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Ludicrous media hysteria follows 'Le hand of Frog'

Ed Kemp — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:40:00 GMT

What happened to Ireland on Wednesday was hard to watch. But the reaction by the players, fans and media has gone too far.

Henry Winter calling for Thierry Henry to be banned for the finals is a ludicrous over-reaction that you would expect from an irate fan after a couple of beers, not from a respected football journalist. Remember that horrible little winker Ronaldo getting Rooney sent off in 2006? It was pretty awful and Ronaldo got booed not banned.

The Times has also reacted hysterically. 'Sleight of hand couuld cost Henry a fortune as luctractive sponsorship deals slip from his grasp' it claims. Two reporters it would seem worked on this utterly pointless story, which also claims the handball could hamper a proposed move to New York Red Bulls (whoever they are) next year. Again, total rubbish.

Calls for a replay are equally ridiculous. If you had a replay for every time a player cheated to win a game we would probably still be contesting the 1993/94 Premier League season.

Ireland did not fail to qualify for the 2010 World Cup because of Thierry Henry. They failed because they did not secure automatic qualification from their group - when that happens you enter a bit of a lottery (albeit a lottery that FIFA had skewed in the favour of the bigger nations).

Thierry Henry cheated - as most professional players do every single week - but it was FIFA that inexplicably changed the qualification system at the last minute.

If the Irish really want to pursue this issue, they should go after FIFA on those grounds rather than poor officiating or a cheating Frenchman.

Oh no. Tonight is Children In Need

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:24:00 GMT

I love television - at its best it brings us all together and acts as social glue.

But at its worst, it's creepy, smug, self-satisfied and sanctimonious. And tonight's the night when that becomes most apparent.

While I don't have any massive problem with the charity concerned (although I'm not yet convinced that it is the BBC's remit to extricate funds from viewers when it won't even tell them how much it pays its 'talent'), I do with this show.

Tonight's highlights include the hosts of The One Show doing a skit from Fame, musical contributions from those tremendous actors from The Bill and Hollyoaks, and Sir Terry Wogan appearing in a special edition of Lark Rise to Candleford.

Wogan says that he will continue presenting the event until 'hell freezes over'; I never thought that I'd look forward to that happening.

Are you a faux marketer?

Alan Mitchell — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:26:00 GMT

The quest for brand or customer ‘loyalty’ is one of a number of examples of what we could call faux marketing.

Faux marketing adopts all the trappings of real marketing, so it looks like the real thing. But underneath the surface it’s doing something entirely different. It uses the terminology, concepts, tools, metrics and methods of real marketing, but for non-marketing purposes.

How to distinguish between the two? Simply, apply the core marketing mantra of ‘identify and meet customer needs and wants’ to the marketing strategy or theory itself.

Real marketing is about identifying what customers want and need and finding a way of profitably providing it. Its essence, therefore, is about designing, constructing and sustaining win-wins with customers.

Faux marketing pretends to be doing this while doing something else entirely – pushing the organisation’s agenda regardless of what its customers want. It’s the practical manifestation of marketing schizophrenia.

Loyalty is one example of faux marketing. (Do customers say in research that right now, their priority is to be loyal to a brand? No.) The quest for differentiation is faux marketing. (Customers don’t want things to be ‘different’, they want things to be ‘better’ as Paddy Barwise pointed out years ago in his brilliant book Simply Better.)

The quest for ‘brand premium’ is another case of faux marketing. (Not many customers tell us they want to pay more for stuff – if a brand premium exists, it doesn’t arise from marketing strategies designed to build such a premium). Most of the current market metrics/accountability debate is also faux marketing. (It doesn’t even ask what the customer’s metrics are.)

Marketing's persuasion paradigm is yet another example of faux marketing. (Customers want to make better decisions according to their own lights, not to be persuaded into making the decision a brand manager wants them to make.)

So, actually, quite a lot of the marketing we see around us is faux marketing of one form or another. That’s why so little of it is effective.

Is anything left once we strip away the many layers of faux marketing that have grown up? Yes. A huge amount of rich, value adding stuff. That's what Reinventing Marketing is about - sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Alan Mitchell www.ctrl-shift.co.uk Newsletter

Getting the best view in the house

Ed Kemp — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:25:00 GMT

It’s happened to us all. You walk out into the stadium - the pitch before you, the players warming up as kick-off approaches.

A friendly steward glances at your ticket and points you on your way. Before you know it you’re stat up in the Gods with a nose bleed squinting at the pitch now resembling a postage stamp. You wish you’d just watched it on the telly.

Fear no more, today I was sent a press release about new online product by V Haus that will help fans chose their seats by enabling them to check the view from every single seat in the house… although presumably not those on the subs bench.

As well as showing fans the location of the stadium in relation to the local transport links, the city centre etc. the tool will also enable clubs to sell sponsorship by showing prospective partners how the ground would look with their logo.

Ever wondered where the 'prawn sandwich' brigade disappear to at half-time? The tool also enables clubs to sell corporate hospitality by giving a virtual tour of the stadium’s dining facilities.

Check out the link http://enter3d.de/movies/

Events dear boy, events

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:33:00 GMT

Finally. ITV has managed to fill one of its senior management roles after months of dithering and indecision.

The broadcaster has hardly covered itself in glory in the whole shambolic episode but at least it has now managed to find someone to fill its chairman position.

So what does Archie Norman bring to the role? Well, much like his newly-appointed oppo at Channel 4 he is familiar with the workings of government and lobbying - a crucial attribute with a likely new administration that has already placed its tanks on the BBC's lawn and has been accused of cosying up to the Murdoch empire.

But more importantly it was Norman who was responsible for overseeing the sale of Asda to US giant Wal Mart. Expect, in the mid-term, to see him trying to find a buyer for ITV in a similar vein. Which, I think, is a terrible shame.

Mixed report from Twickenham: England & O2 have an off day, Nike raise a smile, while Investec's sponsorship activation is just odd

Ed Kemp — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:17:00 GMT

The less said about England performance against Argentina on Saturday the better. So moving on...

I have often praised O2 for its market leading sponsorship strategy and execution, but not on this occasion.

Nope, today I have a headache which I'm sure is in some part attributable to O2s decision to hand out free whistles. Please don't do that again, it was awful.

Saturday was so cold that I think I must have grown delirious. I even thought I saw a herd of ‘Investec' zebra doing a saucy dance at pitch side. Surely sports marketing hasn't got that daft...?? Or had it?...

Well done though to England kit supplier Nike for a sneaky bit of branding.

Thousands of England fans proudly held cards above their heads before kick-off, no doubt thinking they would make up a St George's Cross or a rose or something equally patriotic.

Instead the card to reveal a giant ‘Swoosh'. Love it.

Those cards were soon turned into paper aeroplanes for general chucking about and keeping the crowd entertained.

Bring back Lapland New Forest and these tragedies wouldn't happen

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:02:00 GMT

Tragic news over the weekend that boy band JLS were forced to cancel a free gig at Birmingham's Millennium Point after a crowd of 20,000 people - four times that expected - turned up to watch.

The crowd surged as the band got on stage and sadly some people got injured.

I'm not familiar with the works of JLS but they must be quite some draw if that many Brummies thought they'd like to spend a wet and miserable Saturday evening in the city watching the band perform ahead of the turning on of the city's Christmas lights.

Naturally, the finger of blame has already started making a few tentative pokes and for their part JLS have said that they are 'gutted everyone's day was spoilt.'

Now say what you like about Lapland New Forest, whose organisers have just been committed to trial for misleading advertising at their 'winter wonderland' in Hampshire last year, but at least they knew how to control a crowd.

Anyway, ahead of an official apology from someone for allowing a crowd of over-excited Brummies to get carried away at the thought of getting something rubbish for free, I'd like to add my apologies to the hundreds of thousands of British children who were sent to the dominions in the 50s and 60s. This particularly goes to the ones who were forced to live among South Africans.

Building our own Berlin Walls

Alan Mitchell — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:18:00 GMT

I did a talk to the CEOs of major car company’s dealerships last week. Not sure if it went down too well. It was on the theme of customer loyalty and I was a tad challenging.

This is the gist of what I said: The notion of customer loyalty is a modern-day equivalent of East German marketing: the attempt to keep customers confined within the walls of the brand’s own making.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to achieve higher levels of repeat purchase or to retain more customers, but the notion of customer loyalty is a denial of the first principles of marketing. It’s not about identifying and meeting customer needs or wants. Imagine you asked customers to choose one of two options:

- Option A: “I want to be loyal to a brand".

- Option B: “I want to exercise freedom of choice between competing alternatives”

How many customers do you think would choose Option A?

Evidence of the Berlin Wall attitudes behind most loyalty marketing comes from the language. How many times have you heard marketers talking about strategies to ‘own’ the customer [the only people who are ‘owned’ are slaves], construct ‘barriers to exit’ and achieve ‘lock in’?

Of course, often these underlying attitudes are heavily disguised by layers of high-sounding rhetoric (just like the East German leaders). For example, the loyalty initiative is introduced in terms of ‘delighting the customer so much that he has no thought other than to stay loyal to us’.

To test the company’s depth of commitment to this idea, we need to look at how it measures success. Here are the six key benefits of customer loyalty as first espoused by the great loyalty guru Fred Reichheld:

- Reduced customer acquisition cost

- Greater customer longevity leading to increased life time value

- Increased cross-sales

- Lower cost to serve

- Greater word of mouth recommendation

- Reduced price sensitivity

Now answer this question. How many of these metrics measure the benefits of customer loyalty to the customer, and how many of them measure the benefits of customer loyalty to the company? There you have your answer.

The Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago, and its citizens celebrated. Under the banner of ‘loyalty’ thousands of marketers are still busy trying to construct their own mini Berlin Walls – with about as much long term success.

Alan Mitchell www.ctrl-shift.co.uk Newsletter

Who's the celebrity loony?

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:10:00 GMT

The newspaper industry is congratulating itself for a 'victory for openness' after the court ruled that the media could attend hearings about whether a young celebrity should have decisions made for him by others.

The media is forbidden from naming the man, who is described as 'a young man with an international reputation' and referred to as A. He is appearing at the little-known court of protection (formerly presided over by the 'Master of Lunacy') because of concerns that his condition makes him unable to manage his affairs.

The media, and in particular The Guardian, which brought the legal move, are smugly patting themselves on the back and arguing that the principle of open justice should apply to adults with impaired mental capacity where there is a public interest. They also say the ruling is a victory for freedom of expression blah blah.

Yeah right. I'd argue it's got little to do with that and more to do with tasteless voyeurism.

Anyway, my guess is that he's a footballer.

Why do Rednecks keep chimps?

Jeremy Lee — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:45:00 GMT

I wasn't so much choking on my cornflakes this morning as puking into my hands when I saw the piece on Sky News about the woman who had her face and hands ripped off by a chimpanzee belonging to a neighbour.

The interview, filmed for The Oprah Winfrey Show, showed what remains of her face - her nose, lips and eyelids were torn off in the attack - obscured by a veil. It also featured a particularly harrowing recording of the chimp owner's 911 call to police.

Untypically unexploitative, the interview revealed the woman to have considerable dignity and bravery considering her ordeal.

If you can bear it, the online story about the escapades of Travis the chimp is here. But don't do what I did and click for the extended content without reading the warning.

It all brought me back to thinking about Jacko again. Perhaps this incident explains why he liked a veil and whether Bubbles really did go and 'live on a farm' after all.

Kate Humble disturbs the reproduction process

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:21:00 GMT

Oh dear. Red deer aren't rutting this year because they are being disturbed by amateur photographers inspired to snoop on the creatures by BBC Two's Autumnwatch, reports today's Daily Telegraph.

Autumnwatch, presented by breathlessly bubbly head girl Kate Humble, doesn't really appeal to me - rutting deer or not. Its sanitised view of the countryside is unrealistic and lacks any context, and that Simon King bloke gives me a right pain. Now that curmudgeonly Bill Oddie has gone so has the enjoyment of watching him and Humble - a Polly Filler journalist if ever I saw one - pretending to get along.

Nonetheless this franchise is still popular and now, not content with disturbing rutting, the BBC has decided to poke its cameras into the birthing process with Lambing Live in BBC Two's exciting' winter/spring schedule, announced today.

Humble, we are told, will follow life and death on a 900-ewe sheep farm in South Wales and will of course be 'getting her hands dirty'. Whether this extends to licking the mucus membrane from the lambs mouths or eating the afterbirth, we'll have to wait and see. But I expect it'll just be her gasping at amazement at the camera and probably shedding a few tears when some lambs die.

The new rules of customer data

Alan Mitchell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

Last night, eloquently supported by my colleague William Heath, I gave a master class on Volunteered Personal Information for the IDM (Institute of Direct Marketing).

My concluding summary was:

•   We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century tipping point in the information flows in our society: from ‘top down’ (organisation to individual) to ‘bottom up’ (individuals to organisations and each other).
•   Marketing as we know it was constructed around the assumptions and operational requirements of ‘top down’.
•   Most of its current problems and constraints are a by-product of this heritage.
•   In the course of organising and managing their daily lives – making and implementing decisions – individuals generate huge amounts of new, rich, accurate, timely information about who they are and what they want..
•   An emerging industry of Personal Information Management Services (PIMS) is making it possible for individuals to capture and share this information.
•   For this information to be shared on a mass scale however, three new ‘rules’ of personal data must be accepted: personal information is the person’s; the individual must have control over what information is shared with who, for what purposes; the individual has to derive a genuine benefit from the information sharing process.
•   Once these rules have been accepted, multiple different types of VPI will begin to flow.
•   Separately and together this VPI can help organisations cut guesswork, waste and costs, identify customer needs better and focus available resources on truly adding value: a ‘VPI value explosion’.
•   Every organisation needs to develop its own VPI strategy.

If you want to find out more, get in touch with me at Alan.Mitchell@ctrl-shift.co.uk and I will send you a shortened version of my presentation.

Alan Mitchell

Consumer decision making

Alan Mitchell — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:57:00 GMT

I’ve written about ‘the consumer decision-making revolution’ in today’s issue of Marketing magazine.

If you’ve read my previous articles, I hope you’re beginning to get the picture. Information-flows (top down or bottom up?), metrics (are we measuring successful ‘influence’ or ‘alignment’), consumer psychology (are we on the verge of discovering the buy button?), and the underlying role of marketing (is marketing’s job really to changing consumer attitudes and behaviours?) – they all grew up together as part of the same mental construct. They are all inextricably intertwined in a passed-its-sell-by date picture of what good marketing looks like.

If we want to reinvent marketing, we cannot address just one aspect – processes, content, metrics, purpose – in isolation. We have to see how they all fit together. We have to address them all.

That’s quite a challenge!

Alan Mitchell www.ctrl-shift.co.uk

Take me to the magic of a moment on a glory night....

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:48:00 GMT

The fall of the Berlin Wall is being commemorated today.

I'm pretty sure that I was working in my local pub when I heard the news. I was certainly there when Mandela was released, which was greeted with a shrug of indifference. But then a cursed refusal to get caught up in media-hyped events, no matter their real significance, is something that I pride myself on.

I do remember Maggie Thatcher reportedly being concerned what the implications of a unified Germany. She was right to do so.

As the Communist bloc fell, German band the Scorpions felt inspired to pen 'Wind of Change', which by October 1991 was a hit in the UK and therefore the song that defined my first term at University.

Incidentally German network ZDF has called Wind of Change the song of the century. So not Wagner then.

Anyone that has played 'Super Punch-Out' on the Super NES knows Haye put on a boxing masterclass

Ed Kemp — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:34:00 GMT

As a boy one of my favourite video games was Super Punch-Out - still the best boxing game ever made in my opinion.

In it you battled increasingly difficult, and unfeasibly enormous, opponents including clowns, farmers, kick-boxers (rather unfairly) and traditional boxers.

A simple game - when they clobbered you, it really hurt and when you caught them it had little impact. You had to duck, move and sneak in a punch when the moment presented itself.

Which brings me to David Haye vs. Nikolai Valuev (or David and Goliath as it was dubbed on Sky Sports).

Every expert in the land had their say before the fight, but in reality nobody had a clue how it would turn out. How could they? No fighter had ever given up seven stone to an opponent before.

After a couple of rounds my genuine concern for Haye's safety was replaced by opptimism that he could slay the beast. The only detracting factor was Sky's Jim Watt's insistance, seemingly from the first round, that Haye should be more agressive. Wrong!

Ricky Hatton tried that in Vegas two years ago against Floyd Mayweather Jnr, and again against Manny Pacquaio - both ended with 'The Hitman' ending up on the canvass. While Valuev was swiping at thin air there was no danger of Haye losing this one.

Apparently, Super Punch-Out is now available on the Nintendo Wii. I'll send Watt a copy for Christmas.

My thoughts on the twins

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:12:00 GMT

Gordon Brown, who apparently can't be bothered to get in touch with the families of British soldiers killed in action but was able to express concern to Simon Cowell for Susan Boyle's welfare, has weighed into another crucial topic that is dominating the media.

Apparently he thinks the twins 'aren't very good'.

The beloved leader, once again, is wrong. The twins are great and my favourite is Christina Alessi on account of Caroline's slightly wonky mouth. End of.

Wear your Poppy with pride this weekend.

Does Sir Roger Moore dye his hair?

Jeremy Lee — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:43:00 GMT

Yes. But I don't care.

Sir Roger Moore can pretty much do anything as far as I'm concerned. He's doing some chonky ads for the Post Office where the rheumy-eyed old actor hams it up while women pretend to swoon at his presence. And they're brilliant.

And now he's in a campaign for PETA - an organisation with which I have historically had mixed feelings - to highlight the cruelty involved in the production of foie gras.

Good old Sir Roger. Much like Bono, I'd pretty much have to agree with whatever he says. See this blog isn't just about hate?

Incidentally, his excellent autobiography - My Word Is My Bond - makes an ideal stocking-filler.

The Emperor wants to conquer outer space, Yoda wants to explore inner space and Danny Dyer just wants to be in the papers

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:42:00 GMT

Danny Dyer, Britain's second hardest man, is at it again.

Last month he accused Verne Troyer of hitting on his wife at the Pride of Britain Awards (presumably Dyer was there for his seminal Most Dangerous Men series). He stopped short, however, of giving the Mini Me actor a 'slap' as he is a 'midget', he told Zoo magazine in a charming interview.

Troyer denied the absurd accusations from the publicity-desperate idiot and elegantly replied that ' I wouldn't know who you [Dyer] were if you were standing in front of me' and that 'don't use my name to get your name in the press'.

Now Dyer has said that he has had to cut short his promotional tour for his DVD release, which I'm not going to give the oxygen of publicity by naming, because of an alleged robbery at his Essex home. Two cars were stolen but were subsequently found abandoned and undamaged not far away....hmmmm.

Anyway, in an interview in The Sun he says the robbery was 'the lowest point in his life'. If my suspicions are correct then I expect it probably is.

I know where I'll be next St George's Day (or at least the day after)

Ed Kemp — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:06:00 GMT

St George’s Day has taken on a depressingly repetitive pattern.

Each year, almost everyone I know is in full agreement that as a country we should do more to celebrate St George’s Day. ‘We should be more like the Irish’, someone will say and everyone will agree.

Someone like Fullers or Marston’s will raise our spirits with a patriotic campaign and a few of us in the office will trot down to Latymers (our excellent local) for a free pint or two. But that’s about it.

Next year, sees the launch of the St Georges Day Game at Twickenham, a league fixture between London Wasps and Bath Rugby, finally giving us a celebration worthy of our patron saint.

The game takes place on 24 April, the day after St George’s Day, and will raise money for the armed forces which is, I hope you’ll, agree another good reason to come along.

Wasps are hoping brands will share their sense of patriotism and have hired Bamboo Marketing Communications to source sponsors to the event which aims to sell out Twickenham and will be repeated annually.

Thierry Henry is world's best, says Castrol Performance Index. But is football that measurable?

Ed Kemp — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:17:00 GMT

Thierry Henry is the world’s best footballer.

At least that is the case according to FIFA World Cup 2010 sponsor Castrol through its Castrol Performance Index, ‘the world’s first truly objective football rankings system’.

The French international is followed by clubmate Leo Messi and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo (isn’t it lovely not having him in the Premier League anymore btw?).

The list looks fairly credible, until you scroll down the list to number 10 and find Claudio Pizarro.

Pizarro, who wasn’t even the 10^th best player in the Chelsea squad during him time in England, has either undergone a phenomenal transformation during his return to Germany or the Bundesliga is, well, crap. It’s the latter, isn’t it?

That said, I find Pizarro’s baffling inclusion reassuring. While it makes interesting reading – and fair play to Castrol for sparking the debate – it just goes to show that not everything in sport in quantifiable, which for me is part of its magic.

Here’s the list in full;

Thierry Henry (Barcelona)
Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
Garard Pique (Barcelona)
Fernando Torres (Liverpool)
Samuel Eto’o (Internazionale)
Rafael Marquez (Barcelona)
Luca Toni (Bayern Munchen)
Carlos Puyol (Barcelona)
Claudio Pizarro (Werder Bremen)

Stephen Fry and Twitter deserve each other

Jeremy Lee — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:42:00 GMT

Stephen Fry has memorably, and accurately, been described as 'a stupid person's idea of what an intelligent person is like' and there are over 920,000 stupid people hanging onto everyone of his tedious but trademark 'fruity' tweets on Twitter.

But then someone upset him by describing his adventures with his European man-bag as 'boring'; he subsequently made accusations of cyber-bullying and threatened to stop using Twitter altogether.

Sadly some of the stupid people who think that Fry is some sort of intellectual colossus sent gushy messages of support to Fry in that absurd and irritating prose that he has made his own and he's decided he's going to continue to update them on his whereabouts and musings after all.

And that was the news that seems to have dominated a large part of the weekend press.

In my opinion Stephen Fry is not as clever as he likes to think - he's not a bad actor - but he's certainly no genius, and other than the obvious is as different to his hero Oscar Wilde as is possible to be. I find all his affectations to be just that.

While I've enjoyed some of the comedy roles he has played (mostly from the 80s), his reinvention as one of the UK's great wits is something I find unconvincing. His moral outrage at the furore over MPs' expenses when he described journalists as 'disgusting and venal' also lacked any clout from a man who has served time for credit card fraud.

Because of this I hope that one of his followers sends him a message that tells him more than that he is just 'boring'. And then the 920,000 stupid people will have to find someone else who pretends to be intelligent to follow. There are plenty of them on Twitter so shouldn't be too difficult.

I want to be a scriptwriter for The Bill

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:13:00 GMT

For the first time in probably twenty years I watched The Bill on ITV last night. I'd actually pretty much forgotten that is existed but a story in yesterday's Mirror that said that its scriptwriters were looking to hire Caroline Quentin in a bid to boost flagging ratings reminded me of its existence.

It's now one-hour long, has a new more dramatic credits and is obviously quite expensive to produce. It's also not very good.

Once a home for graduates of EastEnders there was a woman in it who used to be in Hollyoaks. June Ackland's gone as has Reg Hollis and DC Carver and Burnside and the only face I remembered was PC Stamp who, judging by the fact that he hasn't been promoted, picked the wrong career.

The acting of Graham Cole who plays Stamp acting was wooden, perhaps reflecting that the show was originally going to be called Wooden Tops, and in a particularly painful scene he delivered a long and tortuous analogy of how the chair that he was trying to fix was similar to the problems that needed fixing on an estate that had been neglected by the police. It was so bad it was funny.

I thought that ITV had revamped The Bill to make it edgier and grittier. It looked like something from a school play. Anyway, as a fan of unintentionally really bad telly I'm hooked. Enjoy the weekend.

The Attention Economy?

Alan Mitchell — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:38:00 GMT

I’ve just been revisiting a debate which flared up a couple of years ago and which seems to be returning: are we moving towards an attention economy or, perhaps an intention economy?

Thinking about it, I don’t think we are moving towards either because they are both sub-sets of something much bigger. When push comes to shove, economies are organised around human beings’ physiological, psychological and social needs and wants. How we address these needs and wants changes over time and this is driven by decisions: we achieve our goals by making better decisions, and implementing these decisions better.

Call MAIDB for short: Making and Implementing Decisions Better.

The more I look at this, the bigger it gets. It's the defintion of consumer value

Alan Mitchell www.ctrl-shift.co.uk

Great band, Great brand: Kasabian Football Hero with Umbro

Ed Kemp — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:36:00 GMT

Umbro has done a great job reinventing itself recently - the launch of the new England football kit has, in my opinion, been a great success.

This tie up with Kasabian, for the launch of their new single Underdog, is another great piece of marketing for the football brand.

Check out the making of the video here: Umbro

I should say that I didn't find this video myself but pinched it from Jonathan Hume's excellent blog, so thanks to him.

This looks SH1T

Jeremy Lee — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:38:00 GMT

Just five months after Jacko's death, footage of him rehearsing for his tour has been cobbled together to create a film - This Is It - that is now on general release.

Elizabeth Taylor tweeted the message that the spliced footage of a sick, possibly mentally-ill, man going through the motions of a tour that he clearly didn't want to do and arguably contributed to his overdosing on painkillers was 'The most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen'.

Really? Is it better than Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which she stars alongside Marlon Brando? I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be as good as Son of Rambow, which makes me cry lie a little girl every time I see it.

The film's director describes the footage as 'the last sacred document of our leader and friend' while some of his brothers - Marlon, Tito, Randy and possibly Ken - attended the premiere in Los Angeles.

And so it is that history is being rewritten and a cult of Michael Jackson merchandising machine moves into action. It's all rather tasteless and venal and voyeuristic and I can't wait to see it.