The Starbury

For once a highly paid US Athlete has used his heart not his wallet to guide his endorsements. The remarkable (and successful) story of the Starbury.

The first time I saw Stephon Marbury was in 1997.

I had just finished my PhD and was starting a job as a 'rookie' professor at the University of Minnesota. Marbury had arrived in Minneapolis in 1996, joining the Minnesota Timberwolves as part of the NBA draft. My new university had season tickets for the Wolves' matches and Marbury very quickly became my favourite player.

He was much smaller than the other players, barely reaching 6ft 2in - minuscule by the NBA's usual standards. He played point guard, a position that is usually characterised as being the selfless playmaker for the team. Guards start the move and then pass to the big guys, who get the baskets. But this was far too predictable a role for Marbury, who, even when one of his giant team-mates was open, was just as likely to take a shot himself, leading to howls of derision from fans and players alike.

Point guards are also supposed to be the coach's main contact on the field. But Marbury, who played with a constant scowl, hated his coach and everyone else he came into contact with on the court. Nobody really knew what he would do next. While his team-mates were perfecting the anodyne media skills beloved of all US athletes, Marbury's post-game interviews were as frank as they were dispiriting and inevitably made headlines the next day.

His 10-year career is now drawing to a close, but this season has already proved to be his most eventful. During the last off-season, Marbury worked with shoe designers and a major sporting goods retailer, Steve & Barry's University Sportswear, to release a basketball shoe. Nothing unusual there. Ever since the days of Michael Jordan, most top basketball players have been paid millions to endorse top-of-the-range shoes that sell for $100-$200 (£50-£100).

But Marbury once again made his own moves. His new shoe, named the Starbury One, is a sleek, impressive-looking product with one big surprise: the price. The shoe sells for $14.98.

This is no promotional gimmick. For Marbury, who grew up as the sixth of seven children in the impoverished projects of Coney Island, the Starbury's low price is an attempt to make the shoes he endorses affordable for the lower-income African American boys who buy most of the basketball shoes that are sold in the US.

'We are allowing kids to become more educated (but they) are not allowing themselves to see the big picture,' he said. 'The big picture is not having a $200 pair of sneakers when your mother's income is $15,000. When you walk into a store, you are not being held hostage any more. So it's an outlet for the people, especially from where I come from.'

The marketing team behind Starbury One has also played a very smart game by taking a low-cost, authentic approach to the launch using PR, interactive and Marbury's own direct involvement. Much to the amazement of the basketball media, Marbury spent a month touring the US signing his shoes for kids. He started the season in October wearing his $15 shoes and has pledged to wear them in every single game. Many commentators are now reappraising their view of the player, with one journalist going as far as to claim that the once-surly Marbury has adopted his brand's characteristics: accessible, conscientious and humble. 'Who is this man?' he asked.

 http://www.starbury.com/

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06255/720982-51.stm

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2551942

As soon as it comes back into stock, every single pair is snapped up almost immediately. Other Starbury shoes are in development and more than 50 other low-priced sportswear items now carry the Starbury logo. One of the US' most unlikely sporting heroes has just become the architect of one of its weirdest and most wonderful new product success stories.

Champagne Brands

There can be do more fascinating or enigmatic ctaegory than Champagne...

Is there anything more paradoxical than Champagne? Often mistaken as a product or category, Champagne is neither.

It is a region from which a combination of grapes, usually chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, are blended. Despite representing one of the world's most luxurious wines, it comes from an austere region of Northern France where vines struggle in the cold climate. Many of us would have difficulty naming half a dozen brands of Champagne, yet there are more than 15,000 separate producers.

Perhaps most paradoxical of all, despite the downturn in the global consumption of French wines, Champagne has never been more popular. In 2006 sales will again surge by 10% and Brits will drink about one bottle in every eight. Last week provided a timely reminder of the continued success and beguiling nature of this wonderful drink.

At the top end, Pernod Ricard was unveiling the world's most expensive champagne. The addition to its Perrier-Jouet Belle Epoque range will sell for EUR1000 (about £670). Chairman Patrick Ricard informed shareholders last week that the champagne would be made in 'very limited quantities' and marketed only in China, Russia and the US. While the company is likely to realise fabulous margins, this is very much a brand move and not one driven by the bottom line.

Despite a strong heritage and reputation, the house of Perrier-Jouet is in the shade of many of its more luxurious, notorious and expensive rival brands. The super-premium launch is intended to attract editorial coverage and snare some of the ultra-rich alpha consumers who influence the Champagne preferences of the masses. It is also designed to help Perrier-Jouet negotiate an age-old problem for all Champagnes: scarcity, or rather the lack thereof.

Despite all its allusions to exclusivity, Champagne is relatively commonplace: more than 300m bottles will be consumed this year. The problem for its producers is how to communicate scarcity while still selling millions of bottles of the stuff.

The answer lies in brand architecture. Perrier-Jouet will use its super-exclusive Champagne to build its brand, while making most of its sales and profits from its standard, mass-produced champagnes.

At the other end of the spectrum, you could buy 45 bottles of Marks & Spencer Champagne for the same price as a single bottle of the new Belle Epoque. According to Egon Ronay, that might not be a bad idea: in a blind tasting last week, he found many supermarket Champagnes were better than some of the best-known labels, despite costing about £15.

Supermarkets now account for 64% of UK Champagne sales and are using the wine in the exact opposite way to Pernod Ricard. Thanks to economies of scale, very discerning category buyers and a plethora of producers, most UK supermarkets can offer top-class bubbly at very attainable prices. The message that the very best quality can be had at the very lowest prices is one that all supermarkets aspire to, especially with the festive season around the corner. It is also a great way to attract the millions of bargain-hunters who want to stock up for that prolonged drinking binge commonly known as the Christmas break.

So there you have it. The delightful paradox of Champagne: one company making tiny quantities of it at ridiculously high prices to build its brand, while another achieves the same goal by selling huge amounts at incredibly low prices.

Everybody Hates Ryanair

Ryanair might be the most hated airline - but that does not mean they are not a strong brand or that they will not be successful.

Well, it's official: Ryanair is the world's most-disliked airline. Online travel guide TripAdvisor recently polled 4000 of its members and the Irish discount carrier was singled out as the one they like the least.

Before we start predicting the imminent decline of Ryanair, however, it is worth reviewing the value of popularity polls such as this. Drawing a correlation between general liking for a brand and future business success might seem sensible. In reality, liking is a largely irrelevant measure of brand success.

For starters, TripAdvisor sampled the general population. This kind of approach is valid only when gauging national opinion or predicting general-election results. Even the most mass-market of brands has a relatively selective target market from which it derives most of its sales and profits. These are the only people who matter.

In 2000, for example, when Budweiser launched it infamous 'Whassssup' campaign, two-thirds of the general population disliked the commercials. Who cared? More than half of the people in the target market, 18- to 24 year olds, loved the ads and that is what drove sales.

Indeed, it may even be an advantage to be disliked by the rest of the general population if it increases preference within your target segment. During the 90s Nestle's Yorkie bar was a generally well-liked, but under-performing, chocolate brand, with low recall and even lower market share. In 2002, when the brand declared itself 'not for girls', it managed to alienate half the population, but also increase awareness, liking and sales among the other half.

The lesson for brands is that liking is an overrated virtue. It is better to be loved passionately by a small (but profitable) minority and despised by the rest than to be generally, but weakly, liked by all.

In May, Marketing published the top 50 most-hated British brands for 2006. Among the top 10 were The Sun, McDonald's and Fiat. These brands all have something else in common: fantastic sales. The Sun is Britain's bestselling daily paper, McDonald's has just posted its best sales growth in the UK for several years, and Fiat is widely touted as a brand in turnaround.

Brand managers may talk about increasing preference among their target market, but their true motivation is usually low negatives among the masses. Yet the more one looks at marketing success, the more obvious it becomes that occasionally pissing off large tracts of the population may be no bad thing.

For most of the 90s, the 'Daz doorstep challenge', with Danny Baker, was Britain's least-favourite ad, yet it did a sterling job of maintaining brand awareness and thus sales in a classic low-involvement category.

Similarly, listening to Jamster's Crazy Frog anthem was one of the most unappealing experiences of 2005, yet the song topped the charts and became the year's bestselling ring tone and second-most recognisable jingle.

It is time for marketers to cast off the flowery shackles of likeability and embrace their dark side. Take a page from the Ryanair manual of brand unpopularity and strive harder to insult and antagonise. Take inspiration from this column; while it is nice when someone writes in to agree with me, I am only truly delighted when my musings attract marketers' ire.

From now on, stop asking how you can satisfy customer needs. Instead, ask how you can generally upset and rile as many people as possible. And if you don't agree, write in and tell me what a tosser I am.