In through the outfield

12 May 2009

Vote for your ‘most loved’ brand

50 Golden Brands To celebrate their 50th Anniversary the Marketing Society has selected 50 brands from last 50 years, and asked visitors to vote for their favourite.

Although some of my favourites such as Apple and The Body Shop do appear on the list, they have missed some truly iconic names such as Walkers Crisps, Marmite and my personal favourite Alessi.

In true social media style the site allows comments, and I was amused to see “No Marmite No vote” from Michele.

1959 was the year The Marketing Society was founded and the birth of modern marketing. Today, The Marketing Society is the most influential network of senior marketers dedicated to championing marketing in the UK. Fifty Golden Brands is our exploration of the changing role of brands since our foundation.

Selecting a brand for each of the past 50 years was not easy. Our shortlist was assembled using a variety of different criteria. Which brands were launched, relaunched or revamped? Who was winning awards? Who were the top spenders and the top sellers? And which brands encapsulated the zeitgeist of the year?

Pick a brand 1959 – 2008

This is not a definitive list. It’s a work in progress, a platform for discussion and now we need you to get involved. Who have we missed? Where were you? Which brands shone more brightly? Share your memories and insights of the last 50 years. Your involvement will enable us to finalise the definitive 50 Golden Brands in time for our anniversary in 2009.

31 December 2008

35,000 blog views so far – but the paper clip is King

My weekly sitemeter blog monitoring email has just arrived announcing I have reached 20,271 page views and 16,200 visitors since I started blogging a couple of year ago.

For reasons too complicated to go into here, I maintain a duplicate copy of this blog at http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/inthroughtheoutfield. And this has generated 14,722 page views and 10,344 visitors respectively.

The reason for mentioning this, is the surprising discovery that the most popular story on my blogs (by a factor of 4) was the one about the humble paper clip from August 2007 The not so simple paper clip. I have spent some time trying work out why this particular story has proved to be so popular, but remain bemused.

Equally confusing is why British Standard for a cup of tea – BS 6008 is second on the list.

1018292_cup_of_tea

31 December 2008

Balsamiq Mockups – the quick and easy way to design a website

mytunez_tn Many of the clients I see understand the power and importance of marketing their product or service through the world wide web. However, very few of them have the knowledge, technical skills and creative flair to be able to produce a professional website. In quite a few cases they have been worried about how to explain to a professional website designer what they are trying to achieve.

Thanks to an interview on Leo Laport’s net@night podcast I have discovered a possible solution. It is called Balsamiq Mockups and comes from a ‘one man band’ company Balsamiq Studios, founded by an ex-Google employee Giacomo “Peldi” Guilizzoni. Despite have returned home to Italy to start his business he has managed to sell $100,000 of his $79 software in five months.

As Giacomo says:
“Using Balsamiq Mockups feels like you are drawing, but it’s digital, so you can tweak and rearrange controls easily, and the end result is much cleaner. Teams can come up with a design and iterate over it in real-time in the course of a meeting. With more than 60 pre-built controls to choose from, you can design anything from a super-simple dialog box to a full-fledged application, from a simple website to a Rich Internet Application.”

He has created an excellent two minute demonstration video showing what the software can do.

bahoomaps1

21 November 20086 March 2013

The Wattson goes global

It was great to hear from Richard Woods (one of the co-founders of DIY Kyoto) last night at our Going Global event on the continuing success of the Wattson energy monitor. I first mentioned their product back in February of this year, soon after it had beaten the iPod nano into 10th place in the Stuff Magazine cool gadgets of the year awards.

They are now moving into the global market place with the help of ethically manufactured Wattsons from China. This has enabled them to reduce the price to a very attractive £99.95, which means they now have a three week waiting list.

It was interesting to hear how some of their customers have become addicted to the product with a couple of weeks, and become devoted to getting a blue glow (indicating a less than average use of electricity). Some use it to check to see if they have left any unnecessary appliances switched on as they leave the house.

One surprising change they had to introduce to their marketing was to include a light bulb in their photos for scale. It seems some some customers wanted to order a Wattson to replace their coffee table. Perhaps this could be a niche expansion of their product line.

Although Richard explained that the key to their success was to design a product that would be so desirable people would want to buy it, and then find out what it would be used for (the Apple iPod approach), I like the way they have very simply spelt out what this new product has to offer for the customer.

* I can save you up to 25% on your electricity bill
* I’m good for the environment
* I’m quick and easy to install
* I measure electricity in the whole house
* I can go anywhere in the home
* I use up to four watts and cost £4 a year to run

16 November 2008

The art of business and the business of art

My Business Advice clients vary enormously in their business interests to the point where I rarely get surprised by their ideas.

However last week I saw an artist and her partner, who’s project (an ‘intervention‘ as she called it) involves building a multi-million pound house (with a significant twist). Although houses as art are not new, with perhaps Rachel Whiteread’s House, a concrete cast of the inside of an entire Victorian terraced house completed in autumn 1993 and exhibited at the location of the original house in East London. It drew mixed responses, winning her both the Turner Prize for best young British artist in 1993 and the K Foundation art award for worst British artist.

My client was concerned that her idea, which in some respects is even more simple in concept, if not in construction, would be stolen by rival artists. Unfortunately the nature of intellectual property is that the less tangible the idea the weaker the protection. For example the storyline for a novel is much more difficult to protect than the finished book, printed and bound.

During the advice session she recommended a visit to Roger Hiorns latest work Seizure. This show the results of a giant science experiment in a derelict flat in south London. After reinforcing the walls and ceiling and covering them in plastic sheeting, 80,000 litres of a copper sulphate solution was poured in from a hole in the ceiling. After a few weeks the temperature of the solution fell and the crystals began to grow. The result is spectacular to say the least.

seizure4 — The artist admiring the fruits of his labour

28 October 2008

Children run riot at the British Library

Today was definitely children’s day at the British Library with literally hundreds coming in (with their parents) to the Big Picture Party. The day was to celebrate the value of the picture book in encouraging family learning, reading, creativity and enjoyment.

I am sure having well-loved children’s illustrator Quentin Blake in attendance was a big factor. He gave a talk on the importance of illustration and picture books. He also referred to his plans to create the UK’s first centre dedicated to illustration, the House of Illustration, due to open in late 2011.

I was on an all day course getting to know the Business & IP Centre partners, but managed to pop out for a few minutes at lunchtime to see the throngs of happy children.

Not all of the adults were so happy, and apparently there were quite a few complaints from our more traditional (and elderly) visitors who think the ‘silence is golden rule’ should be applied to all parts of the British Library. I suspect they would also be fans of the 15th Century proverb ‘children should be seen but not heard’.

17 September 2008

Maurice Collins and his Weird and Wonderful collection

Maurice Collins, the man behind our very popular Weird and Wonderful small display currently in the Centre, gave a very entertaining talk last night.

We had a full house of over 100 interested visitors, and Maurice entertained the audience with a mixture of slides and items from his collection. Often he would test to see if they could guess what the mysterious object actually did, and was greeted with a wide range of suggestions.

Two of his favourites kept the audience baffled for quite some time. Eventually someone guessed what the applicator for pile ointment was for. But the brothel clock had everyone stumped.

This BBC news story has images of eight more of the gadgets in his collection.

9 September 2008

Free Design Council guides for small businesses

As you know from previous blog postings, I am interested in the impact of design on business and profitability.

Now the Design Council has created three new free guides to help start-ups and small businesses find and work with designers effectively, use branding to their advantage and create more successful websites.

All three guides are full of step-by-step advice, real-life examples and practical ideas other small businesses can learn from and put into practice.

The choices are ‘Finding and working with a designer’, ‘The power of branding’ and ‘Getting a great website’, the 30-page guides are available free at www.designcouncil.org.uk/smallbusinessguides

Over 25 case studies are included across the guides, showing how business-owners have overcome challenges faced by all small businesses, including Gü, Munchy Seeds, Kent Brushes, Ecobrands, Atlantic Hotel and Newmarket Race Courses.

16 August 2008

Business & IP Centre on the Richard and Judy Show

I know the Business & IP Centre has had a lot of good press coverage since it opened in March 2006. We even had a full page story in the Financial Times and appeared on Working Lunch on BBC2. However, I was very surprised to hear on returning from holiday last week that we would be appearing on Richard and Judy on Channel 4.

Mark Sheahan (our inventor in residence) and Maurice Collins

The media interest (including a double page spread in the Daily Mail and an interview on the BBC Radio Today Programme) has been caused by our Weird and Wonderful small display currently in the Centre. It consists of over 50 ingenious gadgets, from a two handled self-pouring teapot (1886) to a clockwork burglar alarm (1852).

I first met Maurice Collins, the owner of this amazing collection, at the The British International Innovation & Technology Conference and Exhibition at Alexandra Palace, last October. He is also involved in the Prime Thinkers service for inventors and entrepreneurs I mentioned at the time.

Although we hoped the small display would be of interest to visitors to the British Library, the press interest has taken everyone by surprise.