Masterchef brand faux pas

What are those guys at Masterchef playing at?  This latest in brand mutilation comes as Masterchef prepare to launch ready meals and cooking ingredients.  From a brand that is about making delicious meals, from scratch, from fresh ingredients, this move simply seems ludicrous.  Masterchef isn't about convenience, it's about the love of cooking.  They should be launching workshops, courses, branded cooking utensils, pots and pans and cooking books, guides and DVDs.  They should be creating online communities around the love of cooking, they should create a recipe generator website.  It should be about inspiration and engagement and shaping new culinary talent!  This move just screams of a fast and dirty money-making effort, which will harm the brand and won't do anyone any favours.   

Chewing gum brand saturation

I've been sick for the past couple of days and I've spent a lot of time in supermarkets buying soup, where, upon reaching the checkout, I discovered the true horror of the chewing gum brand saturation that our nation has succumbed to!  I guess it's been a gradual affair, from the launch of sugar free, to whitening ones, to the more avant garde dual flavour and mints-that-are-gum-really, but I only really noticed it recently, as I was confronted by a barrage of Trident Splash this and Extra Ice that and general product extension hell. 

There must be some rationale behind this and there must be a market for it.  Or is there? Chewing gum and the fresh breath ideal must be something that has become increasingly popular, particularly amongst youth audiences to warrant this product overload.

When I was a kid, there was Extra, Double Mint and Juicy Fruit and that was about it, and that really wasn't even that long ago!  Whatever happened to Double Mint, in fact, what happened to 'stick' chewing gum?  I'm quite a fan of the stick variety, but what happened to it? Is it because we're living in a green age and the sticks use so much packaging?  But what about Trident Splash? They're wrapped up in loads of packaging!

The small ones just get lost in the bottom of your bag!  I can see the trend towards miniaturisation happening all over the shop, maybe that's what they're appealing to, like skirts, Gaviscon and tampons...

Back to basics I say.  I can't understand the appeal of dual-flavour gum, mint chocolate chip even - the lines between breath freshening chewing gum and fun and flavoursome bubble gum are being seriously blurred to the point of brand meltdown.  Which chewing gum should stay and which should go?  Surely there's not a market for ALL of these brands and all of their extensions?!
 

The Demise of the Music Mag

For me, this is a bit of a sad state of affairs!  I am very into my music, with a taste firmly rooted in old and questionable indie, I spent much of my youth breezing through Top of the Pops and graduating onto NME, Q and Uncut. 

There's something that I found incredibly satisfying in buying the latest copy and absorbing it, it was a lifestyle badge when I was 15, 'Look at me, I read NME'.  When there was a CD on the cover, even better, because it always had decent music on it.  Uncut had some genuine old gems, Q often specialised with say a Chillout album or a Best of 2000, if I recall.  It was quality stuff.

Now when I see music magazines, I think, what happened?? All this glossy, bombastic nonsense!  I know image and fashion are important facets of being involved in the music scene, call me a traditionalist, but shouldn't the music have a say in all of this?  Maybe I am just getting older and more cynical, but when I was 16, I stopped buying Q because I could see it turning in that sensationalist direction, that reporting of the general, that I didn't approve of. 

I liked quality alternative music and wanted a magazine to reflect my taste.  When the NME was a proper paper, it did that.  It gave me the facts, it engaged me, but when the magazines started reflecting the general industry, my taste fell out of the loop and I wasn't satisfied.  If only I had been old enough in those heady Select days, I might have been truly satisfied.  The NME started to go downhill about this time too, but I guess by downhill, I mean that it wasn't relevant to me anymore.

Whether kids today get all their musical info online, scour Myspace Music or have lost sight of the need for a musical publication - that's why they're on to a loss.  Maybe kids don't see a magazine that reflects the music industry that they understand.   Maybe it doesn't reflect what is popular anymore.  Or maybe because music taste is so personal, reflecting the general, even general indie, is fruitless.
 

Luxury brands and luxury branding

I was recently asked a few questions about the world of luxury brands and branding for a student writing a thesis about what it takes to launch a luxury fashion brand.  As a natural thrift seeker, I found these questions really interesting, they really got me thinking.  Here's some of the questions and my responses:

How would you define luxury fashion today?

I think there is a divide between the inaccessible couture catwalk fashion and the designs that are accessible in luxury stores and boutiques.  It is as though the catwalk is the face of luxury fashion, and the pieces are the cornerstones of the wider fashion brand – as all fashion styles in all other areas of the market filter from these key ideas.  So the ideas themselves seem to be something almost beyond aspiration.  Often with catwalk items there is a significant focus on items which lack a function, typically those items that are accessible to the consumer will be lifestyle pieces which can actually be worn!    

How does this shopper differ from mass-market consumers in terms of buying perspective?

Both luxury audiences are looking to reflect recognition and indulgence in their purchases.  They want to show their value and worth.  I think that this can be true for mass-market consumers but only to a degree.  It all depends on what the audience decides is a status symbol and what they see as an indulgence.  Looking unique is also important.  Fashion is about personal style.  In luxury audiences it may be a label or a certain Manolo Blahnik shoe.  But for mass-market audiences it may be something like a Kate Moss dress from Topshop, something cheaper than luxury, but still says a lot about the type of person they are, their personal style and value

What designers/brands do you see as having the most influence in the next 10 years, and why?

Personally, I think there’s going to be a continued resurgence of vintage fashion, so pioneering vintage designers like Vivienne Westwood are going to have a key influence in the luxury sector.  Seeing how Topshop has evolved over the past 8 years from a typical teen outlet to a highly differentiated (and more premium) offering than ever coupled with the rise of ‘disposable fashion’ brands such as Primark, I see that there is going to be a continuing gulf between premium style and cheap-chic, both of which are governed by the same fashion norms, yet both having significant influence on the market and peoples’ purchasing habits.  There’s almost a tribal element to it, which I think is fantastic for fashion because it is essentially a tribal world

What makes a luxury brand successful and how does it differ from non-luxury items?

A luxury brand in general is successful because it is not only a status symbol for the nouveau riche, but it has an aspirational element for those further down the chain, so infact, luxury brands appeal to wider audiences, I believe, than any other kinds of brands.  They have a sense of value that stretches across all sociodemographics, which a non-luxury item is not going to do.  A luxury fashion brand is successful because of quality and innovation, without those elements, there is no raison d’etre for the brand   

Is planning, planning?

Being a young brand planner, I often think about what other juniors are up to in the big wide planning world and I always get to that age-old question, is planning just planning? Or is planning in different types of agencies - advertising, digital, DM etc. - make it a different  discipline in each area?  If so, how much better / worse off am I brand planning?  I think it is the same discipline, whatever the media.  We are essentially working on marketing briefs which involve the same sort of elements.  Some agencies may be into more data planning, some may be really data-light, but I reckon the essence of planning is the same.  Although, I don't know really, as I don't know any digital / DM / ad planners! What does everyone else reckon?  It would be nice to get some posts from some other types of planners to see if they think we're all in the same boat!