senior personnel from a range of major Auckland client companies and agencies. These interviews provided a range of rich qualitative data which was the basis for developing the quantitative questionnaire. This was followed by a comprehensive quantitative questionnaire that surveyed a range of people working at major New Zealand and Australian advertisers. The data collected in the quantitative segment of the research was then analysed. The analysis identified four factors likely to influence the quality of advertising campaigns produced. These were relationship stability, agency flexibility, agency competency and expertise and client involvement. The quantitative research showed clients who were involved in the development of campaigns were more likely to produce original campaigns that were also more creative, and as a result more effective. Clients and agencies that were in stable relationships were likely to produce campaigns which were both original and effective. Agencies that had high levels of competency and expertise were likely to produce campaigns which were more strategic and original. There was an inverse U relationship between competency and expertise and the effectiveness of campaigns produced. That is those with high and low levels of competency and expertise were likely to produce less effective campaigns than those with moderate levels of competency and expertise. Those clients and agencies that are in stable relationships and agencies that had high levels of competency and expertise were also likely to produce more creative campaigns. Agencies that were either inflexible or highly flexible are likely to produce the most original campaigns. Situations where the client was not involved nor were they in a stable relationship were likely to result in campaigns with less strategic focus. The results overall suggest that the process factors make a contribution throughout the process of developing a campaign and that the outcome factors are those which help the client to judge whether a campaign is high quality. Those who consider process factors such as trust to be contributors to the development of quality advertising campaigns, may really only “hope” that quality campaigns will result. This research has presented a clients’ view on the factors which are important to quality campaign development. This is in contrast to much of the earlier work developed which considered the agencies’ viewpoint. For agency managers who seek to develop quality campaigns it is important that they involve the client. They should also ensure that their relationship is stable, that they are flexible in their work with the client and they assign personnel who are competent and have the expertise necessary to develop quality advertising campaigns

Personal financial literacy among high school students in New Zealand, Japan and the United States

Personal financial literacy is becoming increasingly important in the modern world, especially for young people. In this paper we compare financial literacy of high school students in Hamilton, New Zealand, with samples from Japan and the United States. We compare not only overall financial literacy, but also literacy across five dimensions (or ‘themes’) of financial literacy, and across three cognitive levels. We find that financial literacy is poor overall in all three countries, but is substantially worse in New Zealand and the United States than in Japan. The performance is similar across themes and cognitive levels for U.S. and New Zealand students, but Japanese students perform better mostly in terms of their greater knowledge of terminology and definitions, rather than better comprehension and ability to apply their knowledge. This suggests that all three countries should work harder to develop the financial literacy of their high school students

Ocean Bottom Seismometer Augmentation of the Philippine Sea Experiment (OBSAPS) cruise report

The Ocean Bottom Seismometer Augmentation to the Philippine Sea Experiment (OBSAPS, April-May, 2011, R/V Revelle) addresses the coherence and depth dependence of deep-water ambient noise and signals. During the 2004 NPAL Experiment in the North Pacific Ocean, in addition to predicted ocean acoustic arrivals and deep shadow zone arrivals, we observed "deep seafloor arrivals" that were dominant on the seafloor Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) (at about 5000m depth) but were absent or very weak on the Distributed Vertical Line Array (DVLA) (above 4250m depth). These "deep seafloor arrivals" (DSFA) are a new class of arrivals in ocean acoustics possibly associated with seafloor interface waves. The OBSAPS cruise had three major research goals: a) identification and analysis of DSFAs occurring at short (1/2CZ) ranges in the 50 to 400Hz band, b) analysis of deep sea ambient noise in the band 0.03 to 80Hz, and c) analysis of the frequency dependence of BR and SRBR paths as a function of frequency. On OBSAPS we deployed a fifteen element VLA from 12 to 852m above the seafloor, four short-period OBSs and two long-period OBSs and carried out an 11.5day transmission program using a J15-3 acoustic source.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research under Contract Nos. N00014-10-1-0994 and N00014-10-1-0987

Automated Detection of Infectious Disease Outbreaks in Hospitals: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Susan Huang and colleagues describe an automated statistical software, WHONET-SaTScan, its application in a hospital, and the potential it has to identify hospital infection clusters that had escaped routine detection

Adjunctive rifampicin for Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (ARREST): a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia is a common cause of severe community-acquired and hospital-acquired infection worldwide. We tested the hypothesis that adjunctive rifampicin would reduce bacteriologically confirmed treatment failure or disease recurrence, or death, by enhancing early S aureus killing, sterilising infected foci and blood faster, and reducing risks of dissemination and metastatic infection. METHODS: In this multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, adults (≥18 years) with S aureus bacteraemia who had received ≤96 h of active antibiotic therapy were recruited from 29 UK hospitals. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) via a computer-generated sequential randomisation list to receive 2 weeks of adjunctive rifampicin (600 mg or 900 mg per day according to weight, oral or intravenous) versus identical placebo, together with standard antibiotic therapy. Randomisation was stratified by centre. Patients, investigators, and those caring for the patients were masked to group allocation. The primary outcome was time to bacteriologically confirmed treatment failure or disease recurrence, or death (all-cause), from randomisation to 12 weeks, adjudicated by an independent review committee masked to the treatment. Analysis was intention to treat. This trial was registered, number ISRCTN37666216, and is closed to new participants. FINDINGS: Between Dec 10, 2012, and Oct 25, 2016, 758 eligible participants were randomly assigned: 370 to rifampicin and 388 to placebo. 485 (64%) participants had community-acquired S aureus infections, and 132 (17%) had nosocomial S aureus infections. 47 (6%) had meticillin-resistant infections. 301 (40%) participants had an initial deep infection focus. Standard antibiotics were given for 29 (IQR 18-45) days; 619 (82%) participants received flucloxacillin. By week 12, 62 (17%) of participants who received rifampicin versus 71 (18%) who received placebo experienced treatment failure or disease recurrence, or died (absolute risk difference -1·4%, 95% CI -7·0 to 4·3; hazard ratio 0·96, 0·68-1·35, p=0·81). From randomisation to 12 weeks, no evidence of differences in serious (p=0·17) or grade 3-4 (p=0·36) adverse events were observed; however, 63 (17%) participants in the rifampicin group versus 39 (10%) in the placebo group had antibiotic or trial drug-modifying adverse events (p=0·004), and 24 (6%) versus six (2%) had drug interactions (p=0·0005). INTERPRETATION: Adjunctive rifampicin provided no overall benefit over standard antibiotic therapy in adults with S aureus bacteraemia. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment

Making contemporary sculpture

Sculpture has never been more exciting: gallery goers flock to see artworks that demand attention and dominate space. But how is this work made?Making Contemporary Sculpture gives a rare insight into the contemporary artist. Through interviews with leading artists, Ian Dawson describes what it is like to make some of the most exciting contemporary art of today. He considers the work through its approach and looks at how sculptors have explored, celebrated and critiqued the world through materials, process, narrative, performance, collaboration and space.This is a compelling book, which reveals the skill, inspiration and intuition behind today's sculpture

Graph showing survey-based Infection Control response by type of WHONET-SaTScan cluster.

<p>Significant differences among organism type and cluster size were noted when assessing the likelihood of triggering an intervention (Fisher exact tests). A trend toward a significant difference was found among cluster types. Among organism type, the likelihood of a cluster triggering an intervention was: gram-positive (43%), gram-negative (13%), fungal (14%). Among cluster size, the likelihood of a cluster triggering an intervention was: 2–5 (13%), 6–10 (45%), 10+ (44%). Among recurrence interval, the likelihood of a cluster triggering an intervention was: 365–999 (20%), 1,000–5,000 (20%), >5,000 (36%). Among cluster type, the likelihood of a cluster was: hospital (27%), antibiotic profile (12%), ward (38%), and service (50%).</p

Potential hospital-associated clusters detected using WHONET-SaTScan automated system, 2002–2006.

a<p>Number of days from the first culture associated with the cluster and the date of the first alert.</p>b<p>Number of days between the first and the last alert for a cluster.</p>c<p>Reflects the frequency (d) in which such as cluster is expected to occur by chance alone. Only clusters meeting a threshold recurrence interval of ≥365 d are provided.</p>d–e<p>Indicates same cluster identified by more than one signal type.</p><p>N, no; Y, yes.</p