Chocolate fix

I almost heart BBC iPlayer - pt 2

2008-04-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

And here's a piece that sheds more light on the challenges of managing the growth in popularity of BBC iPlayer:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7336940.stm

I almost heart BBC iPlayer

2008-04-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ha, ha! Despite knowing lots of ‘stuff’ I still fell for the BBC's flying penguins April Fools' yesterday morning. Great spoof. And of course both real and virtual worlds were buzzing about it.

The penguins spoof actually marks the launch of the second phase of the BBC’s multi-dimensional marketing campaign for iPlayer. I’ve been using iPlayer since the turn of the year and it has the potential to be truly wonderful. Evidently I’m not on my own with 11m programmes streamed/downloaded and 2.2m users in January alone. It’s a great demonstration of ‘technology’ at its best. It is so simple to use. No downloading, complicated instructions or waiting. Truly click and go. The programmes run in almost DVD like quality, even in full screen, no jerkiness or atmosphere destroying stop-go like a YouTube or indeed many videos available online.

Well that’s history now; my romance has temporarily ended. Perhaps it was a fluke but the first bunch of programmes I watched streamed beautifully, but no more. Last week’s The Apprentice ran perfectly for the first 50 minutes and then the last – and of course most critical – section ran in almost 10 second bursts for the next 20 minutes. Gavin and Stacey ran at a stutter almost from the start. I could go on. I even went to FAQs, which is more than your average user is prepared to do, but they danced around the issue.

I don’t want to wait 20 minutes plus to download. I’m typically time poor and on demand is where it is at.

It had all started so well.

iPlayer has the potential to create a truly market transforming moment. Please don’t let the technology gremlins rob us of that. And if what I sense is true – that the systems/technology behind this are creaking under the pressure of increased demand – is now the right time to be driving up the user numbers? Let’s not forget that once consumers have tried something and it’s no good, they mostly never return….

Football, PR and the tricky issue of immigration

2008-02-06T03:02:00.000-08:00

Al Bangura, footballer, fiancé, father, and hero to this particular blogger, has been spared deportation to his native Sierra Leone. Arriving as a sex-slave at the age of fifteen, he escaped and built a life and career from literally nothing. Spotted playing football is Cassiobury park, one of Hertfordshire’s largest open spaces, he was signed up by the glorious Watford FC who he has since gone on to captain and play for 65 times.

On Monday 14th January, Al Bangura won his appeal against an Asylum and Immigration authority decision to revoke Al’s right to work in the UK which would have resulted in deportation. Watford Chairman Graham Simpson said “We always knew we had a strong case and despite our setbacks we knew we had to fight for what we believed to be right for this young man. Al will now continue to contribute to our society, which I know he feels a debt of gratitude towards.”

The case would not have been brought to the attention of the public without the media coverage that followed the original decision to deport one of Watford’s youngest stars. A host of articles in major nationals The Times, Guardian and Telegraph has provided awareness for the young man’s plight, that many ordinary genuine asylum seekers to not receive.

The positive PR generated by Watford Football Club was ably assisted by representatives of the Football League and other clubs; most notably Plymouth Argyle who, following recent tension rich encounters which did supporter relations more harm than good, showed their support at half time during the December meeting of the Championship sides at Watford’s Vicarage Road.

The media’s eagerness to write about the issue in a time when immigration and asylum are prevalent in the news is a positive step in the right direction where reporting such stories are concerned.

In today’s Independent there is a similar story of Damilola Ajagbonna. A ‘remarkable’ immigrant, his contributions to British society have been honoured by the Church of England and his academic record has won him places at Cambridge and Sheffield universities. He now faces deportation to his native Nigeria after the Court of Appeal dismissed his final appeal. The 19 year old came to the UK with is mother 8 years ago and has been appointed as an adviser on youth issues to Unicef by the United Nations. Despite all of his achievements, Damilola now faces a return to Nigeria, away from the life he has created for himself in this country.

The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal would not comment on individual cases and it would seem that without the same media PR coverage afforded to Al Bangura, Damilola’s almost identical story has come to a very different conclusion.

Child's play?

2008-01-10T05:10:00.000-08:00

I was interested to see an article in the Daily Mail today reporting that technology industry experts at the Consumer Electronics Show are claiming that under-sevens ‘shouldn’t play computer games’. Why? Apparently it can shorten their attention span, harm their ability to learn and it is also seen as an isolating experience.

The reason this article particularly jumped out at me was because I was at my friend’s house the other day and I noticed that things were particularly tense between she and her partner. With his back turned and armed with a large mug of coffee, she mouthed to me that most of the problems in their relationship at present stem from his hardcore gaming addiction. And addiction it does seem to be – he told me later that he plays eight hours a day at the weekend and then four hours a night when he gets home from work. The sad thing is – and the point of my writing – is that they have two young kids who are just two and three.

The two year old seems blissfully unaware of her father’s habit (although it is no doubt an acceptable part of her limited understanding of what is ‘normal’) but the three year old has already started gaming. Admittedly, he’s not yet playing Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt or Devil May Cry but he’s definitely picked up the desire to sit in front of the computer for as long as he possibly can and hit the keys in a quick and non-stylish manner. Without wanting to upset my friend, this habit at the age of three did somewhat alarm me. However, I later witnessed him interacting with his parents and taking part in some more ‘educational’ games and was actually impressed with his hand-eye coordination, ability to pick up new tasks and dexterity. Now, I’d be the first to admit that I’m no child psychologist, but it occurred to me that his development and apparent grasp of things that other three year olds may not necessarily have achieved at this stage, could be due to his early gaming habits.

And I don’t believe I’m the only person to have been hit by this thought. In the second half of last year, casual games developer, Popcap released a survey claiming that 92% of people felt that casual games were a good way of bonding with children and 70% felt that casual games were of educational benefit. I guess the main question that remains unanswered is how young is too young? Personally, I think I’d be somewhat disturbed if I had a three year old who constantly wanted to play games on the PC. Yet, my recent visit to my friend’s house leaves me slightly more open minded about this now and – taking lifestyle out of the equation – I could still be convinced that small amounts of game playing can, in fact, be a good thing, whatever your age.

RSS Fed Schooling

2008-01-09T03:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I hope it was a time filled with merriment and gifts of gadgets, games and gizmos for you all.

Cyberspace is often touted as the domain of the young, social networks and chat rooms providing a space for interaction and replacing the telephone as the main conduit of contact between friends. What would happen if all of a sudden, as if by magic, the Internet turned from trusted ally, to wary guardian peering over the shoulder of teens aspiring to keep elements of their lives private from parents. In most cases, this is of course a positive thing. The benefits of preventing access to certain websites with parental locks helps to keep everyone happy at home.

Web-savvy parents may soon be able to keep track on an entirely different aspect of their child’s life with daily updates on their school progress via our beloved interweb. The attendance, behaviour and grades of each pupil could be online by 2012, allowing parents to monitor their child’s progress just like a daily news feed from CNN.

Schools are being encouraged to abandon the traditional parents evening format by indulging in conference calls, sending text updates and uploading more data than a large bandwidth could cope with, to give ‘real time’ updates on how much progress is being made at school.

Does this spell the end for “What did you do at school today dear?”

What sort of response could little Timmy give after a hard day’s tuck shopping to “I see that you’ve spent 45.7% of your time learning about English with a 23.34% increase in your overall specific learning targets whilst only attaining a median grade of 67.5% across your seven core subjects which are, in effect supposed to taking up an upper third quarter percentile of your time?”

“Eh what?”

There are of course security issues surrounding the developments – what personal information would the schools need, how much of it would be publishable and potentially within hacker’s reach. The main concern as a recent former student is that a lot of what goes on in the classroom is a private affair – teacher / pupil interaction is vital, and it is crucial that the teacher treats each student as an individual, living, breathing human, as opposed to a source of statistics that needs to maximise its output capacity in a mechanical way.

There is a danger that mums and dads could find themselves besieged by so much information that even they do not know what it means.

The true test of success will be how schools select what information is made available and how this helps pupils learn and grow, then we could have a really useful tool in aiding learning and development in schools.

Power to the older people!

2007-11-02T03:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve got to admit that I’ve fallen into the trap that a large percentage of our population would probably hate me for. When people mention ‘older people’, ‘silver surfers’, ‘baby boomers’ and the ‘grey market’, I think of my grandparents, retirement, cautiousness, whiteness and all that is, well, dare I say it, slow. But what we all sometimes fail to recognize is that this booming market is in fact representative of our parents’ generation (if you’re like me and in your 20s) and actually has a lot more influence and consumer power than we perhaps give them credit for.

In business, I think we’re all guilty of stereotyping and dismissing the ‘over 50s’ at times. Marketers and PR’s often immediately think of younger generations when initially planning campaigns. The ‘older folk’ are past caring what brands they use and buy, right? Wrong! Well, according to the Office for National Statistics (www.statistics.gov.uk), the grey market accounts for 20 million UK consumers (34% of total population) and spends over £267 billion a year. Yet, according to the same statistics, less than 10% of marketing campaigns are directed at this mature market. We seem to be missing something here…

We have to train ourselves as a population as well as PR’s and marketers to see this generation as what they often are – technologically clever, independent, adventurous, confident and with a wide range of interests. The majority actually want to embrace change and are unafraid to spend their ‘grey pound’. A Future Lab (www.futurelab.org.uk) report out this year claims that 80% see growing older as an opportunity to ‘start again and try new experiences’.

And they’re not in any hurry to fade out into retirement mode either. Last week, the Financial Times (www.ft.com) confirmed that pensioners are outnumbering children in the UK for the first time ever this year. And they’re getting pretty internet savvy too. By the end of 2007, silver surfers – according to Hitwise (www.hitwise.com) – are going to become the dominant group on the net. Did you know that the over 50s account for 30% of the total time spent online and that a quarter of internet users are in this age group? Not surprisingly, Saga (www.saga.co.uk) has capitalized on this growing phenomenon and has just launched a social networking site, Saga Zone (www.saga.co.uk/sagazone), for the mature market. Who needs Facebook (www.facebook.com) and MySpace (www.myspace.com) when you have Saga Zone to attend online parties and swap gardening tips (for want of another preconceived stereotypical 'grey' pursuit)?

So, next time you start planning a campaign, don’t forget these ‘older folk’. Because, ultimately, the majority of decisions are made based on attitude and lifestyle - and it seems like they have both on their side. And don’t just think ‘grey’ when you’ve got certain stereotypical brands to push. According to Hitwise, search engines, shopping and porn are the three most popular things viewed online by this generation. What does this prove? Well, lots of things but most importantly that they’re just like the rest of us.

ba-con?

2007-11-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

So hands up, how many of you woke up craving a bacon sarnie this morning?

Must've been a subliminal message from the news last night as nothing else seemed to quite hit the spot with my second cup of tea...

Always interesting to see the different papers version of events on subjects like this. Full marks (as usual) has to go to The Sun for the "Save Our Bacon" headline whereas The Mirror didn't even cover it... the others had a go but could barely muster a headline between them.

Funny The Mirror didn't choose to cover it - although to be fair they were handed a golden opportunity with Heather MM wearing her "Boycott The Sun" top on TV yesterday but even then The Sun still beat them hands down with its headline "Help! She needs somebody" (vs."Heather's Hate Tape" in The Mirror).

So back to bacon... As well as the front page The Sun gave over pages 4 and 5 and managed to get Wozza (Anthony Worrell Thompson) on board within minutes to dismiss the whole nonsense as "just another scare" - shame the World Cancer Research Fund doesn't agree and I'm pretty sure who would win on mastermind (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article413632.ece). Shame they didn't ask Keeley for her opinion on page 3 I'd've paid more attention.

Personally I hate any attempt like this to scare people - one day red meat, red wine and crisps (remember that?) are good for you - next day you're being told it's better to weigh less than your recommended weight?? What the average man on the street must make of this I have no idea... seriously how are people meant to know what to do?

I guess that's when you read the Daily Mail??? Haha... "So What Is Safe To Eat" it screamed this morning, adding there is a growing backlash against the study from 21 international experts, with Britain's top cancer specialist (Professor Karol Sikora) calling the advice "too trite and too dogmatic" warning no one will pay attention.

Again, what to do? To me this is where the BBC should be leading the debate as a public service broadcaster. Obviously they've got other things on their mind but to go to their news homepage (http://news.bbc.co.uk) and not see a single link is frankly weird and seriously lacking. Again who do you ask?

If I ring my mum, she'll quote the Daily Mail to me, if I ring my brother he'll quote The Sun to me, if I ask my girlfriend she'll tell me I could do with losing a bit of weight anyway...

Which leaves The Daily Express (via Sky News), who, for me, said what I wanted to hear (because that's what we all want really isn't it?)... asking Barry Kay, general manager of The National Pig Association his thoughts, who simply said; "I am always wary of dubious science. The odd bacon sandwich will do you no harm" (http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13554551,00.html).

I'll have mine on white with red sauce please Barry.

Bosh, problem solved!

Heather Mills…just don’t get me started!

2007-11-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

I’m not a massive Beatles fan, nor am I a massive Paul McCartney fan – so this is not the reason for my rant. I just don’t like Heather Mills and can’t really see what her problem is. How can a woman, who spent her time at the beginning of the year dressed in sparkly sequin outfits strutting her stuff across the stage of Dancing with the Stars, moan that she has been hounded by the media so badly it drove her to the brink of suicide? Don’t put yourself in front of the cameras in the first place then love! Or don’t marry someone that you know is going to bring you into the limelight in such a major way.

Heather, if you really were that upset by the media attention, you wouldn’t go on national breakfast programmes like GMTV to lose it, you’d share your problems with friends and family and the people closest to you – like the rest of us ‘normal’ people do.

My theory is in fact that Ms Mills is not so upset with the media but more upset that they’ve got her so right. Oh well, keep on socking it to them Heather, and if the GMTV moaning opportunities run out… there’s always Loose Women ;-)

Wii-k offering

2007-11-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t a question I was expecting as I walked up to the counter with a second nunchuk for my Wii...

“So have you got your Wii yet?”

Well… yes, of course I have. A year after launching I would have thought that anyone who wanted to have one would have too. But apparently I’m wrong.

You’ve got to hand it to Nintendo: twelve months after their console’s debut, and fresh from the news that they have taken the top spot in the UK console market there is STILL a drought of the little white boxes.

Conventional wisdom says that while selling out around Christmas year one is a must to demonstrate the hot-cake quality of you product, after the initial shortage your audience should be free to gorge themselves as much and as easily as they can or they’ll lose interest. Not so, it seems.

Either Nintendo has the biggest cahones of all time, or they have lucked out and genuine shortages have actually served to keep the demand for the Wii sky high.

The fact is that while Nintendo may have cleaned up at the Golden Joysticks this year, there is still little to commend the Wii beyond the game that comes with it. Don’t get me wrong, Wario Ware is a great game (although it needs a lot of people playing to get the most out of it), and Zelda is a very absorbing title but if you look at the titles available for the Wii listed by rating on IGN, three of the top five are for the Virtual Console.

It just shows – in the same way that we bought the Gameboy to play Tetris, the Xbox for Halo and the PS2 to get our hands on GTA, it’s still that exclusive killer app that shifts units.

Anyone for tennis?

Will mobile games ever be fashionable?

2007-09-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

With technology seemingly dominating nearly every industry in today’s society, it may not come as a huge surprise that Giorgio Armani is the latest top fashion designer to embrace the phenomenon that is the multi-media device – mobile phones to you and I. The news from Milan Fashion Week is that Giorgio Armani has just announced a new mobile phone along with some other equally sleek and sexy-looking electronic devices. It’s a credit-card sized device with a touch-sensitive screen, 3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth. It even boasts a haptic user interface. Armani has joined forces with Samsung on this new venture, perhaps in response to LG Prada or even the iPhone.

Keeping on the Italian fashion and mobile theme, there’s a new mobile game that’s just been launched by Milan’s Bocconi University. It’s a free mobile game that’s called Fashion Empire which gives the gamer a virtual year to take charge of a fashion business. You will be able to do everything from choosing the shop location, overseeing the design and distributing your own clothing lines. If you’re fashion savvy, you even get rewarded with a range of fashionistas visiting your store.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this game is received as fashion isn’t always a mobile game developers most obvious choice of industry. Do mobile phone games and fashion work together? Speaking from a girl’s perspective, the appeal of fashion phones such as the LG Prada is certainly there. And industry feedback tells us that there is the interest. But we can’t forget the Motorola D&G Razr that got some poor press due to it being labeled as tacky. There’s also the argument that, once you get past the sleek design and impressive style of these phones, girls – like anyone else – actually go for functionality over fashion when making their purchasing decision.

But perhaps interactive games like Fashion Empire are the way forward to enhancing this cross-industry convergence. Being able to shop virtually and manage your own fashion empire in the palm of your hand will certainly appeal to certain markets. The extent is yet to be seen. One thing for sure is that mobile is everywhere and games are beginning to emulate every aspect of our reality. And what guy is not going to support these kinds of games if it gets him out of hours being dragged around the shops on a Saturday…

What is beauty?

2007-09-18T07:02:00.001-07:00

A simple question, but hard to find an answer to…

Is it about accepting imperfections and enhancing your best bits? Or is it about striving for perfection and hiding all signs of aging?

Personally, I would argue it is the former; but then I would say that because I am originally from Belgium and research has found that the natural look is popular in Europe, with the exception of the UK.

Women in northern Europe are less anxious about their looks and spend less on beauty products than their counterparts in Italy and Spain. However, UK is not following this trend; 59% of women in the UK feel under increasing pressure to look more attractive.

Why this difference? According to Isabella Lepri, an anthropologist from the London School of Economics, the celebrity culture is to blame. I think she may be right. In Belgium, there are no tabloids or celebrity magazines; there is just not a market for such press. Belgian girls are not that bothered about celebrities and therefore they don’t aspire to look like one. Of course, they want to look good – who doesn’t? – but they prefer understated beauty.

It is these observations that make me think celebrity culture is one of the reasons why women in the UK feel more pressure to look good and this is not likely to change overnight. With women spending more on beauty products each year, it is no surprise the UK beauty industry is considered a key market in Europe, worth more than £1bn a year. Looking like a celebrity does not come cheap…

Softly softly catchee consumer...

2007-09-18T07:02:00.000-07:00

Advertising’s a funny thing isn’t it? A bit like shouting something out at a party: get it right and everyone laughs with you, or at least tries to remember what you said to pass it on to a friend. Get it wrong and… well, you’d better hope that not that many people were listening.

The problem is the turn around time. No doubt that when the creative team behind Northern Rock’s latest ad came up with it they were pretty chuffed. ‘playtime is over’ it announces, loud and proud across two pages in Esquire magazine (amongst others) this month, with various Newcastle-based sporting heroes staring out of the page. Unfortunately, within days of the magazine going on sale events have given the advert a radically alternative interpretation and now it will have to sit there, visible to anyone who reads the magazine for the next month or so.

That’s the danger with advertising; it’s a juggernaut. The time taken between concept and release leaves it wide open to the various cruelties of fate. Don’t get me wrong - adverts are often fantastic, hitting their mark exactly. I don’t need to give examples - we all have our personal favourites, but ultimately there is an element of luck in hoping that between commissioning, producing and placing the work, no potholes appear in the road. Equally the result of the process can be very hit or miss with some great ideas meeting stony silence while other infinitely less deserving pieces become inexplicable hits – like Barry Scott.

In many ways PR is everything that ad land is not: Immediate, super-targeted and above all, when done right, invisible. Hot topics can be picked up and run with almost instantly; messages can be weaved into stories within hours; the effect is far more powerful than any advertisement because done right consumers don’t even know that it is happening. It’s the drip-drip-drip of the brand message as it makes its way into their consciousness.

Of course things can go wrong, but unlike advertising the cause of this is usually traceable and, crucially, fixable. The best thing about journalists? They are the charcoal filter through which a brand’s story has to pass before it makes it out there. If a story doesn’t make it through it’s no bad thing. If anything you’ve been done a favour: instead you get to go back to it, refine it and resubmit it when it’s ready. Imagine if you could do that with an ad...

Power to the people!

2007-08-31T04:31:00.000-07:00

At least…power to the National Union of Students. It seems democracy is stronger than ever before and it’s all thanks to Facebook. In today’s national newspapers you will see that banking giant HSBC has been forced to back down on student overdraft fees following a campaign on the ever popular social networking site.

Gone are the days of long paper petitions or street protests – all of this can now be done online. And for your average person, it really seems to work! In this case, students have been able make a stand and communicate to their bank in a way that suits them…by not even moving out of their front rooms. Of course, I doubt very much that HSBC are feeling the benefits of online social communities are quite so great at the moment. But for your average person (at least the 5,000 people that took part in this particular petition), it seems that their voice has never been heard louder.

Some might say this has been a bit of a PR disaster for HSBC. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. All of the media coverage today has shown them to be a bank that listens and responds to their customers. Andy Ripley, HSBC’s head of product development was quoted as saying: “…we are not too big to listen to our customers”.

By responding quickly and understanding how powerful a tool Facebook has now become, they’ve not only avoided the traditional demonstration outside HSBC’s main Canary Wharf branch (you can imagine the photo opportunity!), but they’ve also avoided a mass exodus of student customers. Customers who are now more likely to be loyal to the bank when they become the top earners of the future!

Forgive me Father for I have binned

2007-08-30T04:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome one and all to the Chocolate blog!

We've ummed, we've arred, and now we've finally got round to it... please feel free to comment and add in your own thoughts as time goes by...

To kick things off one article in particular springs to mind from todays edition of The Times... The Roman Catholic Church will be at the Waveney Greenpeace festival this weekend in Suffolk, to hear people's 'eco-confessions' in what is thought to be the first dedicated priestly confessional booth of its kind.

Green penance (ha!) includes such things as:

1. For boiling electric kettles filled with too much water - three cold baths

2. For drinking non-Fair Trade coffee - make your own acorn coffee and drink nothing but that for a week

Now call me old fashioned but come on.... Can you imagine the fun the priests had with that one? "What shall we do about all those commuters that grab any coffee they can in the morning?".... "I know - acorn coffee it is - that'll learn 'em!"

I'm not even sure I'd recognise an acorn it's been that long since I've been out the concrete jungle, but that aside it's a genius bit of PR and got them the best part of a page in The Times....

See you in Suffolk.

Ben