Wednesday 29 July 2009

Re-organising Life

Came across this video this morning and had to share it with everyone. Its about the ability of the internet to facilitate mass collaboration between individuals on a global scale. It touches on sites like couchsurfer.com and myfootballclub.co.uk which bring together people using the internet to offer a couch to sleep on or the opportunity to own part of a football club.

MyFootballClub was set up in 2007 in which over 21,000 members raised over £600,000 to buy Ebbsfleet United, a Blue Square Premier League football team. Since then everything from transfer policy to team selection is democratised online with seven members selected to become board members and help oversee the overall direction of the club. Members are from all over the world, all wanting to own part of a football club and have a real say in the way it is run. I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea and one which utilises the huge advantages of the online world and help spread responsibility and power amongst groups instead of individuals.

It just goes to show how the world is in a transition towards a power democracy and established institutions being tested against their structure and creation of wealth. Watch the video as their are lots of other examples of how this is happening across the globe!

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Monday 20 July 2009

Watson's Fairytale

Before the 'not another blog on Tom Watson' comments come in, I'm more concerned with the media's portrayal of this weekends open championship and how they help to build expectations for the 'fairytale' story.

Now it was never really meant to happen. Once you get over a certain age, your swing starts to deteriorate and apparently it becomes increasingly difficult to hold your nerve and focus. Well this weekend went against all that. Tom Watson did do tremendously well against the odds. What was even more interesting to watch was the crowd's eagerness to see Tom succeed and the support they gave him during the play-off with Stewart Cink. It was the determination of the crowd to see a fairytale ending that really enthralled me as a viewer. When Tom played poor shot after poor shot in the play off and as the crowd realised they were not getting the fairytale story they had hoped for, the atmosphere went sour. Its an interesting facet of human thought to promote the underdog and achieve a fairytale story.

Surely the fairytale could be used for brands? Now I'm not talking about brands telling a fairytale story through their advertising but instead the story of the brand itself. Creating a brand based on the human desire for fantasy. How the brand has come from the unexpected to victory. Now obviously there are many other elements to make this succeed including a half decent product but it seems as though the foundations are there for people to encourage fairytale brands.

In order to see how much various media outlets had used the fairytale element to Tom Watson's open championship I carried out a simple search for 'Tom Watson fairytale' of which the results can be seen below.

Sunday 19 July 2009

Blockbuster: Hit and Miss.



Yesterday I visited our local blockbuster store in order to find a film which me and my girlfriend could enjoy on a saturday night in. I was interested to see the copious effort put into POS promotion for the newly introduced Blockbuster Cola. There were promotional messages around the snack session asking me to 'try the new cola from only 69p.' There were further signs around the whole store and even underneath the sales desk for those last minute impulse purchases. With all the efforts to get me to try the product, I felt obliged to give the cola a go, so I bit the bullet and selected a 69p bottle.

Obviously, blockbuster's decision to extend the brand into cola is an attempt to increase profit margins and enhance its level of control as an entertainment retailer but I feel that this piece of activity was a step too far. Going up against the giants of Coca-Cola, I feel Blockbusters have been rather nieve to believe that pushing the promotion onto consumers would work in the long term. Now, I know the POS worked on me but after trying the product and realising that it was nowhere near the quality of Coca-Cola, I doubt I'll be delving into my wallet again anytime soon. It's a mammoth task to try and compete with the likes of Coca-Cola, so the product has to be something worth challenging. In my opinion, the introduction of Blockbuster Cola may help boost profit margins in the short term through its lower value price positioning but will not dent the long term profits of the established Coca-Cola brand.