While Churchill’s nodding dog has been on tour and has even ’starred’ in Christmas pantomime last year and at Pontin’s this summer, a whole film of ‘oh yes’  would probably be too much!

Where agency VCCP have been so clever with the Meerkat marketing is that they have created a complete ‘back story’ for Aleksandr and his family so harnessing our sympathy  for the struggles of his ancestors and further engaging with us.

In the ‘Battle of Fearlessness’ advert (part two of the triology) there are great lines such as ‘its only a fur wound’ which make everyone laugh.

Like Wallace & Gromit , a film ‘(The Adventures of Aleksandr Orlov’? ) would be popular with all ages regardless of background.

Could Aleksandr be that rare being – a brand concept that started as an advert but becomes an entity independent of Comparethe market.com?

Now that would be subliminal advertising! Simples!

Amazon's Kindle

Occasionally a product arrives that changes the marketplace for ever.

Arguably Apple’s iPhone has changed the mobile phone market while their iPad has ended the dominance of the netbook and laptop for working on the move. Certainly their iPod changed the music industry for ever.

Yet it is Amazon’s Kindle (ebook reader) that may prove to have the most far-reaching affects. It may herald the end of the printed book and traditional publishing.

 On 20 July 2010 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced that Kindle format sales were now greater than sales of hardback books.

He explained: ” While our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books– astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.”

The online bookseller put out a release full of intriguing facts. Nevertheless, the company still has not released straightforward figures about total Kindle sales or total eBooks sold. Among the other details, the company revealed they have sold three times as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 compared to the first half of 2009.

Amazon also shared this statistic for paid books: “Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.”

Already the dominance of Amazon has contributed to the disappearance of the traditional High Street bookshop, which is being driven out by a lethal combination of cheaper online prices, guaranteed next day delivery and endless choice. Not to mention ever-increasing shop rents and parking charges.

However, the final nail in the coffin of the small, friendly bookshop may prove to be the Kindle – the iPod of the book world? Now the UK version of the Kindle launches in August.

Even The Sun newspaper featured the news as a lead story yesterday - see http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gizmo/3075557/Amazon-launch-new-UK-Kindle-e-book-reader.html

Watch this space. Soon your favourite author’s new book may not be available at WH Smith – only as an ebook.

Amazon’s dominance continues.

Marketers are sometimes scornful of large corporations lending their name to promotions and events that really do add value to the brand.

 But in the case of Red Bull and the Cliff Diving World Series 2010 such criticism does not apply. In fact, it is a case study on how to get it right!

 A recent short break in mid-May found us in La Rochelle on the South West coast of France. Arriving at the historic port early afternoon we were surprised to find the roads closed and many people milling around but assumed that it was a usual Saturday in a tourist location.

 We were swiftly told how wrong we were by the hotel receptionist who told us proudly that the town was ‘en fête’ due to the ‘plongeurs’.

 To call the guys who so dived so beautifully off one of the historic towers (over 90 feet or 27.5 metres high) merely ‘divers’ is to do them a disservice. Their dives were breathtaking, of Olympic standard and the whole event an amazing spectacle.

 See the videos at Red Bull Cliff Diving Series 2010 La Rochelle May 2010

 But in branding terms it was a triumph. Not only were the guys (dressed in Red Bull swimming trunks) gorgeous to look at but when they dived they literally had wings – reinforcing in a visual way the brand message of the drink!  

 The resulting pictures and videos are stunning but the attention to detail was impressive.

 All the cafes had special Red Bull promotions. Everyone could see the action due to the location and the huge television screen linked to a camera above the diving platform.

 The usual hospitality village was located away from the main viewing area and the whole event was free.

 Despite the massive scale of the competition, next morning virtually nothing remained, all the structures – including the diving platform – having been taken down overnight. 

The result was a great event which can only have added to the audience’s positive impression of the brand.

 Firstly, Sarah Palin. Here in the UK we may consider her a ‘failed’ politician having left the office of Governor of Alaska – albeit voluntarily – and having failed to make it to the White House as Vice President for the Republicans.

 But while she may have dropped out of public attention over here, over in America she is back in business, having reinvented herself as a major brand.

 In a piece titled “How Sarah Palin Became a Brand,” (quoted by Abe Sauer on brandchannel.com )  The New York Times notes, “After her failed bid for the vice presidency, she was more or less told to head back to Alaska to serve out her term as governor — a kind of metaphorical kitchen.”

 As Abe says, “Of course, Palin didn’t go back. Instead, she quit her job and began the process of turning herself into a “one-woman national media empire,” releasing a book, touring the nation as a speaker, and now hosting a Fox News show.”

 To do this Sarah used ‘prime mover advantage’ i.e. she got into something new very early on. In her case, she was one of the very first to see the potential of the Tea Party movement (www.teapartypatriots.ning.com) , a community dedicated to upholding traditional Republican ideals and financial conservatism.

 Sarah is now a major spokesperson for the conservative Republications throughout America, See http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2010/03/sarah_palin_and_the_tea_party.html  for The Washington Post’s recent poll results on her approval rating.

 Love her or hate her, we have not heard the last of Sarah Palin!

 The second politician benefitting from branding is also conservative, this time with a large ‘C’.

 In this case, David Cameron has benefitted from association with a great ‘brand’- that of TV detective Gene Hunt of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes fame.

 A spectacular ’own goal’ had Labour grafting David Cameron’s face onto a promotional poster of Gene Hunt for Ashes to Ashes saying ‘Don’t let him take Britain back to the 1980s’.

 As a bemused Times noted a ‘Cash-strapped Labour held a competition for the new campaign poster to save money on their election advertising. The winning design by activist Jacob Quagliozzi, 24, from St Albans, Herts, was then worked-up by Labour’s advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi.’

 At a single stroke Labour ‘grafted’ onto David Cameron a large number of ‘brand values’ he did not have before – namely grit, drive, urban sex appeal, street cred and working class credentials.

 The recognition of this piece of genius re-branding came when the Conservatives only four hours ‘stole’ the theme with their own version with the slogan  ‘Fire up the Quattro. It’s time for change’.

 It would be nice to think that this was part of strategy to re-brand Cameron ‘for the people’ but sadly it was most likely a happy accident.

 It is strange to think that the Conservatives may win the Election of May 6 through a piece of accidental re-branding!

For Abe’s article see: ttp://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2010/04/05/Sarah-Palin-Is-Branding-101.aspx

Obviously there are lots of other platforms – and new social media sites – but the main players continue to dominate the social media space.

That said, as the market stabilizes it is time to use the tools more strategically and concentrate on the message rather than the shiny new medium.

At Cerco we are increasingly being asked to devise a social media strategy for clients. Only this week we advised on the use of a private Twitter group for passing information around a group of multi-national and multi-discipline salespeople.

The client was astonished at the versatility of Twitter and how the real time information would supplement their intranet – all free of charge.

For an excellent article on Twitter best practice see: http://blog.spurinteractive.com/2010/03/07/twitter-best-practices-for-social-media-marketing/

Author Steve Latham makes the valid point that too many tweets are about me, my thoughts and my status.

If you are using Twitter for business, do not tell us that you are standing in a supermarket queue. Your (business audience) does not care.

We have recently witnessed two cases of ‘careless (Twitter) talk costing sales’ – to paraphrase the old WW2 saying.

In both cases the Twitterers forgot they had potential clients following them and made totally inappropriate comments, losing themselves future work and attracting much negative ‘buzz’.

So the old Marketing adage of the message being as important as the medium still holds good!

Michael Gerber

Last night I had the very great pleasure of seeing Michael E Gerber speak at a seminar in London.

 A highly entertaining presenter, he spoke for over two hours without a single note!

 Much of his material was repeated from his best-selling books and programmes so was not new but it was highly thought-provoking.

 One of his (famous) examples of a great systemic business is McDonalds.

 He repeated the story last night, telling the well-known story of Ray Croc and the first time he saw the McDonald brothers’ system in operation.

 Yet many would say that the food is terrible so can McDonalds really be seen as a great business – or is it merely a great system?

 Another example he gave was Starbucks. He made the point that every coffee shop looks the same from Seattle (where the company started) to Singapore, citing this as a great fact. But according to the marketing media, the coffee company recently announced that it was going to start personalising its stores.

 In fact, they have had some difficult times recently as reported last month at http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2009/11/13/Starbucks-CEO-Sends-McCafe-A-Venti-Thank-You.aspx

Also, they are now promoting other brands such as VIA (their instant coffee) and in America rebranding their Gold Coast Blend with a television programme – to become Gold Coast Blend: Morning Joe Edition. The packaging will prominently feature the television show’s logo (larger than Starbucks’ own logo).

 Gerber recommends that business people create their (systemic) enterprise as if they were going to franchise it yet anecdotal research has shown us that many franchisees give up their franchises after three years.

So maybe in the era of Twitter there is a new type of business model waiting to be created!

A record 3.8m people viewed the programme (an increase of 1m on average viewing figures) and in the opinion of ‘heavyweight’ PR experts such as Porter-Novelli Crisis Communications Director Neil Bayley, quoted in PR Week, the programme had failed to damage the brand.

Leaving aside the controversy generated by the documentary and the posturing by both the BBC and Ryanair, there is a more fundamental issue at stake.

The very thing that made Ryanair so popular (i.e. cheap fares) in the first place may now be the root of their downfall.

By concentrating so hard on low fares, Ryanair has never set out to engender any ‘love’ for the brand, believing that this was unnecessary.

Indeed, upon occasion it has appeared that the airline has a positive contempt for its passengers – as anyone who has ever asked a crew member to get them three seats together on a full plane will attest.

This policy was fine in the good times but now the Short Break European holiday market has virtually disappeared, those who are flying are being more choosy with whom they spend their money.

Other airlines are offering seats that are the same price (or less) when all Ryanair’s extras are included. Recently, British Airways was cheaper on a short-haul European flight and the difference in the experience incomparable. However, they are starting to charge for extras like second bags.

At the end of the Panorama documentary the presenter announced that Ryanair would be expanding into continental flights to America and adding Business Class at a premium fare.

So if Ryanair starts to operate like other carriers and the competition starts to operate like Ryanair, will a lack of brand loyalty become a key issue for the Irish airline? Time will tell!

The most recent task was to re-brand the seaside town of Margate. One team (Ignite) opted for marketing Margate to families – safe but uninspiring.

The other team (Empire) worked on the re-invention of Margate as a gay resort to rival Brighton.

In the event, the latter idea failed not through prejudice but through extremely poor execution of the marketing materials, namely posters and a leaflet, due to running out of time.
Ignite won with a predictable approach yet Empire’s route was so much more innovative.

Good branding (or re-branding) takes time – it cannot be done in two days – and involves so much more than just a single image, a few good photos and a few posters!

Sometimes clients do not understand the difference between the design of a single image (logo) and all the research behind the creation of a brand or a re-brand. This Apprentice task proves the point.

Of course, designers and marketers do not always get it right – remember Consignia?

But any good agency will include sufficient resources in the budget to do thorough research and to ensure their (great) ideas are beautifully presented.

Time maybe money but two days is not enough for a re-brand! Margate deserved better!

The candidates had to create a cereal brand, a character, design packaging, put together a marketing campaign and film a TV advert.

While Kimberley had problems with Philip Taylor and Lorraine Tighe arguing all the way through, she has admitted that she let Philip bulldoze his character “Pantsman” through, despite Lorraine’s protestations, as there were no other ideas on the table.

As a marketing consultant myself I find that very strange! Usually marketing people are known for their creative ideas.

If she (or the team) had come up with another concept there would at least have been an alternative form which to choose.

Obviously managing a brainstorming session that results in creative ideas is harder than it looks!

Still, not briefing the packaging designers fully seems very strange – for a marketing consultant – although she had clearly run out of time.

The lesson appears to be that there has to be a balance between creativity and structure.

It will be intereresting to see how Phillip and Lorraine fare in future weeks.

While some of the audience wholeheartedly grasped the opportunities presented by blogging, Twitter and Facebook, it is fair to say that a number were less convinced.

When we explained that many major companies (and CEOs) were using Twitter – to break news that could be of interest to those looking for a new role – more understood the potential power of social media.

The news that Twitter has launched a new website aimed at business users called ExecTweets which pulls together posts from corporate executives adds credence to what we were saying on Monday.

The site was created in conjunction with ad agency Federated Media and has been sponsored by Microsoft – so it is likely to become well-used very quickly. We will watch with interest.

ExecTweets: http://www.exectweets.com