brand values, Social media

Ekomi, GlobalApe.com and negative reviews that don’t get published

I bought a new printer for home a few months ago. An HP 8600 Pro. It uses big and expensive inks, but it’s fast and prints to a lovely quality – Particularly for photos. So I needed a source for genuine HP inks that wasn’t too expensive. I tend to buy a lot online and rely heavily on reviews to see who I can trust. GlobalApe.com weren’t someone I knew, but they had great reviews from Ekomi, so I thought i’d give them a go as they were miles cheaper than anyone else.

The first order took around three weeks to arrive and coincidentally landed on the day after I prompted them as to why they hadn’t arrived. I installed the one I needed and the printer immediately said it was faulty and possibly a fake. Hmmm. It did still seem to work okay though even though the printer wasn’t happy with the ink.

A few days later I got an email from Ekomi asking me to review my purchase with GlobalApe. Naturally I was less than impressed so gave them a one star review. Now Ekomi Don’t like this as it could mess up their clients near perfect 4.8 out of five score. Bear in mind they need to average over 4 out of five to gain Google gold stars and perform far better in Adwords searches – Which is how I found them.

So the mediation begins. I didn’t want to mediate, I just wanted to write a review and carry on with my life. Annerose Kennedy from Global Ape Support has done a perfect job and stalled and stalled and stalled. We are now up to 983 words of correspondence. Annerose has provided a replacement Cyan ink (which arrived in seven days) and still my one star review hasn’t appeared.

So what was the point of the review? If I can’t warn people that in MY experience, the ink took three weeks to arrive and then failed. It calls the whole point of reviews into question and I won’t be buying from organisations that display Ekomi reviews any more as I simply can’t trust them to be truthful. At the top of their reviews page, they claim the following:

  • 100% Independent
  • Absolutely Transparent
  • From Customers for Customers

But it’s not. It’s full of positive reviews as no-one is actually allowed to publish a negative. Sorry, but this is completely wrong – however helpful Annerose Kennedy is and however much they try and mediate me into me withdrawing my negative review.

Global Ape Ekomi reviews - Not worth the space on the Internet
Global Ape Ekomi reviews – Not worth the space on the Internet
Brand for Nottingham, branding

Julie Meyer – Welcome to Entrepreneur Country

I was at an event last night where Julie Meyer was the star attraction. She first made her name in setting up and selling First Tuesday and now heads up Ariadne Capital amongst others.

I was actually lucky enough to be in the small group that got to talk to her for an hour or so beforehand. So than you New College Nottingham for the invite. She was promoting her new book Welcome to Entrepreneur Country through the Gazelle Group of Colleges, but it didn’t really feel like she was peddling a book, it was more as though she was sharing her hard fought wisdom.

But for such a successful woman, she came out with a few things, which I thought were just lovely. The one that struck me as the most amazing was her attitude to work. It’s so far from the 1980’s view of money making, it’s amazing. No more ‘lunch is for wimps’ to be replaced with the brilliant aim..

“I want to work with smart, hardworking good people win” .

Brilliant, simple, exceptional and a nice way of doing business in what she described as the ‘New Normal’ in the economy in which we trade.

I bought the book and got it signed. I’m going to read it next and report back. But if it’s as good as it promises, i’ll be an even bigger fan.

brand values, branding, Economics

What Chance do Comet and any other electrical retailer have?

What chance Comet and any other underfunded high street retailer?
What chance Comet and any other underfunded high street retailer?

Sadly, on November 2nd Comet slipped into administration. It was probably inevitable, even though it was only purchased by private equity firm OpCapita last year for £2. I guess they overpaid for the 236 stores.

Maybe i’m an idealist, but I do think these stores have a place in the market and this is where I see it.

1. They are brand showrooms. They price match any price anywhere on the Internet. It means they will lose out on some margin on sales to those who are price sensitive, but reward the ones who make all the effort to search for the best online price (like I do). There is no substitute for seeing the product and pressing the buttons and you just can’t get this from a photo online.

2. They then charge for delivery or installation as no Internet retailers seem to offer this.

So, is this possible?

Amazon seem to be able to match any online price pretty closely and whilst they don’t have 236 stores, they still have lots of warehouse space and staff. My suspicion is that the rent and rates on the stores are simply too high to make these spaces pay. I hope Comet survive. Not because I am a fan per-se, but because I believe in choice. I don’t want to just buy from Amazon and John Lewis, but I do want to be rewarded with a better price for my research and for making the effort to drive out to see them in their store.

PS

I just went down to Comet in Nottingham Castle Marina. The only sign of any change at all is an A4 sheet in the window. It isn’t a bad looking store really and the staff I spoke to were all friendly and helpful. The staff have said that anything can be sold at face value only, no gift cards and no discounts. It did look a little like it had been robbed as there were lots of gaps in the stock (particularly in the upstairs bit!). Expect a fire sale soon.

PPS

Interestingly, when they bought the cahain, they said they would focus on low prices http://www.opcapita.com/news/OpCapita-puts-focus-on-value-at-Comet What i’m suggesting is just that.

Social media

Social media and genuine engagement

A social media Like isn’t a love. It’s not even a dislike.

I’ve been thinking how much social media has evolved in its short life.

A like on Facebook for business has no value whatsoever. It doesn’t show any level of engagement, it just shows that people want to be seen liking your business as they believe it will make them look good to their own peer group, or they want to enter one of your competitions and this is your entry requirement. So, for example, if you run Vegetarian cooking classes for experts. Some of your followers will want to show how advanced their vegetarian cooking skills are and a ‘like’ positions them as this to their own audience.

In the same way none of us ever need to give to charity any more, we just need to share the tweets and articles of others who write about what they are doing for charity. The most cynical gain all of the charitable halo, without any of the hard work. It gives them the ability to show their peers how benevolent they are and never need to reach into their pockets.

So this is a the REAL battle for business. A like isn’t a friend. it’s an alignment. There must be a way of extracting value from this, but as a stand alone like, a favourite or even a share, it’s still only an indication of a position and not any form of buying signal.

I am convinced that today’s socially savvy have enough ‘friends‘. Whether they know them all or not is a different matter. So, as brand owners, we need to slowly allow them to get to know us and offer them the same courtesy in return. Don’t stick your social media tongue down their throat on a first encounter, but rather allow the relationship to grow and flourish and you’ll have a chance of becoming social lovers.

Try it, see what happens, but feel free to share this with your own audience and i’ll see how wise you really are.

Social media

The hierarchy of like

It’s quite easy to say you like something these days. All you need to do is press ‘like’ on facebook and everyone can see you like it. But it’s quite meaningless and hollow isn’t it?

Of course I don’t like cancer, and of course i’m against racism, but clicking ‘like’ does absolutely nothing but give the person who started the chain of public pointlessness a warm glow and a stirring in their pants at their ability to move social media mountains. It doesn’t save lives and it doesn’t raise any money for the causes we are liking.

Does it mean a little more when you retweet, or favourite some else’s tweet? Probably. But not much more. Single button support is all too simple.

Next for me on the hierarchy is a text. it’s pretty easy and painless and doesn’t commit you to anything much really. It gives you a glow and them a vague feeling you’re there for them.

But if it really mattered or you wanted them to know it was important to them, you’d ring them wouldn’t you and tell them? With a mobile in every pocket, that’s ever so easy and ever so fast. It’s over and done with in a flash.

But at the top of my new social hierarchy is a letter.

If it matters, then write. By hand. The old fashioned way. Craft it a little and show people that what you think of them and that you care enough to put pen to paper.

Go on, see what happens.

brand values, branding

Jamie Oliver in Boots – Two brands that don’t work together

I quite like Jamie Oliver and I quite like Boots. I sometime pop into the latter for a cheap meal deal and something to make me look less old or ugly. BUt I don’t think they are brands that sit well together. As i’ve said before, brands work well together when they approach similar audiences who share a close match when you overlay their combined values. This isn’t the case with Boots and Jamie.

And I have some evidence to prove it.

Jamie Oliver and his so far unsuccessful assault on Boots lunch time audience

If you look at these two shelves side by side the one on the right is the normal Boots meal deal fare. £3.29 for sandwich, drink and crisps. On the left is Jamie’s good work. Sandwiches (which look lovely) starting at £3.70 and specifically excluded from the meal deal. By the time you add crisps and a decent smoothie you are at £6 or nearly double their normal price. 50p off isn’t going to impress or influence anyone.

As you can see one gondola is very full and one is very empty. That shot was at 14.45 today, so very little else will sell today.

Now, I don’t consider myself a tightwad in the lunch department, but this is a big step up in price for Boots customers. Too big. In Waitrose it may work, but not here.

This range will have to be included in the meal deal  – even with a small price premium – or it will fail fast.

It’s not because the sandwiches are bad or the retailer is at fault. It’s just that there is nowhere near enough overlay in the values.

The promo video

This is what Jamie Oliver said before the launch.

I genuinely believe he is passionate about the product, but sadly unless there is a fundamental shift in Boots customers’ buying behaviour, it will be in the meal deal and dumbed down to meet the price point, or  sadly it will fail.

Update 25.10.12

I went in again today at 17.05 to see how it was getting on today. The picture still doesn’t lie. There is an enormous amount left in Jamie’s stand and far less in the one on the right. It looks more even because the standard one has been re-merchandised to bring the remaining stock forward. And of course, we don’t know whether they had a jamie delivery overnight and how much will have to be thrown away.

Jamie Oliver's lunch in Boots - Stlll not really selling very many sandwiches
Jamie Oliver’s lunch in Boots – Stlll not really selling very many sandwiches
branding

A great 007 branded PR stunt by Coke Zero

We were always taught that for every £ you spent on a sponsorship deal you needed to spend £2 more to exploit the relationship, When Tetley came into rugby it’s one of the reasons they did so much better out of it than the likes of B&H and Cornhill did in the old days of cricket sponsorship.

Well, Coke Zero have set up this fun stunt to to challenge people to get a few people to try and be a (tiny) bit like James Bond. Offering them free tickets, but putting an urban obstacle course in the way.

I’ve never quite understood the point of Coke Zero before. I guess it is a Diet Coke for blokes who don’t want to be seen to be drinking a diet drink. By using young blokes to carry out the stunts, they have done a good job of positioning the brand for me.

I think it’s quite clever and very much more powerful than a simple trailer promo.

Looking at the YouTube Stats it shows it’s working too, with just about 3,000,000 viewers in four days, 26,000 likes and demographics as follows:

Top demographics
Male, 25-34 years
Male, 35-44 years
Male, 45-54 years

Therefore, money well spent.

brand values, branding

O2 getting down wiv da kids

This is just so brilliant. I’m sure it’s not been sanctioned by the O2 brandmongers, but it is so funny.

o2 getting down wiv da kids

Thanks to the rather excellent copybot for sharing this with us.

branding

Bus travel is cool

I’m not sure that everyone would agree but bus travel is now officially cool. This ad from Denmark proves it.

This ad, which is completely tongue in cheek is being run by a small bus company called Midttrafik based in Aarhus in Denmark. It’s brave, t’s quite funny and I can’t quite see many UK bus companies running anything similar anytime soon.

branding

The beginning of the end for Apple

iPhone 5 is almost here, but does anyone really, really care?
iPhone 5 is almost here, but does anyone really, really care?

I was asked by my good friend Simon Egan today to comment on what I thought about this article on the BBC about Apple, which basically says they are no longer innovative and have become merely followers. And, despite being an Apple user for well over 20 years (before it was this widespread) I have to say, I agreed with it.

In fact, I completely agree. Apple is no longer special or surprising. It’s too ubiquitous to be different or sought after.

iPhone five with its new dock will annoy masses of people as it will render all their own kit worthless. I have a beautiful Valve based Amplifier that was totally designed around that very connecter. Admittedly I use it with my old style disk based chunky iPod and not my iPhone, but it means the end is nigh.

My sixteen year old daughter broke her iPhone (by dropping it down the toilet) and moaned for a few days but it’s all gone quiet. She is now using my old Nokia and has just stopped complaining because it’s a better phone and you can still text. The rest is a waste of time done better by other devices. I experimented a few years back and lived without my iPhone for three months. I enjoyed it and may well go back there.

Unless apple do something truly radical it will begin to fail. The new Televsion they are due to launch will give them a big positive blip but I can’t see them being able to do much after that. Most of our tech is covered and unless they invent a new category like they did with the original iPod, they may well be left high and dry.

They could obviously extend into Domestic appliances? But for me, that really will be the end. Look at Bugatti, Dualit and the other once great brands that have gone into pastiche brand extensions. That’s where apple will arrive soon enough unless they go back to where they should be and innovate.