Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

That’ll be for me then: Heinz is launching baked beans in a resealable plastic bottle. So opened packs can be stored in the fridge for a few days. Marvellous.

I fear the £3m through-the-line campaign, including TV advertising, is being paid for by the RRP of £1.79 for 1kg but market forces will prevail!

Read more about this at Brand Republic.

And did you know:

1. Every day over one million cans of Heinz Beanz are consumed in the UK.  That is approximately 485 million cans per year.

2. Between 1941 and 1948, the Ministry of Food did the nation a favour by classifying baked beans as ‘essential’ in the rationing system.

Click here for more Heinz Beanz facts.

The Tories said they would cut back spending on advertising by 40 per cent, as well as introducing new rules to measure its effectiveness.

Then in May we were told, “The coalition government is to freeze its £540m-a-year advertising budget, except on what are deemed to be ‘essential’ campaigns, ahead of implementing plans to axe marketing and advertising spend by up to 50%.

Now they are in (a shared) office what progress are they making? Was all this just puff and PR around the subject of advertising? It may well be judging by the full back page colour advert in my local paper encouraging me to sign up to flood alerts.

Note: the weather forecasters are talking to us about droughts at the moment.

At what point will all retail shops in the UK be the same? Is it inevitable that they will all sell the same product range one day? Think about it:

Tesco sells petrol – BP sells food
WHSmith sells stamps – Post Office sells stationary

Leaving aside the food range how different is Primark from Marks & Spencer?

Perhaps the differentiator becomes who has the best car parking and the best car wash facilities. And it’s interesting to note that even the car wash in the car park is effectively us paying to have security in the area but the car wash facilities are all the same.

Now I know not all shops are the same. And I know that most shops you can tell where you are when you are stood in the middle. I think I am maybe mourning the halcyon days of the independent retailer.

Please cheer me up with your positive stories about UK retailers.

Henry Smithson
C’est tres illogique! ‘Croque Monsieur’ – toasted ham and cheese sandwich = 3.50 Euros. ‘Welsh’ – toasted ham and cheese sandwich, but covered in melted cheese and served in a bowl = 11.50 Euros!!!!!

Kevin Harrington
And they are both overpriced. Mind you, a premium for ‘Welsh’ food is indeed a significant marketing achievement that I may need to blog about! Where was this?

Nigel Tucker
Hey! Welsh food should attract a premium. It’s better than English food, ie chips.

Henry Smithson
This was in France – home of the finest cuisine. In the interests of culinary research Linda ordered the ‘Croque Monsieur’ and I ordered the ‘Welsh’ so we could compare and contrast. Results above.

I quite like this video, it is about how BBC Worldwide present their strategy. It is on YouTube to promote the services of Cardiff based visual solutions company See What You Mean.

It is a good reminder that simple visuals, avoiding the PowerPoint template traps, can be really powerful.

Now where are those slides that I’m presenting on Wednesday?

So why is it that people can’t read their own data?

I received a piece of DM from a marketing agency recently. It was creatively good. It inspired me to delay its arrival in the bin. I opened it. So far so good; most DM doesn’t get that far. I even spent a couple of minutes reading it.

The call to action invited me to follow a personalised URL, e.g. agencyname.com/myname. I duly did this and arrived at a website where I answered the questions. The last question said words to the effect of ‘can we talk more about this/can we call you?’ I replied no…for more than one good reason.

Since then I’ve received an email from one person and a phone message from another.

I said NO.

For goodness sake; if businesses are going to use this type of B2B marketing please listen to the answers given!

The reason I’ve not named and shamed the agency concerned is that I actually like the director I’ve met from there. But really, as we already know each other, I do wonder why he is sending me DM rather than something a bit more personal.

“Sorry I’m late. There was an Ocado jam in the road.”

I think I may get an Ocado van so that I can leave it in the middle of the street while I’m dropping things off. Perhaps they pay a higher road tax for the privilege?

It may be why Waitrose don’t use their own branded vans…to protect their brand image?

The upside of all this is that I’ve learned a bit about Ocado. Look at the Ocado history and you’ll see that Goldman Sachs are significant shareholders and the John Lewis Partnership transferred their ownership into their pension fund.

Also, Ocado are making good use of iPhone apps and Android apps. Maybe I should give the Ocado service a try and then apologise to my neighbours