Last year I bought a new camera. It’s a Pentax Optio W30 and was hailed as a great camera by some of the review sites.
This review really rates it with the only apparent downside being that it can’t shoot in raw. That’s okay, I don’t know what Raw is anyway. Why would I need that?
And so does this apparently independent review. In fact it is the one that I referred to when I bought it.
So why then is the camera, just a bit rubbish?
No-one seems to tell you that the pictures it takes are fine in blazing sunshine, but really bad when the light even fades a little. They are so grainy as to be unusable – even as tiny pics.
If you compare the shot I got with my camera to the one that my colleague Tim Garratt captured at the Little Boots concert in the Bowery Ballroom, New York, there is simply no comparison. He was using a Ricoh Gr Digital.
Tim Garratt's shot of Little Boots at the Bowery Ballroom New York - Brilliant
Compare and contrast with…
My own rather poor effort at capturing Little Boots in all her shiny glory in poor light
Now I’m no brand slut. I tend to pick a brand and stick to it until I find something better comes along, but I was soooooo disappointed with the performance of the Pentax Optio that I can’t really consider many positives about the brand overall. Because my expectations were so high having read so many positive reviews, my disappointment is compounded to destroying my trust in the entire Pentax brand. The reviews had raised my expectations, the product couldn’t deliver on those promises.
So are they really independent or are they part of a blogger outreach programme. They give cameras and cash to well respected bloggers and ask them to write technically sound and positive reviews to drag in gullibe muppets like me.
Maybe I’m being cynical (again) but I now finding myself doubting any reviews and feedback unless I know it’s independent. If there were loads of independent reviews then I’d be more inclined to trust the supplier again.
Perhaps I should have looked beyond the first two reviews that Google threw up. Perhaps I should look for a mark of independence such as Feefo offers, or perhaps I should just go and buy a Ricoh GR Digital?
In fact, that’s just what I’ve done, so the Pentax is going on Ebay tonight and I’ll refer my potential buyers to the exact same great reviews that are out there for them to see!
The constant reassurance that for the cusomer, their choice of brand makes them feel good all about their purchase decision all the time. It’s a partnership that each party benefits from. Out of this, trust grows and a for the brand owner, a long term relationship hopefully ensues.
If you lose your customers trust, then you lose them. Maybe not immediately, but you certainly undermine their love for you. Big style.
So that’s why T-Mobile losing ALL of the data for their Sidekick customers is such a disaster for their brand.
The Sidekick phone, great for the youth market, but perhaps a total disaster for T-Mobile
Sidekicks are a much sought after range of phones, that are more akin to mini computers with their keyboard and high end functionality. They are available in the UK, but only hacked ones that have been bought in on the grey market. To me, they are a strong a compeitior for the youth market than the iPhone as they deliver what youth want, ot what fat business people like myself want. In effect, if I like it, they’ve failed.
In this article by Endgadget, they go into more detail, but its no surprise to a committed Mac user like myself, to discover that the issue is a back end server problem supplied by Microsoft.
At the same time, this article by PC World also shows that us Mac geeks are becoming a bit rarer (and a bit richer)
It seems that 36% of Mac owning families earn over $100k but that figure is only 21% for PC only families. So apple have bagged the top end of the market, which is a good place to be for any brand. They must not take too many risks in a chase for growing market share by stripping the great things out to deliver a cheaper product to the wider mass market – or they really will do damage.
Mind you, if the next upgrade they supply is as disastrous for my own mac as the move to OS10.6 Snow Donkey (or whatever its called), which I have now had to downgrade again – because it wouldn’t run so many programmes and I had the small problem of not being able to print – then I may even think about a switch to PC’s.
Actually I won’t, that was a lie. I’m allowing them a few mistakes because I love them. Will T Mobiles Sidekicks customers be quite so generous?
And then I found this, which was another interview with Nick Wheeler of CT shirts speaking at the Leaders in London Conference. He makes great shirts and other accessories but obviously keep his customers very happy indeed. How does he know? he actually asks them what they think!
I’m a bit biased because i Love Feefo, but to get one of your customer envangelising about your brand like this is priceless!
What does ‘best’ mean in a branding context? And is ‘best’ a defensible position or one you should even think about using as a claim?
Is it plausible, does it differentiate and is is it sustainable?
These would be three questions we would ask when we were looking at any strapline to work with, or support a brand and for us, in most cases. Best is just not good enough.
Case 1 – Seattle’s Best Coffee
As already discussed here, I think this is impossible to prove and almost completely implausible when they are faced with the might of Starbucks on their doorstep. I can see why they are making that claim, but don’t really believe they are Seattle’s best. You would hope however that if they are making such a ludicrously bold claim then it should at least be better than average and prepared with some care, skill and dexterity.
Seattle's best coffee and now in Japan?
Case 2 Gillette – The best a man can get?
When Gillette came to the UK, they briefed their agency BDO to look at, and work with, this strapline. BDO rightly pointed out that this was unprovable and as such, couldn’t be used in UK advertising. Gillette challenged this in court and the decision was that they were not claiming they were better than anyone else so therefore, anyone else could also be best too.
It was in effect, top parity. By being at the top themselves, they didn’t have exclusive ownership of that top slot and could share it with others. They have used it ever since in ads that I find continually irritating and tired. I also make a point of not using their products.
This ad from 1989 shows their thinking when they came to the UK with the first use of this strapline. For me, it shows how far we have moved in terms of advertising techniques and what worked then. It is awful, patronising and again, completely implausible. When did you last see an ad this cheesy?
Their brand tags show how effective its been for them however as you can see here
Case 3 – Elf (2003)
When Buddy (Will Ferrell) is wandering around New York, he sees a sign outside a crappy coffee shop and runs in to congratulate them. Later on in the film he takes his new girlfriend Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) for a treat at the home of the world’s best coffee. She is slightly unimpressed – again because it is so implausible.
Case 4 – BB Muffins Nottingham
I saw this today and laughed. If claiming to offer the best coffee in Seattle is a big claim, this one is plain stupid.
BB Muffins the home of the world's best coffee - and by law, their coffee is only actually as good as anyone elses!
It’s a bun shop that sells coffee on the side. For them to make a claim as the ‘world’s best’ is 100% ludicrous. I’ve never eaten or drank there, so I can’t vouch for their work, but it’s about as plausible a ‘world’s best’ as the one in Elf.
Case 5. Tina Turner – Simply the best
Hmm, not for me, but as we were talking about this in the office, they dared me to add this to the list, so I did. Enjoy it as it’s from her live tour in 1990 and she’s put on some years since then. Does the word ‘simply’ at the start help with her differentiation?
Summary.
Anyone can claim they offer the ‘world’s best’ as it isn’t a point of difference, it’s just a point of top parity.
To make this claim and deliver a product that is less than world class, will (hopefully) kill your brand forever.
Any brand has to have a clear and demonstrable point of difference, or people will not understand what they are about and what they should feel by having a ‘brand’ relationship with them.
‘Best’ isn’t good enough and ‘better’ normally isn’t provable, so where does that leave all these?
Who else can we add to the list of fame/shame as making brilliant/ridiculous claims to be the best?
Show me the videos or stills and I’ll happily link them off here. Have fun.
Thanks for the Seattle’s best shot to Cloganese. You can see more of his fine work here
This is some very brave advertising by Dixons and you can see the copywriter has had great fun in constructing it. Its beautifully written, there’s no doubt about that, but is it good for the long term health of the Dixons brand?
For me, ever since Dixons profits showed that they made more money selling warranties that we didn’t need than they did from the products themselves, they showed their true colours as sales charlatans. Their brad values were short term opportunistic profits. They became the brand that people loved to hate. John Lewis, with their sensible people offering sensible prices in sensible locations became the choice of sensible people and they filed that void left behind by the Dixons customers who deserted them. They became a better than viable alternative.
But just recently, I’ve started falling out of love with John Lewis. I don’t believe their people are that nice. I don’t actually believe they are never knowingly undersold as I can always find cheaper (they don’t want or allow you to compare their prices with online prices you see!) and I began to doubt the value of their brand promise when I (over)heard people being knocked back when they were trying to return things a few days out of warranty.
So after I’ve walked through the hallowed halls of John Lewis, played with their docking stations, left funny messages on the screens of their laptops, logged them into things they shouldn’t be and and had their sensible staff come along and offer to help me, will I go to Dixons last?
No. Actually I won’t. I’ll go home and buy it online from Amazon, or another online retailer where I know where I stand, I know where and when it will be delivered and where I know that, at the moment at least, I’m a valued customer.
Good try Dixons, but I still think you’re too shady to get my custom in the near future. Keep this up though and I’ll certainly come back into store to look.
Updated
Another brilliant written and crafted ad from Dixons. I’m starting to think they actually deserve some success in what they are doing as they have captured most of our thoughts and more importantly, our actions, pretty damn well.
Another brave ad from Dixons capturing the spirit of what we're actually doing!
CJ as a young corporate customer on his laptop in Starbucks
In an article I wrote recently about place branding, I proposed that the future of branding is unbranded. You can read that here.
What I was arguing against was homogenisation. Standardisation being used as a byword for branding, that decreases rather than increases consumer choice.
And it would appear that Starbucks, in the US at least would agree with this sentiment. In a great article by Tim Haywards in the UK’s Guardian newspaper he savages them for drifting from Happy hippiedom to the same tired old corporate suit as everyone else on the homogenised high street.
For any brand to be able to survive, it has to evolve or it will die. Like dinosaurs did when they failed to build protection against meteorite strikes. Today’s meteorite strikes are coming from the upstart brands and from locally differentiated, welcoming outlets.
In Seattle, there is already a company calling themselves Seattle’s Best and who’s to say it isn’t? (my cup I had in a plane on the way to Seattle was absolutely horrid – see here) But that doesn’t mean its the most loved, by any stretch of the imagination.
With any brand the product is critical, but so is the tribe in which consuming it puts you. You have to feel good about it. You have to bask in its reflected glorious ‘brandness’ and you have to want to tell your cool friends about it.
I think this is a great move for Starbucks.
I hope they have the nerve to debrand their estate, to give their customers the chance to fall in love with them all over again.
I hope they have the nerve to allow their local people to interpret their offer locally and create cool places for their customers to hang out. If that means they want to appeal to corporate wannabe’s then that’s fine, but design your offer accordingly. If that means they want their hippies back, then that’s just as fine – again, design accordingly.
The future of branding maybe isn’t unbranded, but it has to listen to its customers needs and be flexible as hell in delivering what they want or it will go the way of the dinosaurs.
Thanks to Jayne Wilson for the use of the picture of CJ on a Laptop in Starbucks. You can see more of her fine work here.
Holiday Inn rebrand – A rebrand borne out of listening to customers
In our role, we see an awful lot of rebrands and we see a lot of awful rebrands.
But not so the rebrand of Holiday Inn, which in my opinion is spectacularly good. It should be for $1billion though.
I’m not impressed because they have created a swish new logo, because the one they have created is only fine. It’s certainly not groundbreaking, particularly different or revolutionary, it’s just fine.
What they have done brilliantly however is redesign the branded experience by listening to their customers.
In their own (nicely crafted) words, they ‘Had a serious heart to heart with their guests – it was the biggest global dialogue that has ever happened in their category’
They are aiming to remind past present and lapsed customers, why they fell in love with them in the first place. Love is a great word in branding and its talked about a lot, but very rarely achieved. Only the real greats ever reach this status and we see them all over in Apple, Harley, Virgin, Sony and the other ‘Lovemarks’ brands.
They’ve taken control of the welcome, introduced (or reintroduced) friendly and efficient check in and even their signature sound and scent.
Wow.
How many brands control their sound and scent?
I stayed in the Holiday Inn, in Back Bay, Boston and the staff were already superb. It was the friendliest hotel we stayed in during our whistlestop US tour but I’ve yet to stay in one of the refreshed ones.
If they can deliver worldwide on this very bold and public promise, that will be one of the most truly outstatnding rebrands ever seen.
Updated
In this really interesting piece on the Wall Street Journal it would appear that Holiday Inn are again doing the right thing by enforcing the switch of their brand from old to new. If you don’t update to their new standards by the end of 2010 they will dump you.
This is where most rebrands or brand implementations fall over. It’s nearly always bad implementation or a lack of implementation altogether. There is clearly a major cost implication for the Holiday Inn franchisees of $150-250k and some will not be able to justify the expense. This will effectively get rid of up to 300 existing operators who will then be ‘debranded’ altogether.
This may be a bit of a rough way to treat your business partners, but it’s vital to remember that one single bad brand interaction can undermine the whole branded experience. By getting rid of these 300 or so, they will reduce the average age of their hotel stock by 11 years to only 15 years old. This is a major percentage change and one that will ensure a more consistent branded experience across the world.
I was impressed before and as I’m not one of those 300 operators under threat, i’m still impressed. I wonder how this will play out in the long term?
It was announced on the BBC (so it must be right then!) that spending on online advertising in the UK has overtaken the spend on TV advertising for the first time. It came from a report prepared by Pricewaterhouse Coopers for the Internet Advertising Bureau.
Online spending grew 4.6% to £1.752bn – which doesn’t sound that large a growth in what is such a young and explosive market – whilst TV advertising fell by a rather more substantial 16.1% to £1.639bn.
This is great isn’t it?
All clients are becoming much more savvy and spending their money where they can get a measurable return and not throwing any of their hard kept budget at more general profile raising ads.
I think this is not great, not great at all, as brands will suffer in the long term for doing so.
Brilliant virals change perceptions, we all know that, but brilliant TV advertising changes generations. It just has a far greater impact than another click through to a website by someone bored in their office on a quiet Friday.
Internet advertising must be part of any advertising mix that’s obvious, but so must profile raising clever TV ads, if you want to create and maintain a world brand.
When Nick Kamen stepped out of his pants in a launderette ad for Levis, he literally rebuilt their brand from that day forward. He gave them ‘cool’ and they have worked hard ever since to keep it.
I can think of thousands of transformational TV ads, but Virals, with very few exceptions are often just a gag that wears thin all too fast. Its the creatives having a hoot and winning awards. But is it really winning them customers or just massive click through rates? When Chris Tarrant, presents them on late night TV, how much good is that really doing for the brand?
And the best bit?
The irony that it was PwC reporting the demise of TV ads.
PwC were the people who were laughed at through massive viral campaign of changing their name to ‘Introducing Monday’ in 2002 by the hilarious viral geniuses at B3ta. If you don’t remember that, have look here and here.
PwC - We've got your name and you are a donkey
It was the viral that created virals, but its brilliance was in its irreverence, not in its conformity.
If I owned a consumer brand, I’d be sticking by TV for a long time yet.
When I was a child at school. Doc Martens were all the rage. It was the height of the punk era, the birth of the ska era and the death of the disco era (thank god for that). I loved the music of the first two, and I loved the style too. I had a Harrington jacket – you know the one, it’s a black cotton bomber jacket with a tartan lining – but my parents always thought that Doc Martens were a bit too ‘thuggy’, so I wasn’t allowed any for school.
I hankered after the six hole docs that the cool kids had and watched with growing envy as more and more holes were added and the boots reached nearer the knees, perhaps stretching the bounds of practicality in favour of fashion.
But throughout this time, they kept their (mostly) functional appeal and the AirWair sole, that they had taken ownership of in the 1960’s through the Northampton based Griggs family tie up with Dr Klaus Maertens of Munich, Germany.
By the time I started at college, when I was 18 and allowed to make all my own decisions (based on a grant of £205 per year) I either couldn’t afford them or they had fallen off my radar as something I needed to own.
But I’m 43 now and able to make my own decisions again. My recent trip to the US saw me facing the terrible dilemma of ‘smart casual’ being the dress code for the trip. Any of you who know me, would know that this is not a bracket I sit comfortably within. Scruffy casual maybe, really scruffy oik probably, but smart casual would be a bit of a stretch.
So the first thing I needed was a new pair of shoes. Ones I could polish, to replace my exhausted Merrell casual trainers. And the shoe retailer Soletrader had the answer in these wonderful creations.
My magical new Doctor Martens shoes
Now despite the fact it must have been a quieter few years for Doctor Martens, they stuck to their knitting. They still have AirWair, they still have the yellow cross on the sole and they have now added some detailing such as an embossed cross on the rear corner and some clever stitch detailing to give that hand finished appeal.
And they were great value too at £60.
I have also now had the opportunity to road test them through five cities in the US and they have been exceptional. Not a single blister, not a rubbed toe. Nothing. Entirely uneventful, like your most comfortable slippers since the day I put them on.
I’m not sure if that is good branding, consistent attention to detail, or just great quality manufacturing, but my 30 years of waiting for my own pair of Docs has been well worth it.
Our last day in New York and its our first free time since we arrived eight days ago and we’re flying through the night home tonight, giving back our five hour time difference in one six hour flying stroke. It’s a typical British Autumnal morning and I feel very much the Englishman in New York. Its dauntingly big and there’s too much to learn from in too short a time.
I wander up to the Wholefoods Market on the corner to buy my breakfast as I am up early and debating whether to take off on my own for the day or stick with the group. Wholefoods are the people that Tesco said they were taking on with their Fresh & Easy concept that they thought would capture the hearts and wallets of New Yorkers, but has so far, pretty much underwhelmed them.
Wholefoods Market - A beautiful store for New Yorkers
Well, I have to report that having not seen the Kensington branch of Wholefoods, the one I saw on Second Avenue in New York was stunning. It looked welcoming, yet urban, the food looked beautiful and the staff members I spoke to were educated and interested, with one of the team on the till having spent time in the London Kensington store, helping with staff training. Can you imagine Tesco sending there checkout staff from Victoria centre being sent across to New York to show the Fresh & Easy staff how to be surly and cause unnecessary queues to wind people up in a hurry. Maybe they could just show them how they can tell customers that they can only use this queue if they’re buying Lottery, despite no-one else in the queue and people stacking the full length of the store at the self service tills?
Okay, that’s me being cynical and comparing the natural service culture we saw everywhere in the US. In the UK, we assume that it is insincere and below us to be polite, helpful and interested. We seem far more comfortable in being snotty or trying to catch our customers out than helping them enjoy their visit. This is a training issue we discussed an awful lot whilst we were away and whilst we don’t want ‘have a nice day’ all over the place, we do want to be able to deliver service staff who do just that – serve. It sounds simple, and it is in the US, but with a few notable exceptions, we make it look very difficult in the UK.
So after my early morning breakfast of orange juice and a parmesan breadstick (pretty healthy huh?), sitting in the park, next to the hotel, I watched the New York morning unfold before me.
There’s lots of honking, despite the signs threatening a $350 fine for anyone who does it and the driving is aggressive, the pace is hectic. It almost seems the opposite of how people behave when they get to work, or maybe those in cars are a different breed who never work in service positions? It’s a magical place to sit and absorb the atmosphere. I’m surrounded by New York Sparrows, (or their close relative, ‘cos I ain’t no ornothologist) and I share my bread with them and seem popular amongst them.
Back at the hotel, the others are gathering for the day and I decide to stick with the Sheriff and Adela as they are planning to go to Liberty Island. I know this is probably the cliché of all clichés, but I’ve never been and I wanted to take in another audio tour and see how the trip across compares to my favourite river trip – The Ferry across the Mersey.
The first stop is the Metro station at Lafayette and Broadway which we follow down to Bowling Green. This leads us onto Battery Park and our first view of the Statue of Liberty across the water. As we walk across the park, there is a huge damaged sphere in front of us.
The Sphere is another 9/11 reminder and this damaged relic is from the Plaza of the Word Trade Cetre
At first the thought was that it had been vandalised, but when you read the sign in front of it, you begin to understand.
I like the wording of this plaque in front of the damaged Sphere in Battery Park
Again, the feelings of anger rise up at how this could have happened, but I love the Sphere’s symbolism. Its an even more powerful reminder than the slightly cold but informative hoardings at Ground Zero and its simplicity paints a far starker image in your mind than a display of what’s coming next could portray.
The boat trip with a full audio tour of Liberty Island and Ellis Island is $20 (about £12) which seems like good value. You then travel through a full airport security style search and scan, with everything X rayed and shoes, phone, cameras, belts ad even notebooks in the trays. Its something that is hard to begrudge as the symbolism of peace and liberty that the statue stands for is one that must be under constant terrorist threat.
The short boat ride across only stood out for the fact that it was a great place to photograph armpits and other people’s hands. It was like a class full of the worlds most enthusiastic school children with every hand up for most of the trip.
The silly thing about these shots, was that five minutes later when you landed, it was easy to get a much better image without the hands in the way and without the crowds around you.
We had a cup of coffee to see off the heavy rain and marvelled again at what exceptionally low prices they charge in these nationally controlled attractions. $1.50 (£0.89) for an almost nuclear strength 3/4 pint of coffee wouldn’t be seen at anything but the lowest of cafes in the UK, let alone with a captive audience on a cold wet island full of tourists.
The audio tour used the exact same digital system as the one at Alcatraz, but was far more dull. The single voice talking you through the history was informative at best, but turgid, if I’m honest. By the time we’d walked half way around the island, it was off and we were reading the signage, which had all the information anyway. But the view close up is perfect.
The Statue of Liberty - in all its green glory
We had opted not to take the trip up the monument, which was good as the queue was huge and there was yet another scanning scrutiny. One of the previous blog commenters, Christine from Boston had been helpful in her recommendations and warned us that this was simply not worth the money or the queue, so we gladly took her advice.
So some statto facts about the statue itself. Its 305ft tall from the ground to the top of the flame and was completed in 1886 as a gift from the People of France. It was the tallest structure in the Eastern US when it was built as most of Lower Manhattan was only five stories until well into the 1920’s. She has a 35ft wide waist (like many other people in the US) and a 42ft right arm. Even her fingernail is the size of my forearm and she sees 3 million visitors per year to her very own island.
The ferry took us back via Ellis Island for a further (dull) audio tour and then back across to Battery Park.
Time was pressing on and we were leaving in a few hours, so we opted to walk back to the hotel along Broadway to take in some more of the atmosphere. A good three miles or so along a dead straight road, took in Wall Street. The signage is as we have all seen it, but the state of the roads and paths were awful. The police presence was massive and the crowds even more massive.
The very scruffy pedestrian entrance to Wall Street with Seaport in the far distance
After collecting a late lunch in an immaculately clean and friendly salad bar, where you can choose what you want and pay by weight, we sat in one of the City parks and watched a group playing chess with a form of winner stays on. Quite a crowd gathered and you got the feeling that this was a regular haunt for city types and students alike. Black squirrels ran around us picking up scraps and the feeling was far more relaxed than any other place in New York I had seen.
The final walk took in the Bell of Hope and St Pauls Chapel, back at Ground Zero. The Bell was a gift from the Mayor of London to the people of New York and was created by the Whitechapel Foundry, who also cast Big Ben and the bell on Liberty Island. It is rung each 9/11 anniversary and was also rung after the Madrid bombings in 2004 and on July 7th 2005 after the Subway and bus bombings. It’s a very sombre reminder.
The Bell of Hope - A gift from the Uk, in memory of 9/11
The chapel itself is where the firemen gathered and rested during the recovery mission after 9/11 itself. To most, it is the spiritual home of those who lost their lives.
The table of remembrance inside st Pauls Chapel
It seems like a suitable place to sign off, on what was an incredible trip, full of learnings, stark reminders and world class attractions.
I honestly never thought that the US, would be my thing. I thought it would be too brash. Its big, yes, but it’s so full of genuine people who love our history, curtsey to our Sheriff and respect our country, its impossible to not end up feeling like you’re part of it.
In the words of King Arnie of California. I’ll be back.
Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking 