In North London a small minority of the local community is demanding that McDonalds takes down an ad on a railway bridge because, “they feel they don’t want their children exposed to advertising for McDonalds.” There’s no rational reasoning for this, if there was they’d see that McDonald's food is way down the list of bad things a parent can give a kid.
I doubt those over emotive parents had stopped to think about what they are giving their kids as an alternative. Crisps, biscuits, cakes, chocolates, sweets, pasties, pies, ice cream or fish & chips. Shock horror, Britain’s traditional fast food is really bad for you. Then add Indian, Chinese, pizza and kebabs – all highly calorific and full of dubious processed food, additives and saturated fats. Compared to that list, McDonalds is a healthy option. The real irony of this local groups demand to rip down a McDonald’s ad on a train bridge is that the road is full of kebab shops.
Of course they don’t consider all the benefits McDonalds provides – fair wages for local people, they buy all their beef and milk (and most of their eggs) from British & Irish farmers, they have strong eco policies – the list goes on. Compare that to any local café, bar or take-a-way. Pity over emotive parents can’t get their facts right before they complain. KFC Naked women running through the streets with a banner declaring ‘NAKED TRUTH: KFC TORTURES CHICKS’ is not a bad way to get attention. PETA has launched a ‘boycott KFC’ campaign against it’s unethical treatment of chickens.
PETA claim that “More than 850 million chickens are tortured and killed each year for KFC“ and have produced a horror video, though they quote just 750 million chickens in it (not sure what happened to the other 100m). In Canada KFC has backed down and agreed to more humane treatment of chickens and to provide vegan chicken – seems a bit odd that a vegan would even go into a KFC. Bottle your own water I’ve written a lot about bottled water and tap water in my blogs, but now you can package up your own. This is already going on in the food services industry but now Belu have launched a ‘do it yourself kit of labels’.
The elegantly designed labels are the work of the ethical design & communications agency Provokateur and is short listed in the Green Awards, as is their very fun ACME website. Their own website is one of the nicest I’ve see in a while, check it out. Channel 4 new series. Having got involved in the new Channel 4 series, Battlefront (along with a few other people from the ad business) I’d recommend people have a look at their website 20 young campaigners with 20 campaigns.
This is one of Channel 4’s first multi platform programmes and is also being run on Facebook and Bebo. One of the campaigns wants to promote the use of a coffee cup for life option (like the carrier bags) Starbucks already offer a discount if you bring in your own cup. Another wants to promote ‘random acts of kindness’. The Esquires chain of fair trade coffee houses have came up with a clever solution to the loyalty card, they have adapted the cardboard sleeves into one. It’s the usual deal, buy 9 get one free. A bit big to put in your wallet though, but a worthy idea (http://www.esquirescoffee.co.uk/). Nutella Seems Ferrero, producers of Nutella (who also make Ferrero Rocher ) are the latest brand to get criticized for using palm oil which is responsible for deforestation in south-east Asia.
Unilever were attacked earlier this year when a group of protestors sat outside the Unilver office dressed as Orangutans. Greenpeace have launched a cyber action against Nutella. In February A TV ad for Nutella promoting the spread as good for children for breakfast was banned following 53 complaints to the ASA, arguing that it was misleading to say Nutella was a slow-release energy product because it had high sugar and oil content.
After Greenpeace whipped up a lot of support, Ferrero has now agreed to support the Unilever led moratorium on converting forest and peatland into oil palm plantations. Canadians ban ‘green’ and ‘eco’ words. Feed up with greenwash, the Canadians have banned labels and ads that use ‘green’ and ‘eco’ unless the company can prove it. Something we desperately need in the UK as complaints increase. Meanwhile in Australia, Goodyear has been condemned for claiming their Eagle tyres had little environmental impact. Well they do.
When will brands learn that greenwashing is a one way ticket to public condemnation. Worse for Goodyear, they actually had to pay out compensation to customer who were misled. Och! Tune in Finally, seems according to a survey in the States we are tuning back into radio and tuning out of iTunes. Consumers are getting bored listening to their current collection and in desperation to seek new material going back to good old radio. Much of this listening is taking place while surfing the web. For a really good radio station I recommend (digital and web only)
Passion for the Planet. Great music, no DJs and lots of really interesting interviews around health, ethics and the environment.
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Is social need replacing greed? Given Mark Zuckerberg’s recent comments it seems it is. Mark has stunned City folk and ‘greedmunsters’ across the world with his reply to the question “how and when will Facebook make money?” He isn’t really interested in making money, he openly admits money isn’t high on his agenda, as long as he has enough to get by. What drives him is a personal ethos to connect people.
The idea that the man behind one of the most successful ideas of the last decade isn’t driven by money is a good thing. It shows that greed isn’t always a driving factor. His supporters would probably put his success down to this very factor. Mark wants to build a great social site. His motivation is to bring people together – so far he’s got 110 million and growing. Half of the internet population of Chile are on Facebook. Spanish sites are exploding across Latin America. Sites are springing up across the globe, in part to it’s clever design, local people can set up their own language version.
Teenagers are abandoning emails (due to too much spam) and only using Facebook to talk to their friends. In the UK over 12 million (1/5 of the population) are on Facebook. Facebook is the best thing since…well there isn’t anything to compare it to. At just 24, Mark is one of the youngest CEO’s in the world and powerful with it. If he decided to get a God complex he could use Facebook against anyone with devastating effect.
That’s the power of social networking. Thank God he doesn’t. Mark likes to keep it simple (using an open platform means others do a lot of the work). And simple means being focused on people and values not shareholder value. Mark is probably one of the most eco-ethical leaders about. The basis of any great business is putting its ethos and values first. Without compromise. That’s what creates reputation and makes it a success. Look at Innocent, Body Shop or Green & Black. Then of course, inevitably, it gets bought. The ethos is replaced with different values –make more money, feed the shareholders – and it evaporates. Everything is about cost not quality or values. Craik Jones being an example.
As soon as any business loses its ethos it loses its focus and success. There’s two great business quotes that come to mind, “cutting costs is not the same as making money” and “If you set out to do something well you’ll make money. If you just set out to make money, nothing great will happen.” Brands in trouble (or Blands – brands who have lost their core identity) should get back to their ethos, not spend fortunes on ad campaigns or worse still, rebranding agencies. Nice graphics isn’t the solution.
Abbey was nicknamed ’Shabby National’ because of its poor staff. Millions of pounds later it had a new logo (even if it was a crap one), a new ad campaign and even a new retail environment. But the people were the same. The public wasn’t fooled. The reputation remained the same because it hadn’t really changed. Ethos is what drives us all. It encompasses our values, our emotions and our purpose. It defines WHAT we do, it’s the WHY we do it. It dictates our behavour. And that’s where so many brands fail. When they lose their ethos they start to behave badly and soon get a bad reputation and the customers flies away. If your only value is make a quick buck you son start to exploit people.
You don’t care what damage you do. “People? Planet? Screw them just give me the profit.” The current recession has stimulated much debate about ethics and money. The triple bottom line is people, planet and profit, but most shareholders just want the one. One politician commented on Radio 4 recently, “the problem in the City started when people got so seduced by bonuses they left their morals at home”. “Greed is good” was Thatcher’s slogan. Now it’s a damnation. “”Need is good” is the new slogan.
The need to look after people and the planet. We are about to enter an era where ‘greed’ is fast becoming an anti-social word and ‘profit’ just means profiteering. Now we ask not HOW much did you make but HOW did you make it? At what cost? All of us are asking what price are we going to pay for the reckless City types who gambled billions, expecting to profit in good times and expect us to pick up the tab in bad.
Making money was seen as successful, but not anymore. Success in the future will be about values and ethos. Winning over 110 million people to an idea is success at the highest level. How much Facebook makes in money terms is irrelevant, it’s just a number. What difference it makes in the world is worth far more. Those brands that like to brag about their profits, especially the daily sum they make, will be well advised to stay silent.
They may think it’s a measure of success but profit is not a measure the public respects anymore. Brand reputation is built on WHAT you do, WHAT positive difference you make. Not WHAT you make. I for one would give Mark Zuckerberg my vote for man of the decade. Not because he has created an amazing socially empowering idea but because he has stayed true to his values and not been corrupted by money.
Somehow, we all know that he’ll be still around when all those City kids have vanished, and long term he’ll do well. It doesn’t matter if he ends up as rich as Bill Gates, you can only spend so much in a lifetime. His real riches are the people he connects. The difference he’s already made in the world – many social campaigns have started on Facebook like ColaLife. As the Beatles said, money can’t buy you love. It also doesn’t pay to have it as your only value. Does money make the world go around? No it doesn’t, people do.
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One of the biggest scandals relating to data is the fact the DVLA are selling open access to their database (that your's and mine information). Anyone can buy it if they can provide a good reason. When everyone else has to abide by the Data Protection Act the DVLA is abusing the regulations and possibly human rights. We live in an age of data protection paranoia – remember that story about the retailer who would only speak to the person who owned the clothes and demanded to talk to kids as young as 6, they claimed the data protection act was to blame. How difficult is it to get an information these days because “it may infringe the data protection act 1998’? Unless you are a dubious second hand car dealer with a criminal record who manages a pub car park. Yep, this really is true and no it’s not an April Fool joke. Even Liberty and many consumer groups are concerned. What has been called a “massive betrayal of public trust” and highly unethical should concern us all. Free access to our data – users just have to type in your number plate and they have your full details – to use honestly or dishonestly. Yet trying to get the DVLA to reveal who has access at first proved difficult – no doubt they quoted the data protection act. On the list are many financial services companies, bailiffs, debt collection agencies and numerous clampers! So no one respectable and trustworthy then. One company they sold our data to is Aquarius Security, the management were found guilty of blackmail and given prison sentences. According to a piece in the Times On Line, “Even the Department for Constitutional Affairs, when consulted, told the Mail on Sunday that it was illegal.” After the clamping scams of the 90’s government and authorities had to clamp down on the dodgy traders who saw a chance to make a quick buck. This has opened the door to a number of very legitimate companies who manage car parks using number plate reading technology and thanks to the DVLA, can now grab our data without our consent and send us parking fines. One such company is ParkingEye. They turn up a lot on blogs and the web and aren’t very popular. If using DVLA data is illegal then by default then it’s them that might be getting a fine. Parking Eye take the Big Brother concept to the car parks of many supermarkets like Aldi, Morrisons, Co-op and Tesco. Parking Eye and a number of other organisations manage a lot of car parks for supermarkets and retailers. You may have noticed signs in these car parks warning you about fines for parking over a limit. Or maybe not, as some seem to be hidden or fallen down. If you are just a minute over the time, wham! You get an £80 fine. While one part of the supermarket are trying to win customers and get loyalty the other side is upsetting customer on mass and losing them. Parking Eye turns up on a lot of websites and those supermarkets that contract them would do well to consider the damage they are doing to their customer relationship. It seems that no matter how well managed a business is there’s always some idiot in it who is the weak link. You spend millions on marketing, customer loyalty campaigns, good service and someone in another department blows it. My advice to those in large supermarkets who manage the brand – manage the idiots who employ parking control companies like Parking Eye. I would say to any shareholder in a supermarket ask this simple questions – if every customer you upset with an £80 fine departs your store, given an average spend of £4000, how much are you losing as a shareholder? It’s a lot. According to one website, one club lost 30 members. I know of a case in Wood Green where one customer has dumped Morrisons over a fine from Parking Eye. Cost, potentially £3000. Is it worth it? Several years ago I wrote to all the major supermarkets proposing a clamp to be put on anti-social drivers who park in disabled parking bays. On the clamp was HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE DISABLED? The fines would go to disability charities. How many took up the idea? None. The common reply was “it may upset our customers.” As always it’s the disabled who suffer the most, there are many reports of disabled people being fined. Seems supermarkets are happy to fine disabled shoppers but not those that park in their bay. How ethical is that? Disability charities may like to take this issue up with them. What is going on? Supermarkets may suffer from the odd parking abusers but it’s a small price to pay to keep the bulk of customer happy. And one unhappy customer soon becomes several and then many. So angry were some locals they have started a local boycott of their supermarket. One woman in a store got so upset by the unreasonable fine police had to be called. One driver was fined £80 for being 12 minutes late when shopping with his disabled mum. "My mother has always shopped in the Co-op – it's disgusting. It takes a few minutes to get the wheelchair out of the car and get the chair back in so even going down for bread and milk can take over half an hour." This surprises me of the Co-op as they are so strongly community based. But the reality is that probably no one at the Co-op who’s responsible for the brand knows this is going on. If they did they’d stop it as it’s outside their ethos. Parking Eye may seem like a good idea at the time and I doubt any sensible person in the marketing department would ever hire them, but alas it’s those who don’t understand the importance of keeping customers happy, who do. They try to claim a financial advantage for customers - I can’t see any advantage in fining a loyal customer and then loosing them. An £80 fine vs £3000 a year of shopping? Do the maths. If I was a shareholder in any supermarket I’d be asked some serious questions. As for the public, it’s time they started to ask the DVLA some serious questions too. On the direct.gov website it says about the DVLA, “The law requires the Agency to protect the privacy of individual motorists and to ensure that personal data is used fairly and lawfully”. It isn’t.
CHRIS ARNOLD
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 30 Oct 2008
Total Posts: 212
