Rather lovely article in today’s Scotsman (courtesy of Jim Wolff, kindda) about IRN-BRU and its continuing success. Thanks to Mr White for his kind words. (Although see how I’m trying to take credit there for the ongoing efforts and tremendous hard work of the Barr’s marketing team.)
Their sales results are pretty stupendous when you consider what the rest of the market is doing. Long may it last.
Groups in Aberdeen last night and my second group in particular was one of those happy accidents that happens now and again when they all wanted to speak, they all had stuff to say, their individual stories were clearly pretty interesting (one guy had run away from Poland to avoid National Service and was now living happily here with his wife and baby working as a baker and obviously slightly mesmerised by the fat content of the products he was turning out - but no time, no time) and the hour and a half breezed past.
We got to the end of the group and, bolder from an hour and a half of chat, one of them said: “so you do this for a living, right?” Yes, yes, I do. They all marvelled at the fact that This was my job. As indeed they might. “You must be good at it, like.” “Well, I like to talk.” You could see the cogs in their heads turning: they like to talk. They could spend their weeks traversing Scotland talking to people and get paid for it. So master, if you get a spate of CVs on Monday from a bunch of boys in Aberdeen, you can blame or thank me as appropriate.
In between focus groups, I’m currently guzzling up teen fiction on the subject of mental health problems. I’m running a handful of co-creation sessions with teenagers over the next couple of weeks for ‘see me’ and am on the hunt for stimulus. I felt that The Young had most likely moved on from my teen lit of choice, Judy Blume. Who wrote oh so much more frankly about bodily things than her British counterparts. But actually a bit of a browse suggests that things are mostly the same though we have a handful of novels about self-harm thrown into the mix. I’ve just finished Second Star to the Right, a sweet little story that turned out to be published in 1981 but was reissued last year with a new funky gettyimages cover and dealt with the story of Leslie and her tussle with anorexia. (I’d recommend it.) Next in line is Red Tears.
And I do this for a living. Great stuff.
Customer service, sad to say, is one of my pet obsessions. Perhaps because I spent one hour in my local bank branch on Monday, on the phone to my bank’s national telephone line, intending to jump through some absurd identity proving hoops to enable me to get money out of the account which belongs to, hmmm, me. That’s another (irrelevant) story though clearly one that gets me quite agitated.
But back to the point. Higgidy - excellent customer service. Hence their swift reply to a pointlessly fawning email from me. The Apex Hotel in Dundee is my other favourite example of the moment. I stayed there last night after groups. I love staying there though I can’t quite work out why. A nice enough hotel. Great location, comfy beds, nice enough food. All the basics are right. I hadn’t been there for a while before last night and I’m normally up and down there fairly regularly. So yesterday, on arrival, an envelope in my room:
Dear Miss Wood,
Welcome back to….
We are always pleased to welcome regular guests back to the hotel and in recognition of your loyalty we would be delighted to offer you a complimentary movie package….
Delightful indeed.
Now as it turned out, the DVDs were Into the Blue (Treasure has its price was the sinister strapline) and An American Haunting. Anyone that knew anything much about me would not have chosen these two films as my evening’s viewing but obviously that isn’t really the point. Some old tired DVDs that no-one really wants to watch anymore did indeed make me feel like they might care a teensy bit about the fact that I hadn’t been there for a while. And I liked that a lot. Hats off to them and their CRM strategy.
My recycling obsession is reaching absurd new heights. My fourth floor colleagues can testify to the misery that I rain down on them if they carelessly print a document single-sidedly, the fun I have watching them trying to work the printer in the mornings as I’ve turned it off the night before and the wrath induced by the ultimate cardinal sin of binning the IRN-BRU can rather than washing, squashing, recycling the cheerfully coloured little fellow.
But (and hold your breath, readers for this is shameful) I’ve just taken an old paper cup, purchased from my local organic wholesome coffee shop, back into the shop to be replenished with a new latte. Not only that but I carefully circled the cup in advance with a little cardboard hoop that stops you burning your hands. This from Starbucks. The ultimate absurdity is that the cup itself from my local organic shop is some super dooper container that is entirely made from recycled materials and is then fully compostable. Really, I deserved it to dissolve in my hands on refilling.
But you can not say that I am not living Ernie the elephant’s dream.
Lovely iPhone app from Tiger Beer (and Dazed and Confused) directing you to bars / restaurants stocking Tiger in Chinatown to help you celebrate Chinese New Year. In a nod to the provinces, you can find out what’s goin’ down in a further 8 big cities. Sadly, down to a certain IT manager, I’m not able to experience the wonder of the app myself. But to my in-iPhone-experienced eye, it looks like very smart thinking.
A twelve day blogging absence when I’ve been at work for most of those days isn’t really acceptable I’d suggest. So for this, apologies. I can only blame busy-ness. A feeble excuse I know.
So apologies for being a little late in the day to draw your attention to this rather superb campaign just produced for Know The Score. Bundles of research with 18 to 24 year olds, the biggest users (mostly) of cocaine, demonstrated that:
- they were, by and large, blasé about the dangers of cocaine
- the only health risk that they took half seriously was the possibility of cocaine causing a stroke
- telling them that they might have a stroke as a sole advertising message was felt to be stretching credibility
- but presented as part of a handful of effects, some familiar and others (self-evidently) less so, built belief in the possibility and so encouraged them to question their previous perceptions
Six months of research in six lines.
Chris and David have done an absolutely cracking job with the creative. Thanks to them and to Gillian for her ever patient, pro-active and positive account handling. Judge the end result for yourselves here. And be sure to listen to the digital ads for spotify. I’m a bit biased - but they are magic.
I was cheered to read that Simon Cowell is planning to harness his tremendous (hmm, now I can’t think of a word) sales machine (?) to help the poor two million and counting earthquake devastated people in Haiti. Until I dove into the article and noticed that this wasn’t necessarily his very own idea. He was, in fact, approached by the PM and asked to so do. And who would say no to that? That would be like saying no to the master. You just wouldn’t.
Luckily for us, we have our very own (but more proactive) Simon Cowell within these very walls. The lovely Claire P is organising a cake sale for tomorrow to raise some money. So do feel free to bake, bring and buy. Alternatively, if you don’t have time for such sugar-infested niceties, go straight to the DEC. Don’t say I didn’t make it easy for you.
Have yourselves a little look at this. Britain Thinks. Peculiarly mysterious as to who’s behind it. My vote goes to a political party…
It warms the so-called cockles of my heart that IRN-BRU is such a charmingly fundamental part of Christmas up here. In the twixt Christmas lull, I was idling over twitter commentary on BRU yesterday and there’s an astonishing amount. Fuelled by the current Carnival in Glasgow.
And today I was happy to find a reverential post from this incredibly cool looking family. Read and marvel at the tiny part we / they play in making Christmas a tiny bit more Christmassy (maybe).
There’s a great article on brand republic today introducing an amazing new Michelle Mone created bra which apparently fastens in “limitless” ways. An infinitely useful invention, no doubt.
However, I draw your attention to this partly because I blogged about M&S reducing their bra costs last year and lovely Martin at AG Barr said he’d been particularly entertained by this post. So it made me think that bra posts must be the way forward. Secondarily, because it’s a fine example of haphazard and sloppy writing. I quote:
Unfortunately a large proportion of these purchases will find their way back to the stores, or languish forgotten in draws due to the fact they are the wrong size, or simply disgusting.
Spot the typo. But I most like the blunt unapologetic reference to the panic-buy dubious taste of womankind.