A few things jump out for me.

1. It has the most unsubtle product placement I have ever seen, with the sponsors ‘Holiday Inn’ dragged into almost every story as some part of the plotline. So for example, when a witness needed to be moved, they sent her off to the Holiday Inn rather than an un-named hotel.

2. The cars throughout are Chevrolets. And I now want a Camaro. I guess it is a mid-life crisis, but I think it’s the sort of subtle car I need for cruising around Nottingham. It will sit well in our car park, next to Mich’s diesel Smart ForTwo. He would be sort of an offset for my huge fuel consumption if I drove this around town.

Chevrolet Camaro from Hawaii Five-O - I want one

3. The series is so silly and glossy – almost like a a set designer has spent a few weeks watching Spooks over here and copied all their tech tricks.

4. There are some brilliant references to the old series though. My favourite so far was when McGarret was about to get Danno to do the line and he stopped him and said ‘Don’t even say it’ when he was about to say ‘book him Danno, Murder one’.

So does product placement work in this context?

For me, it has drilled the concept of going to Hawaii for my 50th into the front of my mind (in four years, before you ask), just so I can use the gag. And it’s made me want a Camaro, so yes, I guess it has.

Will I do either though?

I doubt it.

So Product placement works in a few ways. It changes perceptions for high value products and has a chance of conversion to a sale on low value, more immediate product.

If it’s done well and built into the story, it can work. Okay, more research.

London’s images are ever changing, but the London Eye, the Swiss Re, the upcoming Shard and maybe Canary Wharf are amongst the most the most used. This shows that modern stuff can take over from the more traditional images of  Big Ben, Whitehall, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.

I grew up in a suburb of Oxford called Headington (close to my beloved Oxford United’s old Manor Ground) and we had one amazing one, which was this massive pair of kicking legs coming out of the roof of the Moulin Rouge Cinema.

The Moulin Rouge Cinema in Oxford - Sadly no more, but the legs were amazing. Photograph: © Graham Paul Smith

And then in 1986 the now famous Shark arrived and it’s now 25 years old.

The Shark in the roof in Headington, Oxford

So what has this got to do with branding?

Well, it’s partly a nostalgic look back for me, but it is also a reminder that creating a brand for a place is more than just using pictures of dreaming spires, or lush meadows by the Thames, it takes some brave design and an inspirational character (or two) to make it happen. And this is the same for any brand too.

To stand out in a crowded market, you have to stand out, just like my favourite shark.

Carluccio's Nottingham - Lovely simple, light, airy, friendly, tasty, Italian food

I had been quite excited about Carluccio’s opening in Nottingham and managed to miss the opening night, but have now been and sampled their lovely food.

I went yesterday with my mate Tim Garratt (Nottingham’s most prolific blogger) for lunch and it (not he) was gorgeous and great value. It was also packed by 13.00 with people waiting for seats when we left.

We both had two courses from the fixed price menu of a bruschetta to start and then some chicken in breadcrumbs thing to follow. Gorgeous, simple food without any pretention but the sweetest tomatoes you will try this side of venice and for me, the nearest I have found anyone coming to the quality and tastiness of the bruschetta I had in Rome some years ago. With (soft) drinks, bread, coffees and service it all came to £34.00. Not bargain bucket stuff, but really good value for such a lovely meal, with quick friendly service.

So I’ve been again today for a brunch. That was maybe even nicer. Scrambled eggs with mushrooms on gorgeous oil soaked italian toasted bread. Three of us went and all had similar versions of an italian brekkie and it came to £27.00. Again not for nothing, but worth every penny.

We left around midday, just as Jamies up the road was opening. They had a queue. I’m still to try it for myself, but the light friendliness and tasty food of Carluccio’s will be hard to beat.

Jamie's Italian Nottingham - A queue for opening

Jamie's Italian Nottingham - I can't wait

Over Christmas, we ate in Carluccio’s in Canterbury and I have to say that I think it was the nicest food I have eaten this side of Venice or Rome. It was beautifully fresh, incredibly tasty and pretty remarkable value. Five of us had starters, main courses a bottle of wine and some drinks for the kids. It came to £80. Not absolute KFC bargain bucket, but great value for such top quality cooking and simple unfussy service. Carluccio’s wasn’t a brand I had been particularly aware of before this, so it was a nice surprise as my expectations probably weren’t that high.

So I was quite pleased to see they have a new one opening in Nottingham. Building work is well underway. I guess it will be February or so for the opening.

The website just says it is opening soon.

Also over Christmas, I cooked a rather gorgeous turkey and leek pie that I adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe. Basically I added ham and some other leftover veg from Christmas dinner to make sure I had enough to feed the 14 hungry mouths around the table. It got quite remarkable critical acclaim, so thanks Jamie. I have to confess that I do rely on a few of his recipes, with his pizza base and tomato sauce topping recipe from his Italian book still being the nicest one I have ever made.

And then, I noticed that there is an all new Jamie’s Italian opening just up from Carluccio’s in February too. The difference is, I have high expectations of the Jamie Oliver brand. I know it so well, that I expect it to be excellent simple food and good value too. The whole Jamie Oliver brand is built on this platform, so it has to deliver.

I am genuinely excited to have an ‘eat off’ and see who does the best grub. I am convinced that the food in Jamie’s will be absolutely gorgeous. Friends have been rubbing it in about which ones they have eaten at and the reports are excellent.

It’s my birthday later this week, so I’m asking for a meal at both of these new places (when they open) rather than a conventional present.

I may invite AA Gill along so he can review them both with me. I’m sure he’s very welcome anytime in Nottingham.

Updated
According to the Nottingham Evening Post, Jamies Italian will open on Monday 7th February. Hopefully see you there soon after.

Updated 07.02.11
Just spoken to a friend who went last week as part of the soft launch. This was open to friends and insiders and seemingly, those who worked for Boots and was half price!

The verdict?

Fabulous food, really well thought out layout for a potentially difficult building, great value (even better at half price) and superb service.

Excellent.

Tales of Tesco Hood

I have written before about empty shops in cities and what I believe is the solution. Flexible rents for start-ups and some understanding in the payment of business rates. The latest move reported by the BBC that Tesco were to take over the former Tales Of Robin Hood site in Nottingham, proves it’s still not being addressed in any effective way.

As one of those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of the presentation from the Bass Museum team who did have plans for the site, this is a real shame, but no real surprise. That proposal was so flawed as to be embarrassing.

So why would Tesco move in and not look for longer to find a decent alternative tenant?

Let’s say that the rent on the site would be £100k per annum and as we know, Tesco own the head lease. After six months empty, they will have to pay a full business rate, which adds another £41.5k to their bill. So, for them to leave it empty, costs them £141.5k per year. Therefore, as long as they lose LESS than that as a Tesco Express store, then it’s worth them opening it.

In effect they are being incentivised by the system to open up all over the place.

Surely it would be better for the long term good of the city to have some retail diversity?

Or maybe a Robin Hood attraction, or even a permanent exhibition.

Let’s set the Sheriff of Nottingham on ‘em.

Thanks to the somewhat out of date Nottingham Tourist Guide for the image.

1. Decide whether you are a person or a business
Twitter is used by three distinct groups: Celebrities, who like to talk about themselves and the everyday trivia of their lives; Businesses, who are talking to their customers and trying to build rapport with a younger audience and by Individuals who often use it to share gossip and news amongst their own group – like Facebook but without the pictures. An on line version of texting between each other on their mobile/cellphones.

2. Choose a good name to work with
Like creating a brand for yourself, you need to start with a good name. If you’re a business, it makes sense to choose the business name and if you’re an individual, use your own name. I simply can’t understand why someone would want to try and build another brand with a random name. It’s exactly like splitting your spend and your time across two different brands and halving its effectiveness.

3. Personalise it with an icon and all your info
When you sign up to Twitter, you have the ability to personalise your information in the Profile panel. There is lots of talk on the Twitter forums (fora?) about not following people who don’t bother with an icon for themselves as they’re probably spammers. If you’re going to do it at all, do it right and that means adding in your own URL, your own or your brand’s icon and by being as interesting and engaging as possible with your 160 character introduction.

4. Choose your tone of voice
If your brand has tone of voice guidelines, STICK TO THEM! Just because you’re speaking in a different medium, doesn’t mean you need to start being all chatty and inappropriate. If you’re an individual, decide whether you want to be friendly and engaging, cold, useful but clinically efficient or some combination. But whatever you decide, write it down as your agreed tone and stick to it in every tweet.

5. Choose your area of expertise
It’s the same for what you say as to how you say it. If your expertise is in mortgages, then why would you have any credibility talking about advertising? Decide what you are going to speak about, again, write this down and agree it with yourself or fellow contributors and then stick to it. If you are shouting about any old subject, you’ll get seen as a loudmouth rather than an expert and people will lose interest in what you’re saying all too fast.

6. Follow back
The reason I follow no celebrities at all is that none of them ever follow you back and I care very little about their trivia. Why should I care about what they’re saying if they don’t care about my thoughts? This has been escalated recently by Twitter introducing ‘lists’. Organise your favourite tweeters into lists, so you can see what they’re saying even if you’re not constantly monitoring their every tweet. This can be by subject, area of interest or even geography.

7. Tweet things that you like and that others can learn from
“Waiting for a train to Nottingham“. “On a train to Nottingham“. “Arrived in Nottingham“. And so on and on he went. The most dull set of tweets I‘ve ever seen. There were nine in total all involved this boring man’s journey to and from Nottingham. Another person, in my own industry, I used to follow said “I have to stand up from the table to let my colleague go to the toilet.” Who cares? Why should I waste my life looking at his pointless tweets? Think about what you’re saying. How will your audience learn more about you and what you do by reading what you’re writing? Would you ring someone and tell them what you’re tweeting? If so, go with it.

8. Twitter is a conversation
It’s all about dialogue, not diatribe. If you speak loudly at people, no-one benefits. Think of Twitter as a conversation and allow others to speak, retweet the things they say that you find interesting and do them the service of acknowledging when they have been kind enough to retweet your thoughts. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean you can behave impolitely. If someone serves you, you would normally say thankyou. Behave online as you or your brand would offline.

9. Build a like minded community
If you’re interested in branding and marketing, then don’t follow someone in California who is interested in real Estate or Madcap MLM schemes. When I follow someone, it’s because I think we can learn from each other. I always turn down people who are talking about things I don’t care about. It does mean I have limited myself to around 3,000 followers, but it also means that they have something to say that will be worth me hearing and that they may benefit from my own thoughts and ideas.

10. Keep listening, keep talking, keep tweeting
Stick with it. It’s a frustrating time when you’re trying to build a community. It doesn’t happen overnight unless you are a porn spammer or someone using a ‘foolproof system’ that follow millions of people and bombard them with irrelevance. But if you’re working to a plan and set aside a little time most days to work on your Twitter account, it will grow, it will be useful and it will be fun doing it.

See you in the Twittersphere.
http://twitter.com/johnlyle

Aldi - A brand going bad?

For anyone who knows me, they’ll know i’m quite into my food. I love to cook and I love to taste different flavours – cooking fresh spicy Italian is probably my favourite and the one my kids will eat with me bowl for bowl.

A few years ago (well, maybe ten), I discovered the wonders of Chorizo – it’s like a super ingredient to add to pasta to take a simple tomato and pesto sauce and turn it into a deep paprika spiced bowl of loveliness.

When the Aldi opened near my Nottingham office, I sceptically wandered in to have a look and realised I could access lovely quality Spanish Chorizo at near Spanish prices. I bought it, I cooked with it and I was impressed.

But recently, they changed supplier, or at least changed recipe to hit a lower price point and it’s a pale (literally) shadow of its former self.

Now, it may seem a bit odd to get obsessive over Chorizo and how it relates to a big brand like Aldi, so it’s caused doubts. Where else have they started cutting corners?

If your offer is great quality at low prices that means you are working towards the principle of ‘how good can we make it for the money?’

if your offer changes to low prices, then the change in emphasis for the brand means the new mantra is ‘how cheaply can we get away with making it?’

So, if i’m right, then all their time spent recruiting new middle class shoppers has been wasted. They’ll all wander back to their normal suppliers and Aldi will be back as a low cost shop – ie a shop for low cost food and household things we’re not sure we need – and not the brilliant discount retailer it was becoming.

Russell Crowe as Robin Hood in the new movie Robin Hood that premiered tonight in Nottingham's Cornerhouse Leisure and entertainment complex

This a story hot off the press as I have just arrived back from the gala premiere of Robin Hood held at the Cornerhouse in Nottingham City Centre. The film stars Russell Crowe as our hero Robin and Cate Blanchett as Lady Marion Loxley. She played a simply superb part and whilst this wouldn’t be the sort of film that would normally get Oscar nominations, I thought she played such a strong part that i’d be surprised if she doesn’t feature amongst the nominees.

The film itself is a long and epic affair painting the history of Robin Hood before he was outlawed. As such, it’s a prequel before the sequel. As scene setters go, it is one of the most enjoyable films I have ever seen. I have read a few early reviews that have been mixed, but this has to have come from film hardened critics and not the general public like myself who will be enthralled by the story, amazed by the cinematography and drawn in by the plot.

When we started working on the brand values for Robin Hood as part of the Sheriff’s Commission, we wanted him to be a strong, fearless character with huge integrity. So he fitted the character of our City. Crowe has done this in spades. What we couldn’t have expected (but what we really, really hoped for) was Cate Blanchett to play a strong brave and independent thinking woman. She certainly delivers this and more.

There’s a bit of humour, some great historical placement, no real attempt at regional accents (apart from a bit of Welsh thrown in) and a good balance of action without it being ever gory or blood thirsty. The photography is just stunning. as they camera flies you through the valleys of the South Downs and the Woods of Nottinghamshire, you will be spellbound.

I think you know what you can expect with Ridley Scott and this certainly doesn’t disappoint. I loved it. I’m going again at the weekend with my family and I hope you do to. To whet your appetite, here’s the trailer.

Following on from the piece I wrote on October 8 about what the word ‘best’ means in branding, I now have proof that the customers don’t get the message or believe it either.

BB’s Muffins, the object of my mickey take appear to have gone out of business in the Nottingham store that I featured.

The World's best coffee is no longer at BB's Muffins in Nottingham

The overall business still seems to be okay and the Nottingham Victoria Centre branch may just be another small victim of an economic correction (a kinder way of saying that it’s a time for finding out and finishing the bad businesses out there.)

Claiming to be world’s best isn’t enough, these days – if it ever was – and any business or any brand that is not built on real values will struggle and over the next equally tricky few years, will ultimately fail.

Bye Bye BB’s.

Lee’s a great bloke and I wish them every success tonight against Worcester Wolves at Nottingham Wildcat’s Arena. You can buy tickets and find out more about Lee’s fabulous project here.

This is the banner that you’ll see hanging at one end of the arena and is here as we were unfurling it in the office. Its quite big, like lots of Lee’s player.

Come on you Hoods.

Good luck to the Hoods tonight

Update with a match report from Steve Braker on his Facebook page

Hoods win at home

Nottingham Hoods 70
Worcester Wolves II 60

Nottingham Hoods made there home debut with a crowd of over 300 shouting them on, and didn’t let them down.
Hoods introduced 2 new signings to there national league basketball campaign in Tom Wade & Tobias Benjamin and they played there part asked of them in providing the Hoods with there first home win that the crowd had come out to see.
Hoods took control from the very first tip, led by the ever reliable Captain Guy Renton on his birthday and with outstanding support from Anthony Scott, Bruce Lauder, James Gardener & Kirk Davis gave the team a lead that they would never relinquish and went into halftime up by 34 – 27.
The Wolves came out in the second half looking to turn round the deficit but could not break down the resistant defence from the Hoods and ran out of steam for the Hoods to record the home win.

Top scorers for the Hoods
James Gardener 22 points, Guy Renton 16 points, Kirk Davis & Tobias Benjamin 8 points

The Hoods are next in home action on October 24th at the Wildcats arena with a 7.30pm tip when the visitors are Birmingham Mets.