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.

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.

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.

Be Unique

Recent news reports are claiming that Setanta, the Irish Pay-TV channel are in deep financial trouble. The channel introduced a Premier League package at the beginning of this season to try and combat the dominance of Sky Sports. As a huge football fan, I saw the introduction of a rival broadcaster as a terrible thing, with the consumer the one losing out. People are already paying large monthly fees in order to receive the Sky Sports package, so through the introduction of Setanta, consumers are faced with more outgoings if they want to see as much Premier League football as possible.

Setanta have failed to understand that just because they have bought the rights to broadcast, consumers will not automatically hand over their hard earned cash without receiving something different from what they are already receiving with Sky Sports.

This is the main problem. Far too many companies simply try to offer consumers something that is pretty much exactly the same as everything else on the market. The key is to offer something better, something unique. Another example is Google and its many rivals. Google has succeeded at offering internet users relevant and easy to understand search results. Other search engines such as Microsofts new Bing platform claims that users are up to 42% more likely to read the sponsored results as a result of their aesthetic makeover. Once again, this may be a victory on the business side of things, but to get people using the site, it has to provide more value to the consumer than they are currently getting out of Google.

Value, Value and more Value

I came across this new 7 minute ad for Lux shampoo featuring Catherine Zeta Jones, this morning and thought it was a bit extravagant. The Unilever brand has launched the mini film in order to improve its market position in China and Japan.



I believe the brands strategy is very good, as it is doing something remarkable and creating content that people can discuss. The ad also helps re-inforce the premium values of the product creating a justified level of superiority for the product over its competition.

In the current climate, consumers are looking for value from brands so therefore brands need to make it easy for consumers to identify where the value lies. Lux's strategy shows the consumer that the value they get from the shampoo is the premium rich nature of the product. However, I do wonder whether the execution could of been done cheaper achieving the same results, whilst at the same time, creating better value for Unilever, something which is a consideration for agencies looking to retain as much business as possible.

McDonalds Picture Perfect

I was reading Marketing magazine today and found out about the latest marketing tactic implemented by McDonalds. They have installed an interactive dispaly at the highly sought after picadilly circus location where the sign plays a part in pictures taken at the attraction. They include a top hat, thinking bubbles and a birthday cake. The concept is shown below.



I think this is brilliant. McDonalds has given consumers something to use and engage with rather than simply being present. As the area is a huge tourist attraction, people will take photos and therefore produce millions of images within social networks of the McDonald brand. Now obviously, this exercise is not to increase brand awareness but instead to re-inforce the popularity of McDonalds by understanding what people want and giving it to them.

KFC to KGC

What is going on with KFC introducing a grilled menu. Now I know it's an attempt to expand its customer base in a difficult economic period but I have as always seen KFC as the brand with fried chicken at its heart. Whilst other fast food brands jumped on the health bandwagon a few years ago, KFC rebelled and came out with a campaign highlighting the fact it may be unhealthy, it may be bad for you but it's what we love! It just seems as if all that work has been undone in one go.