Soda - Keeping Curious

In the digital world there seems to be a continuous battle between the old way of doing business and the new. Quite often deals are brokered to ease these transitions, but occasionally, people like to take advantage of negotiation preceding and try to get much more than their fair share. You may or may not be aware of an ongoing battle running alongside the usual lawsuit press surrounding the music industry. Internet radio is becoming a large market, it is offering many different specialised stations catering for every different persons tastes and preferences. So much so is this diversity, that in America alone 7 million people listen to online radio every day. All that is set to change by a very real threat.

I’ve been involved with Internet Radio for many years now, ever since some friends of mine created SHOUTcast some ten years ago. Back then I had the advantage of being sat on very fast Internet access in my dorm at university, at a time when the original Napster didn’t really exist and there wasn’t the saturation of networks that there is today with the likes of YouTube and Bittorrent.

Streaming my music back then was a luxury I didn’t have to pay for. But it did require fast internet access, and that did cost someone money. Today, many hobbyists are doing the same, but not many have the luxury of subsidised bandwidth. You wouldn’t know it, but the big guys such as AOL do offer lots of bandwidth for free to many stations to aid the growth of this industry, purely because the networking costs are just far too high for popular stations otherwise. Simply put, the majority of Internet stations out there run AT A LOSS. That isn’t to say that the record companies do not make money from them.

Currently, Internet radio stations pay more expensive fees than terrestrial or satellite radio. It is these fees that, under examination, are going to see a hike. Already lumbered with the overhead of running at an acceptable loss to fund their hobby, many station owners will see their losses increase substantially. To further drive the stake, these charges are going to be backdated, effectively fining Internet Radio as a whole.

Today marks yet another date on the calendar for people to try and get heard about this issue prior to the new rates and backdated payments coming into effect. To do that, the big players and small alike are turning their normal programming off for the day, either going offline or broadcasting an informational message about the issue, urging Americans to call on their congressional representative to force a change.

You can read more about the ongoing issues at SaveNetRadio.org. An old acquaintance of mine who rightfully has made his way up the ranks to be recently appointed General Manager of Yahoo’s Music division has posted a much better explanation of the issue on the Yahoo! Music Blog. You should read it, he’s in the unique position of having worked both sides of the fence.

With more and more attention falling on Digital Rights Management in the news with the upcoming next-gen DVD players, and the iTunes music store’s increasing market share I found this story particular interesting. As a side note, if you are unaware of what DRM is, I suggest you do a little research to protect your consumer rights.

A group of Anti-DRM activists known as Defective By Design have been utilising Amazon.com’s customer “tagging” system to mark all products that utilise DRM with “defectivebydesign” as a means of notifying people up front as to the potential for restrictions that may be in place with their purchase.

I think this is a fantastic idea. Far too often people are unaware that their purchases may not allow them to exercise their fair-use rights. Not that purchasing something without restrictions won’t mean that the rug can’t be pulled out beneath you later.

As they’ve always said, buyer beware.

It seems to be a pretty universal truth that women dread turning into their mothers. I helped run a focus group yesterday, to find out what motivates women to buy underwear, and it was a theme that kept cropping up time and time again! For instance, any brand that we associated with our mothers got unceremoniously shelved, even if, in reality, the brand had moved on. Even M&S’s valiant efforts to transform and discard their ‘mumsy’ image had sparked more than one panic attack…Oh my God, I’m shopping at M&S, and not just for food…are the clothes really more fashionable or am I…turning into my mother! Luckily for M&S, it seems as if brands like Per Una have done the trick but it’s interesting to think that the desire to avoid becoming our mothers actually dictates what we buy.

No doubt psychologists would have plenty to say on the subject but I wonder what it is that fills us with such dread? Is it the idea of getting older, reflected by the shrinking generation gap? Or the fact that we’ve long since waved goodbye to our youthful rebelliousness and simply acquiesced to the idea that maybe mother did know best after all? Or is it that we simply want to carve out our own path and retain our own sense of identity? It’s probably a little of a lot of things, and different for everyone I imagine. Whatever it is, it certainly seems familiar to all women, from all walks of life…

And that’s not the worst of it! My daughter’s teenage years have coincided with my thirties, so I’ve had to go through the whole ’should I still be shopping in Top Shop’ dilemma too! One participant summed it up really well though, by saying that we consider ourselves younger than our mothers did at the same age…and no doubt my daughter will think exactly the same thing too when she finds herself repeating my pet phrases, or giving her (yet to be had) kids yet another lecture on being responsible. Where things may change though, is that my daughter has been brought up in a world where her mum (and her friend’s mum’s) do shop at places like Top Shop or River Island or H&M, and where my daughter regularly drags me into Monsoon or Warehouse or House of Fraser…so are the lines between the generations getting a little more blurred - at least on the high street?

I have often asked that question of myself every time I sample something new, or buy the latest craze, or believe the hype about the ‘next best thing’. Working in the industry and having to be constantly aware of the ever-evolving barrage of new, improved, better than-ever products and services, I feel compelled to taste, sample and experience them all, but on the flip-side I am partly responsible for creating that need to believe and should have a wiser, more informed opinion.

Is it just the simple fact that we construct and embellish so many facts that as industry-insiders we are brain-washed into believing everything we read without feeling any need to be sceptic? Or are we just so hungry to be on the cutting edge of everything that goes on out there, we must expose ourselves to everything new and exciting?

That then made me think of ‘hype’ and whether or not it is actually any different to marketing - do they go hand in hand? Can you have one without the other? Or are they effectively the same thing? Can you market something successfully without creating hype and if not, does that mean that we are all in danger of raising the expectations of the consumer so high that we can never achieve our goals. For that reason, hype has always been a negative word in my vocabulary, mostly because I feel I should be pre-programmed to ‘never believe the hype’, yet as already mentioned, I can’t help but be drawn in, to what I will for now call ‘effective consumer marketing’.

I would write more, but I’ve heard that there’s a demonstration of a great, amazing, all-singing, all-dancing gizmo, that will revolutionise my life, at a department store near-by in a few minutes time and if i don’t dash I may miss it…

As you may or may not know, new guidelines about how food is marketed to kids come into play in 2007, aimed at combatting childhood obesity.
Introduced by the government, the proposals will work on a voluntary basis for a while, with the onus being put on the food and marketing industries. Depending on how well they rise to the challenge, it’s likely that stricter legislation may well be introduced, especially for manufacturers and promoters of HFSS foods, in other words, foods with a high fat and sugar/salt content.

One of the measures, introduced by Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, and effective from 2007, will outlaw the use of celebrities or characters from films in adverts promoting HFSS foods to children under ten. As an agency, we’re already helping our clients tackle these changes, and it’s raised some interesting questions. Personally (and I’m speaking as a parent here too) I think these changes are a nod in the right direction but gloss over some of the wider questions the food industry and the government should be asking itself. Why not just go the whole way and produce better food, free of artificial additives or copious amounts of fat, sugar and salt?

Manufacturers do seem to be heading in this direction, with crisp manufacturers for instance, turning to healthier types of fat, and supermarkets promoting ‘healthier’ kids ranges, but ultimately it’ll take a huge shift in our current culture and way of life to really make inroads into reversing the trend towards childhood obesity. Until then, we’ve got a pretty interesting role to play, helping our food manufacturing clients take on the new responsibility the government has given them, in an ethical as well as financial way, whilst still remaining competitive. And who says ethical and competitive can’t go hand in hand, even in the contentious arena of the supermarket shelves?

Via PSFK’s blog today I read about store spamvertising. Envision Marketing Group have come up with the idea of a system of printing digital quality adverts onto supermarket conveyor belts. Apparently this frees up 100 square feet of advertising real estate per 10 check out lanes.

Personally, I don’t think this is a great idea. Instead of following developments where advertisers are more and more able to target consumers and show them adverts they want to see, this is just another example of forcing adverts onto people. It would be great if it were possible for advertisers to be a little more careful with their campaigns and offer consumers something in return.

Becky and I are currently deeply engaged in researching the Asian Market on behalf of a drinks company, with our focus being on the middle-aged male consumer and what he does online. We discovered in Japan that there’s a trend towards making middle-aged men more stylish, with a growing number of products and services appearing in the market. It appears that middle-aged men can be cool. You’ve only got to think of such aging male icons as George Clooney, Mel Gibson (maybe not) and Tom Cruise to know how much of an insight this really is, but, hey, whatever.

So if you’re a style conscious, cool, 40-something Japanese executive you can now pop along to the Hotel Okura Tokyo and sample Gentle Time. This laid back luxury package will set you back just over £120, and offers such unabashed treats as lounging at a cigar bar, partaking of sommelier-selected wines and eating specially made hors d’oeuvres. And, if that was not enough to make you feel as if you really deserved all that pampering, on waking the next morning, Mr. I’ve- got-it-all, doesn’t even need to get dressed as a room-service breakfast comes with the package.

Now am I missing something here, but doesn’t that sound like a normal evening for any well-heeled executive staying at a Holiday Inn anywhere in the world? Normal Time? Gentle Time? You choose.

I’ve just galloped through Seth Godin’s latest book, “All Marketers Are Liars - The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World”?. Its yet another great example from Mr. Viral Marketing himself of commonsense meeting startling insight, and where the book deliberately becomes the focus for spreading the marketing ideas contained within it.

How about this audacious thought from his book, seeing as you might be harbouring doubts about the real importance of marketing in our society. “Marketing is about spreading ideas, and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilisation”?. How does that make you feel as a marketer? Important? Awesome? Responsible?

As a short follow-on to the last post I just love this quote from Louis Kahn “A good idea that doesn’t happen is no idea at all”?. Buildings that don’t get built, pitches that don’t get bought”.

Over the weekend I watched the documentary ‘My Architect’. In this moving and engrossing film, documentary filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn’s sets off on a journey - one that took him five years - to try to understand and come to terms with the father he never really knew and rarely saw. His father was Louis Kahn, one of the most important and revered architects of the 20th Century, and although he died in 1974 when Nathaniel was only 11, the adult Nathaniel finally ends up with a real sense of who his Dad was through the serenely beautiful buildings he left behind.

Now the point I wish to make here is that Louis Kahn’s intensely personal style, and the world renown that followed came comparatively late in life. He was in his fifties before he hit his stride; with all of his recognised masterpieces being produced within a 20-year span that ended with his sudden death aged 73. It struck me that the history of architecture is strewn with late developers. Look at the likes of Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind, who only took up the practice of architecture after an early career as a musical protegee. I’m a great believer in Woody Allen’s dictum that 95% of success is about just turning-up, and always find it a real pleasure (and a comfort) to come across people such as Kahn, Gehry and Libeskind who spend a life time clocking-in, patiently (one imagines) perfecting their art and knowledge until a heart-felt, idiosyncratic style emerges. In all of these cases it has been well worth the wait.

So, my advice is to keep just turning-up, building your career one brick at a time, until the time comes, in the words of those Funky Business practitioners Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Riddlestrale, to ‘explode in a dramatic frenzy of value creation during a short space of time’.