I was at east Midlands Airport recently and they have something of a captive market for their meal deals with both Superdrug and WH smith offering meal deals for £3.99. On the surface this looks like great value.
WH Smith is a brand that started 224 years ago in 1792 in London and has 1,351 outlets with 615 on the high street and 736 travel outlets in airports and stations. It turned over nearly £1.2 BILLION in 2015 and employs 14,500 people.
So with all of these years of experience, heritage and the sheer number of interested parties, you’d think they would understand the concept of authentic brand values. Built on this history and surviving the worst of the high street recessions they really ought to know better.
But they don’t. They have an own brand product in store called ‘Munch’ which is entirely fake.
WH Smith Munch Sandwich a brand with totally fake values
Munch, which is a range of sandwiches and wraps, tells you you can ‘Grab a bite of the good stuff’. A pretty compelling proposition for food on the go. They back this up with a brand support statement that says ‘Gloriously delicious food-to-go. So irresistible everyone wants to get their paws on it! Satisfies even the wildest of appetites…’
WH Smith Munch Sandwiches with a brand statement that is totally fabricated
But the sandwich was disgusting. I didn’t want more, I never want to eat it again, I never want to eat anything for sale in WH Smith. I didn’t even want to finish the sandwich. Eating it, made me feel ill and dirty. Eggshell in the egg mayo didn’t help and even the bread was stale and unnatural. So I had to have look at the ingredients.
This was a total shock. I was genuinely horrified with what it contained and it bore no relation to the brand values all over the packaging whatsoever.
WH Smith Munch Sandwich – The ingredients 100% horrible with an added of 18% of total shit
Even trying to ignore the fact that claimed ingredients added up to 118% (It must be all the shit they have piled in to make it taste less natural and healthy) the list was not all all irresistible. In fact it was entirely resistible.
I won’t be eating ‘Munch’ again. I’d suspect that if this is how WH Smith run their business, they are in trouble. I’ve talked about Tesco in the past and the start of their problems being with the quality of their products, which all came true. Any brand that says one things and delivers another like Abercrombie and Fitch will be found out soon enough. WH Smith are that brand.
I’m no whistle blower, but if I had any money invested in WH Smith, I’d get it out fast. This is a brand heading for the gutter.
The UK is about to become the second country in the world (after Australia) and the first in Europe to enforce plain packaging for cigarettes. It is due to be implemented by 20th May 2016, although it doesn’t seem to have happened yet. I wrote about it here in 2011 and my view still hasn’t changed.
Plain packaging for Cigarettes in the UK
And I think it’s a bad idea for a few reasons.
Taking away the branding will allow cheaper brands to compete on a level playing field with the big brands. Rather than making it less attractive they will make it more affordable. If you can’t see the difference in the packs and you’re new to smoking, why would you buy the bigger and more expensive brands?
It will make it easier for fakes to come into the market as the packaging is even easier to copy. Fake cigarettes aren’t made to the same standard and could even be more dangerous and contain all sorts of additional nasties.
You will make it cooler. It is now so obviously a bad thing that it becomes something that is more attractive to do. Anyone who has ever smoked, knows the dangers and ignores them. In Martin Lindstrom’s brilliant book Buyology he proves using brain scans that when smokers see the warnings on packs, rather than put them off smoking, it creates an almost religious like fervour. They become more desirable – despite all good sense saying otherwise. The more you try and drive it underground, the more prevalent it will become. As a parallel, it’s not exactly difficult to get hold of Cannabis these days and that’s meant to be banned altogether.
It appears that the tobacco industry are going to take the government to court for loss of trademark value. According to the Telegraph, this could be for up to £11 billion.
Smokers pay their own way – Because they kill themselves with smoking they have finite lives. they pay fortunes into the NHS through the taxes on cigarettes and on average, die much younger. The cynic in me says the government know this and by taking this route, they will maybe even make more money in tax revenue on smoking. The UK government take £11 billion PER YEAR from smokers. Are they really trying to kill this golden goose?
The only good plan (according to the Sun) in my mind is to ban packs of ten cigarettes and Menthol cigarettes. These are definitely entry products for young smokers. There will always be enterprising kids at school who will break bulk and sell singles (or loosies as they were in my day) but it will make smoking a little harder to start.
It’s only my view, but I am convinced I see more young people smoking than ever before. Putting cigarettes behind doors in the retail outlets doesn’t appear to have made any difference – It may even have had the opposite effect to the one they claim they were aiming at – And they are ploughing on anyway.
I’m not going to say much here, so I’ll let you decide for yourself. I have talked about Google and their monopolistic power previously. Google is still totally dominant in the global search market. You’ll see from this graphic below that they have 67.78% of total search share compared to the next biggest Bing with only 13.27%. That’s over five times the share. In the Uk, this is 86.6% for Google and only 8.88% for Bing, which is over ten fold.
Share of search market April 2016
So you would expect that their results would be completely above reproach wouldn’t you? They’d play fair as they are in such an obvious monopolistic position right?
Wrong.
I wanted to understand how seller ratings worked in Bing. Were they any different to those in Google? Was there anything else I needed to know?
So an obvious search term produced the following results in Google with no sign of Bing on the whole of the first page.
Bing Seller ratings search results in Google
And in Bing, quite different results here with their own two useful articles in first and second place as you’d expect.
Bing Seller ratings search results in Bing
So based on my search intention of trying to find more information about ‘Bing Seller ratings markup’, which produced the most useful results?
This does look remarkably like a playing field that is not at all level. Naughty Google.
Since I wrote this earlier today, Google have been all over BBC news for their alleged abuse of power with Android too.
British Steel first appeared in 1967 which was formed out of the nationalised British Steel Corporation (BSC). It went on to be privatised and launched as British Steel plc in 1988. It was even big enough to be part of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1999 the company merged with Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group and even then, many of us thought it was a mistake and would start the end of the steel industry in Britain. It’s easy with hindsight, but it looks like that was right.
Corus logo
And it’s why we need British Steel again. Quality, traceable, home manufactured fabulous, british steel. It may not have been a glamorous brand, but it was one we knew and understood.
I shared a tweet the other day by a man called Dick who pointed out the following “The argument for Trident is that it costs £120bn and saves 600 jobs. The argument against Steel is that it costs £1.5bn and saves 15,000 jobs”
There is a new standard in Europe called BS/EN 1090 and what it says is that EVERYTHING, right down to welding rods has to be traceable back to source. No traceability, no CE Mark. This is currently impossible with imported steel as there is no way of knowing where it came from. If you don’t know how it was made, where it was made or what it was made with, then how can you guarantee it is safe? For an insurer, how can they assess that risk?
So for me, bringing back British Steel would be a huge step forward.
So maybe this is just too obvious to be useful but if we are about to lose our steel industry and 15,000 jobs anyway, then surely it must be worth investing in this industry again.
We poured billions into our banks to save face more than to save jobs and now it must be time for this support to turn to one of our core industries. Steel.
Even taking the finances alone. 15,000 families will be immediately having to draw benefits for some considerable time. Let’s say an average of three years. Then by my maths that’s at least £1bn million over this period and ongoing devastation to communities that just don’t need more bad news.
If you take Port Talbot as a case, then maybe energy is the issue? This can be solved with the Severn Barrage. Every aluminium producer in the world seems to use Hydro Power to smelt aluminium, so why not clean steel up at the same time and make it go green. That’s a bargain at between £10-34bn – which makes the saving of steel look positively cheap.
Severn Barrages map
British Steel is Britain through and through. It’s literally what our country was built with and by my very simple way of thinking, something our government should not just support but make it a model of how decent targeted intervention can help rebuild Britain from our proud industrial heritage outwards.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but my first reaction when I heard that VW had rigged the software in their cars to behave differently when it detected it was being tested, I thought “wow, that’s clever”.
There’s no doubt they have done a huge amount of harm to their brand and damaged the trust that has been built over many, many years. They deserve a really big fine as they have been found out as liars. Brand owners who lie generally get found out and they generally struggle to build their brand back up afterwards.
But, do they deserve to be put out of business when it is near certain that every other manufacturer in the world is pulling the same stunt, without having been caught yet?
I think not.
It’s bad yes, but it isn’t life and death. They will be hit hard enough with a potentially huge decrease in sales and profits for years to come.
So for me, the talk of a £20bn fine is excessive. When you add in the lawyers scurrying around like leeches starting Class Actions in the US and it’s getting ridiculous. Assume £10,000 per car and this could easily be another £50bn on top. Really, have they done £70bn of harm?
Perhaps an unfair comparison, but 10,000 people affected by Thalidomide are sharing £80m between all of them. A tiny amount to cover for lives that have been destroyed by a vile drug company, who should be paying themselves. The effect on them is a little more than a few MPG less than you were expecting.
As I work with some great theme parks, I am a member of the Themed Entertainment Association. One of the benefits of membership is their organisation of visits to some of the best the world has to offer, to see what they do and how they do it. And I have just come back from Puy du Fou, and can safely say that it is, without doubt, the best theme park in the world.
It’s a total one of a kind and without any of the conventional rides you associate with other theme parks. It draws in the local community, trains all its own staff through its academy, creates everything internally (even the shoes and costumes) and delivers spectacular, emotive and beautiful shows that you have to see to believe.
It’s been created by Phillippe de Villiers, the father of Nicolas de Villiers who runs it today (and who showed us around). The control Nicolas still exercises is phenomenal. It’s not like any other brand. If anything it’s a little like Google in the way they controlled their growth in the early years but this has lasted for 35 years already. He even interviews the shortlisted kids for the academy and watches every Cinescenie to be able to feed back to the managers where they could do the show even better. The level of detail they manage is unbelievable and even the back stage areas are immaculate.
We had a totally jam packed 48 hours and got to see behind the scenes of nearly every show. Here’s a summary of the best of them.
The Vikings
The first show I saw there and an amazing introduction to life at Puy du Fou. It’s filled with eagles, horned beasts, vikings and marauders, all backed up with huge explosions, gigantic flames and boats magically appearing from stage left and under the water, with the performers disappearing with it. Animals everywhere and a large cast. It’s an amazing start and an even bigger ending.
The Viking show at Puy du Fou before it all goes mental
Cattle and vikings everywhere at Puy du Fou
The Viking Castle that gets stormed and a huge eagle popping into visit at Puy du Fou
A viking ship arrives as part of the viking show at Puy du Fou
huge explosions at the Viking show at Puy du Fou
And even bigger explosions at the Puy du Fou Viking show
And then another huge viking ship emerges from the water at Puy du Fou
The boat that emerged from the water disappears again under the water at Puy du Fou
The Knights of the Round Table
It’s a story of Excalibur with Merlin, mermaids, sword fights in the water, horses walking out of the huge hidden caverns underwater and probably the simplest of the whole lot we saw. It’s great fun, has the best safety warning I have ever seen (hilarious) and I saw it twice.
The Knights of the round table show beginning at Puy du Fou
Merlin appears at the top of a castle at Puy du Fou in the Knights of the round table show
The knights take to the boat in the show at Puy du Fou
And then this happens. All the water disappears and mad things happen at Puy du Fou
It gets bigger and bigger as the water drains away at Puy du Fou
And then the round table is revealed at Puy du Fou
Before a horse emerges from under the water which is unusual at Puy du Fou
The Secret of the Lance
This is a huge show that just keeps on growing. Spectacular horse riding, massive sword fights and jousting and flames everywhere. Then a disappearing castle, another HUGE castle that moves and rotates and amazing sounds and effects everywhere. There are things going on all over the place and we were lucky enough to get to see behind the scenes here. It was sooooo good, that a few times during the show I felt myself becoming a bit emotional.
The start of the show at The secret of the lance at Puy du Fou
The Knights move in at the secret of the lance at Puy du Fou
The horsemen jump on and off at full speed as they fly by at Puy du Fou
The first castle starts to disappear at the secret of the lance at Puy du Fou
And then the big castle in the background starts movimg towards you at Puy du Fou
And then the castle rotates to reveal the main houe behind at Puy du Fou
Big explosions at the secret of the lance at Puy du Fou
The end of the secret of the lance show with the bird baloon behind
Behind the castle wall at the secret of the lance at Puy du Fou
Triumph’s Sign
This is a huge great roman spectacular played out in a purpose built amphitheatre that seats over 7,000 people. Again, it starts off quite small and then just grows and grows. The cast is huge and varied and whilst the story is their own version of history, it’s still truly amazing. Just look at the pictures.
The Roman show (Triumph’s Sign) begins in front of 7,000 people at Puy du Fou
At the start of the roman show at Puy du Fou, they parade in with ducks, emu’s, camels and pigs. As you do at Puy du Fou
The gladiators getting ready to put some bloke to the sword at the Roman Show at Puy du Fou
Caesar gives a thumbs down to the prisoners at the roman show at Puy du Fou
And a load of prisoners are told they have to fight the gladiators as part of the roman show at Puy du Fou
The chariots line up for the race at Puy du Fou in the huge roman amphitheatre
And they don’t hold back, moving at amazing speed around the track at Puy du Fou
Some lions come in and look menacing at Puy du Fou
With one lion tamer looking like bait at Puy du Fou
The Lions of Puy du Fou
A leopard wanders in around the edge of the amphitheatre at Puy du Fou
Richelieu’s Musketeer
I saw this one twice too. It’s the only inside show and simply massive. Perhaps a little hard to follow in french, but I found it far more enjoyable to just watch the show and ignore the story. It’s breathtaking but you aren’t allowed to take photos, so this is a sneaky one of the set, just as the flamenco dancers start going crazy. It’s quite reminiscent of Riverdance with horses and water and swords and explosions and…..
Puy du Fou has a huge indoor show called Richelieu’s Musketeer with a massive stage and even bigger cast.
The Phantom Birds’ Dance
Now this was a real highlight. Again I saw it twice from two different seating positions. The first time from down in the pit gave a great view, but the second time, right at the back at the sides gave you far closer access to the birds. The show itself is incredible with beautiful, haunting music and a cast of over 170 birds. If you are going to sit at the very back, it’s probably best to shuffle forwards just a little so you don’t get pooped on by a vulture, like I did. There is simply noting like this anywhere in the world. It is totally breathtaking.
The bird handlers are incredible as are the trained birds at Puy du Fou
A gigantic eagle flies overhead with the baloon even higher that it as released from
You don’t see this everyday, but a lady levitates and is surrounded by over 170 giant birds at Puy du Fou
An eagle on the head is everyday at Puy du Fou
And owls staring you out as part of the bird show at Puy du Fou
A rather large vulture comes way too close to me at Puy du Fou and pooped down my back
It’s not everyday you see a microlight with trained geese following, but you do at Puy du Fou
and a young guest looks eye to eye with a bird in training at Puy du Fou
The baloon close up which houses the vultures and many more at Puy du Fou
The Organs of Fire
This was the first night show I saw and can only be described as breathtaking (I’ve used that a lot haven’t i!). It starts with a lone violinist emerging, her dress lighting up and her floating around the lake playing music until she meets the pianist, who does the same. The orchestras appear, huge fountains emerge and an even bigger organ suddenly appears to add to the music and the gigantic party. I thought it was the biggest show I’d ever seen, but I hadn’t seen Cinescenie at this point!
The first night show, amazing to see but hard to photograph at Puy du Fou
The Organs of fire at Puy du Fou
Massive fountains and huge brilliant music at the Organs of Fire at Puy du Fou
The Cinescenie
Now this show breaks record after record. It’s the largest permanent show in the world with a nightly cast of 1,500, all of whom are volunteers. None of them get paid. There are 3,400 of them trained to play their roles and it’s held 28 time per year in front of a crowd of 14,000. For the volunteers, it’s a huge social and cinematic event and they train all year. It’s so popular that there are over 1,000 on the waiting list to volunteer and you can’t buy tickets for the event for another year. I won’t say too much about it but it is simply massive, incredible and beautiful (and hard to photograph). I have again, never seen anything like this. It started at 10.45 pm and went on until well after 12.15, so it’s a good long show too. It’s worth it for the fireworks alone.
And inside one of the five cast villages for the huge Cinescenie production at Puy du Fou
We were even given wine by the incredibly happy volunteer staff behind the scenes at Cinescenie Puy du Fou
The back of the Chateau at Cinescenie before it wnt dark at Puy du Fou
And the Chateau is lit up at the fabulous Cinescenie show at Puy du Fou
it’s when you see the cast appear you realise the scale of the Cinescenie show at Puy du Fou
A huge village is lit up from nowhere in Cinescenie at Puy du Fou
The biggest cast of any permanent show anywhere in the world at Puy du Fou
Even more of the fireworks at Cinescenie and the 1,500 performers in the foreground
Holograms appear over the lake at Puy du Fou during Cinescenie
huge floats move past in Cinescenie at Puy du Fou
The castle is transformed by light at Cinescenie at Puy du Fou
Part of Cinescenie at Puy duFou
The fireworks at Cinescenie at Puy du Fou
More of the Cinescenie fireworks at Puy du Fou
The TEA Team
Being with the TEA gave us an all access pass to the whole site and the team that created it. It was a huge privilege and worth the membership in its own right. For only three days away it was completely exhausting, but to be able to get to see this place was worth it and i’ll be back to do it again.
A few relaxing drinks after with the TEA partyThe Land Train that takes you around the park
Are you watching Nottingham?
It does however make me sad when I see references to knights, castles and even Robin Hood himself that my home City of Nottingham, can’t even get an attraction out of the ground to recognise our most famous son. The French have delivered a genius show that would draw in millions of visitors if it was created here. Nottingham still hasn’t delivered a single thing. So, Nottingham, please take note. Puy du Fou turns over €74m and is very profitable, filling every hotel for miles around with it’s 1.9 million visitors per year. A little of this would go a long way.
Where we stayed
The accommodation offer is quite new, but growing fast. They may look like simple tents, but they house a fabulously well equipped four poster bedroom with wet room, two bunks for kids and even decent wifi.
The tented village at Puy du Fou which is a beautiful hotel room in disguise
Summary
If you have kids you have to come here. If you don’t come anyway. It’s amazing, awe inspiring and unique. It’s the best kept secret and the best theme park in the world. And it’s my new favourite.
With Natwest as a Black Account customer, you and your family members that live with you have such valuable cover
I have been with Natwest bank since my first day at University in 1984. My business banks with them too and so do all my family members based on my own previous good experience. I have paid extra for the ‘benefits’ of the Black Account at a cost of £24 per month for years and years, having been transferred over from the previous Private Banking Account, which I paid £200 per year for before that. I guess you could call me a loyal customer. So you would hope for some loyalty in return right? Err, wrong.
As you can see above, on the very front of the Natwest member Benefits site it says
Just one of the benefits of your Black Account We rely on our mobile phones so much these days, it’s comforting to know as a Black Account customer, you and your family members that live with you have such valuable cover. With Black Account mobile phone insurance, your mobile or smart phone is covered against loss, theft, unauthorised use, damage or breakdown, wherever you are in the world. You’re automatically covered but if your phone is registered, it may make the process quicker if you have to make a claim. Cover is for a maximum of four phones owned by you and family members.
But this simply isn’t the case. It turns out that unless you read the fine print, your family living at home are only covered if they are still in full time education.
My daughter who has finished her A levels and still has an open and unconditional offer to study Photography in Nottingham is not considered as being a member of my family as she was starting work the next day, despite still being 18 years old and living at home.
The rejection letter from Aviva Natwest and Carphone Whorehouse
The ‘Benefit’ is administered by both Aviva and Carphone Whorehouse and despite having spoken to all of them, the claim is still being rejected.
It’s not surprising that people have little time and zero respect for banks as the brand they portray behaves completely differently to the one they live. You can’t trust banks and it seems you can’t trust insurance companies. And with a Five Star Defaqto rating, it makes me wonder whether they can be trusted too.
Updated 05.07.15
So, social media works if you want to get huge multinational companies cave in and start behaving reasonably. It does still trouble me that it is only those that shout the very loudest who get some form of justice, but in this case, Natwest, Aviva and Carphone Whorehouse have backed down and paid the claim for a new iPhone. Thank you – Particularly to Andy at Aviva Support. Now do us all a favour and change your policy to be more reasonable and cover all family members – or change your advertising to make it clear it is only for under 23’s in full time employment.
What next for Alton Towers, Merlin and The SmilerWhat happened in the accident was nothing short of horrific and has wrecked young lives forever. I can’t imagine how frightening that must have been and it must never happen again, anywhere in the world.
But for a moment, I would like to take a slightly dispassionate look at what I believe will happen to the brands of Alton Towers, Merlin and The Smiler.
Firstly I think the brand of Alton Towers will be fine, it will be damaged for a while, numbers will be down, but in reality, there is never a safer time to visit any attraction than just after an accident. Every early warning system will be on super high alert and the HSE will be crawling all over their every move. Alton Towers is a British superbrand and the way that Merlin CEO Nick Varney has handled himself in the press has been, in my opinion, nothing short of excellent, open and honest. He has allowed all of the bad news to come out, offered refunds to anyone who wants them and generally sounded very distressed by the incident. He has displayed good human values that people will relate to. He has four kids himself and I’m sure they use the park themselves, so of course he would want it to be world class safe – what parent wouldn’t?
Merlin are a world class brand. I saw a presentation from their Head of HR at Blooloop live a few weeks ago and they are delivering standards worldwide. I think this means you can rest assured that they will be running the most stringent safety checks on every one of their rides in every country they operate (which is a lot). Merlin will now get better because of this – everywhere.
But for Smiler, the future is less certain. There is an awful argument that this only adds a new element of danger to the ride for the real risk takers, but I hate this argument. For me, risk in an attraction MUST only ever be perceived. Real risk is just not appropriate in a fun environment.
So I think Smiler is on its way out. I would suggest that it will be removed as quietly as possible (press coverage allowing), maybe with the costs covered by the German manufacturers and it will turn up with totally new branding and maybe a new track layout in another market (The Far East or possibly Eastern Europe). The Smiler brand is busted and if I was in charge, I would bite the financial bullet and get rid of the bad name it could yet deliver.
In the meantime, I can only wish for a speedy recovery for those who have been injured both physically and mentally. And thanks to the London Evening Standard for their image. Here’s the link to their article.
We saw recently that Tesco announced a quite staggering £6.4bn loss on trading. A huge headline figure, but in reality a total myth to allow the business the time and money to restructure.
The loss was caused by £7bn of one off write downs including a property write down of £4.7bn. Now, I’m no accountant, but if my maths are anywhere near right, this will meant they can reclaim at least £1.4bn in tax on their profits they paid last year and maybe claw some back from previous years too. So rather than lose £6.4bn, they have actually made £2bn in actual cash profit in the last 12 months. With me so far?
On the day that Tesco made the announcement, their share price fell by 5% to 223p. But in reality it had been at a low of only 150p during that same year and it is a huge growth in actual value over the same period. It’s at around 216p today. Hardly the sign of a business in crisis in the eyes of the market.
The disparity in their profit is far stranger when you consider how they got away with such a HUGE property write down when Helical Bar, the (mainly) London based Property Developer announced yesterday that their portfolio had increased in value by 27% in the previous 12 months?
Each of the other supermarkets seems to have followed suit with huge portfolio write downs, which only goes to confirm that it is another corrupt accounting practice each of them is employing to claw back tax.
Jack Welch, the former GE CEO said in a famous interview that with bad news, you have to get it all out fast, as it’s going to come out anyway. This feels to me what Tesco have done. They have painted a picture that is even worse than reality to shock the expectations lower.
This will give them the time, money and opportunity to take stock and rebuild the brand by putting in front line staff. They need to rebuild relationships with suppliers and build trust with customers. They need to listen, adapt and listen some more. And then they need to action their ideas fast, before the market moves again.
The Tesco brand is not dead, it’s just sleeping. It’ll be back and hopefully with a little more grace and a desire to please customers rather than only focus on the profit.
I saw this video today by Gary Turk and shared it on Facebook on my personal account. Without any form of promotion, today it has been shared 40 times which is exceptional. If you watch the video it talks about real engagement.
Brand engagement is about more than just likes and shares on Facebook
As a brand and social media specialist who shows real brands how to treat their customers and behave online, it is a very, very timely reminder that real engagement is about far more than likes, shares and a few extra follows. You have to be brilliant offline to allow people to get you online.
Real engagement is about getting inside people’s heads. It’s about becoming part of their lives, so they can’t live without you. It’s about building proper relationships where you give things as well as just take them.
Real engagement is real life and that’s what Gary’s film shows us.
Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking 