Breaking Borders, like only Coke can

Growing up in Dubai with a whole lot of people from across the border, I found it unfathomable that there was such a gulf on understanding between Indians and Pakistanis. A shared history spanning thousands of years, it is quite remarkable indeed how little the last two generations understand each other. Anyway, I could go on about the geo-political factors leading to this, but hey let’s get back on course.

Coke’s been doing some neat vending machine techie stuff for the last few years, but they’ve now done something truly extraordinary – a simple insight, that makes the boundaries that we have created over the last 65 years seem a tad bit easier to break. Well done.

 

Watch it. Smile. It’s about time.

Got my money on this horse

When you’re serving food to almost a third of the nation, finding out that a part of your burgers once neighed instead of mooed can very quickly turn very ugly. Of course, as you try to get your PR agency to draft up scenarios and mile-long Q&A, and while your solid team of lawyers gets cracking on limiting your liability, your panic runs rampant as you’re assaulted from every possible manner.

 

‘How, oh how would I hold onto these reins?’, wondered Mr Tesco

 

And then they did a truly counter-intuitive, incredibly bold thing: they took responsibility. And they got it right.

A few weeks ago, I was indulging in my pleasurable cold train platform scanning of the pages of the Metro when I came across an open letter from Tesco. These letter have a way of looking remarkably similar, and I half considered not reading it for fear it would be another hoard of corporate affairs-legal-dept-approved piece of insincere garbage (reminiscent of a certain siren-wielding brand) attempted at side-stepping any blame and making an effort to wash their hands off the guilt.

But food contamination is a significantly more sensitive topic than a few million pounds in lost taxes, really, and I hadn’t really been following the burger fiasco, and it was cold, and I was bored, and there weren’t that many words involved, so I did it the courtesy of a quick read. And then I read it again.

Tesco took complete responsibility, did not try to be patronise its shoppers by taking on a ‘personal’ approach from ‘the MD’, and (what I imagine was written in a calm voice) apologised unreservedly. They gave a little bit of health advice to prevent panic, and told us that with or without a proof of purchase, we could go to any of their stores and get a full refund. And if that wasn’t enough, they promised to come back to ‘us’ once they had learnt more. Sure, they would..

Yesterday, as I flipped another copy of the same journal of London literature, this time on a more wet than cold platform, there was another letter. This time I read it more patiently. And then I read it again. Here it was – they actually came back with a follow up. While the source of the problem was a third party, they again reiterated their responsibility when it came to their products, shared the actions taken and the new standards put in place, and apologised once again for losing our trust.

I am hugely sceptical of ‘managed content’ that comes out of big brands, and on many an occasion have been on the side of drafting it for those brand I’ve managed, and if anything, this sort of thing fills me with great respect. A company that was at one point worth more on the stock exchange than the entire banking sector of this financial capital, being authentic in confronting such a situation, not after weeks of media-led pressure, but right as the crisis began to brew, was thoroughly refreshing. It mustn’t have been easy to sell that to the lawyers. And now as Aldi, Lidl, Iceland, Asda and Burger King and whoever else comes into the limelight on the same issue, Tesco can stand aside, having averted a catastrophe.

They’re forgiven. And they will keep their market share. And there are some fantastic lessons for us all to learn from this company. In these times of great mistrust and uncertainty, all people want is for someone to be truthful, because shit happens. And Tesco got that. And they worked it. And they deserve an applause for a master class in reputation management.

Tired of going to office? Find yourself a new one!

Reblogged from Chemistry@Work:

In a search of a coworking space in London.

Holidays are finally over and its time to go back to the office. Thousands of people were dreading coming back to work this week and wishing they could at least work from home to avoid facing the reality for longer.

I don't have to go to office this week, but I feel you, people.

Read more… 587 more words

The world's moving way too quickly for one to keep sitting on the same desk and chair at work. Mix it up a bit. The future of the mobile worker is here. Fantastic resources here.

IE Sucks… Less.

I got up this morning, full of random thoughts as always. One of the really random ones was a distant memory of having attended the worldwide launch of WindowsXP about 11 years ago. I have some scattered memories from that day: a free bag, a free bouncy illuminated rubber ball, remote desktop being presented, and the pizza I had with my friend at a random joint in Dubai after.

As with most morning thoughts, these got showered away in the next few minutes. However, I saw some content today, that made me realise – they’re been an awful amount of noise coming out of Microsoft lately. It’s slightly sporadic and in pockets, but it’s there. Just within the course of the day, I got exposed to various pieces of comms going around with the MS logo on it.

Lots of outdoor adverts – many on the London Underground stations, selling the hell out of Surface. I think it’s a good piece of kit, and the timing of it is good. And I actually thought that the launch advert was catchy and had soul. Do check it out if you haven’t. My techie buds weren’t big fans, since it was light on the product features, but hey – who said tablets are targeted to them. Question remain on their distribution strategy, but that’s for another time.

And then I saw SCROOGLED – a direct stab at their arch rival. It’s informative, but it’s a bit insecure and desperate. Negative attacks are really not the way forward – but perhaps that’s perspective is a result of me having too much time in passive-aggressive-polite-always-Britain. This one isn’t great, really, but if I’m honest it has left me with some doubt about the Goog. Not nearly enough to even dream of considering a switch to Bing, as I don’t have as much grief from this revelation as the girl on the page, but it’s a great seed sown.

 

And finally, this cheeky little vid being seeded about:

Quite clever and self-deprecating, it did cause a little stir of joy even though I am a Chrome fanatic. Again, a small, but deliberate step in the right diredction.

Verdict: A number of tech and engineering heavy brands are trying to give some real context, heart, and human personality to their comms. Fair play. And it’s a process of learning. And there certainly is enough variety to suggest confusion/silo operation. Some would argue some kind of a central masterbrand idea needs to play as a central thread in their comms, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s the way. Just whatever they do, I hope they don’t follow the Nestle approach to ‘tagging’ all their ads.

Clouded Judgement From Guinness

You know I don’t exaggerate when I say that entire volumes of academia can be produced around the best in class advertising that we link to Guinness. True marketing genius, really. So you can imagine my utter disappointment when I sat through the most exciting part before a film (the trailers + ads – a bit of a geek, but hey!) and saw this:

Forget volumes, I don’t think this even deserves a paragraph worth of analysis. The brief around ‘made of more’ feels rich and inspiring; the execution is frankly uninteresting.

I had to quickly do the damage to my perception of this brand by watching this – a true delight.

Most recently, it was shared by our creative agency to inspire my team. That’s how good your stuff is supposed to be.

Of course, no one should try to hard – some appalling stuff from Ukranian International Airlines that down here (courtesy Ads of the World). But, your ‘Cloud’ is not even this memorable.

I’m sorry Guinness. We expect more.

Sing Me A Samsong

Never have I ever had a Samsung product. Whether it was a tablet, smartphone, dumbphone, TV, camera, laptop or refrigerator, never have I felt a gaping void in my due to the lack of Samsung in my life. It was clearly not the product quality – I’ve never tried it to know. It was just the utter lack of sex appeal I associate with the brand. I mean look at this logo. Really, look at it.

Doesn’t quite make you wet does it? Your muscles don’t twitch in anticipation of its touch, do they? Hmm.. I’m right off topic now, aren’t I.

Anyway, so here’s the joy of it all: Samsung’s changing. And appears to be more than a mere flash in the pan.

A couple of months ago, they turned around a low-cost ad-mockery of Apple fanboys with a superbly timed little video. It was hugely popular amongst people that identified with either ends of the spectrum.

And now, they’ve teamed of with the Overly Attached Girlfriend (see original video here and add to the 13.5m views already). She’s the base for thousands of online memes and a regular feature on shared content on social media. And she’s talking about.. wait for it.. SSDs.

Now what on Earth is an SSD? Well, it’s a solid state drive. But who cares, really. Certainly not all of the 991,000+ viewers to date! However, slowly, but surely Samsung’s becoming ‘cool’. You can’t create ‘viral content’ in my belief. You can create super cool content, that taps into popular culture, and then sit back, cross your fingers, and hope that people will share it with others, as social currency they want their friends and networks to link them to. But that’s really about it.

Samsung, I’m lovin’ it.

Another jewel just to sign off – the thorn in Gillette’s side, an incredible entrepreneur: Will King – The King of Shaves – lessons on how you don’t need to spend millions to tap into whatever’s capturing the nation’s imagination.

OMG, LG!

Don’t know about you, but this does not make me feel positively about LG. Fine line, that.

So real it’s scary, I get. But my rational admiration (and I suspect of many of those that were in there) is insignificant relative to the horror of the claustrophobic acrophobic nightmare this represents. Perhaps a step too far?