Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Contrary to what you may have feared, I AM NOT DEAD! Put away your wreaths, unveil your faces and break out the bunting, for Web Curios is BACK (I just tried doing a Google Image search for Web Curios – beautifully, several of the initial results are pictures of The Man. Hello, The Man!). Admittedly it’s only back for a week, as I am on HOLIDAY next Friday, but frankly you should be grateful for whatever you’re given at this stage.

In my absence, webmongs, I have seen things of which you can only dream. I have seen Slough and a Tesco’s so large that approaching it is like that opening bit in the first Star Wars film with the massive spaceship that goes on and on and on and (Slough FACT: there’s a pun in Slough town centre called the Wernham Hogg, named after the fictional company in The Office (which was of course set in Slough); I can’t work out whether this is a brilliant piece of self-satirisation or actually one of the saddest things ever, though I know which way I intuitively lean). I have been to Barcelona on a stag party, accompanied (amongst others) by a charming man known as ‘Big Sam’ who was recently cleared of common assault after breaking a man’s jaw on the fotball pitch (needless to say Big Sam and I didn’t really have much in common), where I danced to techno like a teenager and was thrown out of a nightclub (I came back in again 5 minutes later though).  Oh, and I’ve done work as well, some of it actually not that bad.

Obviously, though, this is all utterly immaterial in the face of the world’s continued descent into what appears to be total chaos. Better people than me have written at length about everything that’s been going on over the past month (and worse people – check out this spectacular piece of ad placement from last week’s Metro), but can I suggest that you perhaps donate some money to the relief effort in Japan? Or if you prefer music, maybe buy tickets for this? Oh, and if you’re interested in the geopolitical upheaval sweeping the Middle East and its potential implications for China you could do worse than read this piece by Francis Fukuyama in the Wall Street Journal this week (don’t get smug, though, Franky – you were still totally wrong about the END OF HISTORY thing). Or, if you prefer your commentary a little more raw, there are few people more on the money about conflict than The War Nerd.

Oh, and one last thing before I wang on about the internet and cats and stuff. I was reminded this week about the way in which Facebook is used as a tribute site when people die, particularly in the case of the young. This is, of course, perfectly fine. As someone who relatively recently had to administer the page of someone young who died, though, can I please point out that WHAT YOU WRITE MATTERS. I don’t mean to come across as stuffy (HEAVEN FORFEND) but I’m not entirely convinced that the term ‘RIP’ benefits from an exclamation mark (hey, kids, punctuation changes emphasis. You idiots) or indeed that a sad smiley is an adequate response to death. Just saying, like.

Ahem. Oh, and one last thing – Web Curios this week contains no Rebecca Black whatsoever. You can thank me in the comments.

One of a series of posters designed to commemorate the Fukushima earthquake. Click for more.

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The power of Four in traditional business...

Investment bank UBS turned the spotlight onto supermarkets this week with a report claiming food inflation is higher in the UK than anywhere else in the OECD. The report inferred this was the result of the ‘Big Four’ supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s & Morrisons) using their market dominance to inflate prices above the actual increases stemming from food inflation.

By contrast, in other European markets where the food market is more segmented, prices haven’t risen as fast – strong stuff, which led to a swift response from trade body the British Retail Consortium, as well as a wealth of media comment.

This issue got me thinking though, for it’s not only in the supermarket sector where four big players hold sway in the UK. Accountancy is dominated by a Big Four (Deloitte, PwC, KPMG & Ernst & Young) and so is mobile telecoms (Vodafone, O2, Orange and T-Mobile, now joined commercially as ‘Everything Everywhere’).

High street banking was similarly controlled by Four (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyd’s and RBS) until Santander went on its recent spending spree. Four then, seems a very powerful number in the business world, even if the positive impact of it on consumers remains up for debate.

But what about the power of Four on the internet?

As my Issues & Crisis colleague Duncan Gallagher pointed out yesterday, the evidence for the power of Four on the internet seems scant to non-existent. Instead, it increasingly seems to be the power of One.

...versus the power of One on the internet

Look at the big internet success stories – Google, Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Twitter. Yes, some of them have competitors but they have much smaller market shares and/or offer a more limited suite of products.

Governments historically tend to get quite nervous about monopolies developing in traditional offline sectors and so do consumers. Curiously though, there doesn’t appear to be a similar feeling about these dominant online brands yet. Nor have there been sustained questions about whether the power of the digital One is good for consumers.

Will this change?

Maybe, although who exactly would initiate a monopoly ruling on a transnational, digital company is unclear. There is one other question though.

Last week we blogged about a possible bubble forming amongst social media and online companies as investors queued up and valuations soared. So here goes – if you were an investor considering a stake in one of these companies, how much risk would you attribute to a potential monopoly investigation and would that affect your decision to take the plunge?

So this was the week that the UK decided to go ‘a bit French‘. Not in terms of Gallic chic (for which this is the first Google images result, proving that a) the Daily Mail are really good at SEO and that b) they are idiots in most other respects), but in terms of popular protest (NB – Web Curios in no way condones the dropping of fire extinguishers onto the forces of law and order). Far be it from me to opine on the rights and wrongs of the student demonstrations – other than to say that VIOLENCE IS NEVER THE ANSWER, KIDS – but to those who are drawing parallels between this week’s demonstrations and the poll tax riots of the late 80s: well, you’re wrong. It wasn’t riots that got the poll tax abolished, you idiots; it was the fact that everyone refused to pay it and, much as she would have liked, Maggie couldn’t put everyone in jail. These student protests (and I’m willing to bet on this, should anyone fancy a wager) will change about as much as the demonstrations against military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sorry kids, but it’s true.

[An aside: someone I know was once punched in the face by their dad for daring to suggest that the French had the right idea when it came to protesting about stuff. Now that's a family dispute]

What else? Oh, yes, the British judiciary demonstrated that the law is an ass yet again yesterday, as Paul Chambers’ lost his appeal agaist conviction for telling a joke on Twitter. Take a moment to consider that, webmongs – you can say something to someone in jest, and now be liable for it. It’s just mental, frankly. There’s no way in hell that this won’t eventually get overturned – it’s just a question of the law needing to catch up with the world – but it’s a bit of a scary thought nonetheless. Let’s all go and bomb an airport in protest (NB – Web Curios in no way condones or encourages terrorist activity against airports or indeed any other locations. Except, perhaps, Swindon).

Sorry, that was all rather worthy, wasn’t it? Erm. Let’s take a moment before delving into the past week’s webthings to relax, purge our minds of all this SERIOUS STUFF, and contemplate the best news I’ve heard in ages – i.e. that Pulp are reforming. Go and read this essay dissecting Common People, and come back when you’re done. Or, er, don’t. Sorry, that was very bossy of me.

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Hi, as part of the foodie contingent of the H&K blogging bunch I’ll be talking trends, new products and general impressive campaigns in the food & drink industry.

So without further ado, Pot Noodle have launched a “Christmas Flavour” which claims to be a fusion of turkey and stuffing and general Christmas merriment all wrapped in a festive plastic pot.

Although the initial instinct is that there can be nothing less festive than a pot noodle, it begs to differ that the mere intrigue of such a flavour will generate sales on its own. Which spurned me to look at the other unique Food & Drink brands who have jumped on the weird and obscure flavour concoctions to generate not only press coverage but sales too. Here’s my top five controversial flavour combos;

1)      Marmite cheese
Not two things you would consider going together but surprisingly this blend of mature cheddar and yeast extract is actually quite a worthy addition to the fridge. The cheese bites were then followed by rice cakes, bread sticks and finally, pushing it over the edge…chocolate. PR Genius or taking creativity too far? I’m still undecided but the cheesy bites are pretty damn good.

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A tweet that stood out for me yesterday on my (too infrequent) trawl of the microblogging site, was one that criticised the defacing of Barclays branded ’Boris Bikes’, but at the same time celebrated the creativity of the vandals because of their efforts to ape the look of the genuine Barclays brand (I’ve included a picture below and apologise in advance for those that may be offended by the language). For me this highlighted nicely the potential pitfalls of overtly branding in an urban environment and of supporting a good cause that aims to ‘belong’ to the community.

The original tweet

Defacing public property is unfortunately not a new thing and also very costly to society, but it is something that when done with the right degree of wit, style or even artistic merit, can engender appreciation among those that witness it, as the tweet that started this post suggests. This is in part I suspect because the community feels the need to indoctrinate any new public schemes and literally mark them in a way that assimilates them with the community.

In some ways I feel Barclays overt branding has to some extent encouraged those would be vandals out there, probably in no small part because of the general antipathy that many people in the UK feel towards banks as a result of the risky behaviours that required government bailouts and the significant difference between average pay and the bonus payments enjoyed by bankers in the Capital. I can’t help but feel that more subtle branding might have been more palatable.

It was a bold move by Barclays to support a public scheme such as this. It is a scheme that I wholeheartedly support as a keen cyclist and a person who believes in publicly/privately funded schemes that encourage more healthy  lifestyles. I do hope that episodes like this do not put Barclays or other potential sponsors of public schemes off.

I have yet to see any response from Barclays or Transport for London (TFL) to this vandalism, but hopefully the offending lettering will just be quietly removed. On the very same day that I saw the tweet I also happened across an article in the Evening Standard in which Barclays and TFL were supporting London Fashion Week with limited edition designer bikes, which I think is a great way to support tourism and the community of London in a fun and quirky way. Here’s hoping this is just the start of a more civilised assimilation of the Barclays Boris Bike.

The Offending Twitpic

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the attributes and skills of a Community Manager. Mostly on behalf of clients, but in truth I also use my own experiences being on the team here at H&K managing Twitter and other social spaces. I’m the one who likes to play with visualization tools. Just trying Mentionmap but can’t get it to embed on the blog correctly. So click here to see what it looks like for HK_London today.

London indeed whole of the UK is buzzing about 2 yrs to go, hear what Andy Sutherden, Head of Sports at Hill & Knowlton London has to say on both old and new Olympic sponsors, the opportunities that the 2012 Games is creating for so many and what  their lasting legacy will be .

I was thinking about how brands act online and some still get it horribly wrong, many get it beautifully right. But, what have a learnt from their endeavours – here are five points on how brands need to act to get it right in the social media space:

1. 1. Give it away: Whatever you are creating, building or designing, give it away for free. If the community has been involved it’s as much theirs as it is yours.
2. 2. Relinquish control: You have limited control over the space anyway and the community thrives on freedom. Don’t be dictatorial or the community will turn its back on you.
3. 3. Sack the lawyers: Unless your lawyers can act at the speed of conversation then don’t get them involved. Guess what, Twitter doesn’t work when every tweet has to be approved. By the time you get to post anything the topic is old news and the community has moved on.
4. 4. Be flexible: Things change – social media changes all the time, constantly incredibly quickly. You need to change with it and you won’t be able to if your campaign path is set in stone.
5. 5. Get out of the way: The community is there to have fun and engage with one another – if you’re not going to facilitate that then get out of the way. If you don’t, you’ll be run over.

Today I’m loving a post on the Harvard Business Review blog titled Having Ideas Versus Having a Vision, by Roberto Verganti. Coming from a small, mature business market like Australia, I’d been well-indoctrinated to the idea that the British economy was bigger, faster, stronger. But like the old expression says: “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”, and boy, has this economy fallen (I’d like to point out that the correlation between my getting here and the world falling apart is entirely coincidental).

From an outsider’s perspective, I really believe part of the challenge facing the British recovery post-recession is a lack of demonstrable passion in the business community. There’s plenty of passion about things like bankers’ bonuses, quantitative easing and football players. But expert commentator after expert commentator has agreed for months now that after the initial shock, the global financial crisis became a crisis of confidence. Who’s job is it to inspire confidence? The Leader’s.

A crisis of confidence is, to a natural leader, an opportunity like no other. If you have a vision, and the courage to point to it and say “that’s where I’m going”, you’ll be one of very few. And while all of your competitors are sitting around waiting for the results of the next general election, their customers and staff will take a peek over your side of the fence. And a lot will jump over. Maybe they’ll jump to a new brand. Maybe they’ll jump to a new market. Maybe they’ll all bugger-off to Asia; so long Europe, it’s been a…time.

So someone needs to get angry. Someone needs to get up off the mat and say “enough”, and grab the cliche by the horns and give British businesses a damn good seeing-to. Someone needs to throw an elbow. Because that’s the kind of someone that others follow.

When was the last time you took a risk on that BIG idea? With budgets being squeezed and marketers under pressure it is all too easy to go with the safe option. But, nothing has ever been acheived through box-ticking mediocraty.

A big idea doesn’t mean a big budget.

Thanks to the nature of the social media, the costs associated with executing a “big idea” has dropped to such a level that the risk of failure should now be acceptable. Consider, arguably the biggest comms. campaign from 2009, “The Best Job in the World” – it started off with a small classified ad in local newspapers. It was only after the global community responded that real investment was made and boy did they get a return.

BJitW wasn’t the first marketing campaign Tourism Queensland deployed – there were probably hundreds before it, many probably failed. However, by thinking differently and being willing to fail they struck gold and created something that has become a benchmark in the industry the world over.

Accept failure into your brand and success will be easier to come by.