Marketing Begins At Home

Goodbye Defraggler

Today I deleted defraggler from my PC. Why, you ask?

I downloaded a new free version today. First, it is MUCH slower than the last version. So clearly they have crippled this version to encourage people to pay.

Second, it took over my browser search engine choices. Sorry, but that has NOTHING to do with maintenance of the hard disks on my machine.

Third, Piriform have lost my trust. What else have you done to my PC that I don't know about yet???? Such a silly thing, because bad news is much easier to write about than good news. And all the good stuff I would have said about Piriform before today went right out the window.

Now I just feel that the company is untrustworthy and I won't download anything by them again. Pretty bad reaction from a simple piece of freeware.

My broken Kindle, still my friend

My Kindle broke yesterday. So not a good day. I sent an email first thing this morning, and got a phone call about 2 hours later. Lovely man with a soft Irish accent. Brilliant customer service. Asked a couple of questions, quickly got to the point where he decided to send out a replacement. Then asked a couple more questions and decided to give me a refund on my Kindle cover, which might have contributed to the problem I am having now. So a new Kindle will be on its way shortly, and I get to return the old one.

So I could be upset that I don't get to take my Kindle away for the easter weekend. But my complaint was handled so well that I don't mind. I am reassured. I know what to do when it arrives. I think that switching my content over will be straight forward.

Fantastic. Just what a brand that is invested in my long term future should do. They know I spend money with them. They know I have become very loyal to Amazon. And I feel it is the right choice. Bet Apple iPad owners don't feel this good when they speak to Apple.

Great leaders need to listen

"Saturday 15 February 2003 saw what is considered to be the largest public protest in British history." So say the BBC. Depending on who you believe there were 750K or 1M people who took to the streets. This as well as opposition from other EU leaders, members of his cabinet, and lukewarm support from his chief legal advisor. How can he believe that it was still right to go to war?

Great leaders need to be just a little in front of the troops. But too far and you get cut off. Tony Blair lost the chance to be first President of Europe. He has lost all status in the UK. He may yet face war crimes charges.  Because he didn't listen to the largest public protest in British history.

Priority: Low for customers at Marinestore Chandlers

Today I got an email with some special offers from a marine store. As a keen sailor in the middle of sailing season, I was pleased to see a special offer on deck shoes. Nice copy, nice picture, good price. So I clicked on the link.

Mistake 1 - the price on the site was different than the price in the email blast. What's even worse, the "normal" or "retail prices were different. Then the discounted price was a LOT different. Higher of course. So what trust do I have in their pricing policies?

Mistake 2 - I forwarded the email to the address that they suggested I contact. What I got was the biggest slap in the face. At first glance the response is just neutral. 

Peter,

Thank you for contacting us. This is an automated response sent to you in order to confirm the receipt of your message. We will attend to your ticket as soon as possible. We've listed the details of the ticket you created below for your records. When replying, please keep the ticket's ID in the subject to ensure that your replies are tracked correctly.

   Ticket ID: JEO-265217
   Subject: Wrong pricing. Mens shoe shows as £52.99 not the advertised price.
   Department: General Enquiries
   Priority: Low
   Status: Open

You can check the status of or reply to this ticket online at: http://marinestore.co.uk/support/
 Please use the following credentials when accessing your account with us: 

   Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Password: xxxxxxxxx
Kind Regards,

Marinestore Chandlers

The text of the email could be better, but they did give me a way to check the status of my complaint online.

However, I do object to their system automatically prioritising my priority as LOW. I think my query was pretty important. It prevented me from making a purchase. I was trying to do them a favour by letting them know they had a problem. 

Would it have hurt to set the default state to HIGH? After all, they could always intervene and change the default down later once they had evaluated the severity.

So, what do you think the likelihood is that I am going to patronise Marinestore Chandlers in future? In a word: LOW.

More important than MPs' expenses are their outside interests

We have heard lots of stuff about MPs' expenses, but much more interesting and much more important are their outside interests. Below is a list of what John Gummer lists as his outside interests. Without picking unduly on Mr Gummer, how will his vote be affected by legislation on financial services advisors?

When we do get to question future MPs for the next Parliament, the most important question is - who pays you and for what?

GUMMER

, Rt. Hon. John Selwyn (Suffolk Coastal)

1. Remunerated directorships

Chairman, Sancroft International Ltd.; consultants providing advice and monitoring in

corporate responsibility and environmental, social, ethical and planning issues.

Chairman, Veolia (formerly Vivendi UK); water companies.

Chairman (non-executive), Valpak Ltd.; not-for-profit organisation for compliance with

packaging waste directive.

Chairman of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers; a representative trade

organisation.

Sovereign Reversions Limited (non-executive); home reversions.

Catholic Herald (non-executive); newspaper.

Sistema-Hals (non-executive director, corporate governance); Moscow-based real estate

development, management and investment company.

48

2. Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc.

Articles in: Catholic Herald, Country Life, Estates Gazette, Planning, Evening Standard. I

also chair conferences. The subjects in both cases are usually property, sustainable

development and religious issues. The commitments arise largely from my previous

profession of journalism and all payments go to Sancroft which provides research staff,

information services, and all other facilities. Currently Sancroft would expect about £100,000

in payments, in respect of which I would receive some £30,000 in fees and dividends.

5. Gifts, benefits and hospitality (UK)

My wife and I received tickets for the Conservative Party’s ‘Black and White Party’ on 4

February 2009, paid for by Mr Christopher Moran, of London.

(Registered 20 March 2009)

8. Land and Property

A residential and commercial property in London, owned by family.

9. Registrable shareholdings

(a) Sancroft International Ltd.

Love Bad Science

My wife got me a really good book by Dr Ben Goldacre. His website is called badscience.net. Probably the worst thing about it is the slightly cheesy photo. But the book is FANTASTIC. It puts into plain english how statistics get misused and how easy it is to get it right as well as wrong.

This should be mandatory reading for everyone before they are allowed to buy a newspaper or watch a factual television programme. Except that stuff that is mandatory is normally dry as dust and this makes statistics fascinating, as well as giving the best description of the scientific method I have read. Where was this guy when I abandoned maths and sciences?

Just buy it and read it and never be fooled again by misrepresented probabilities.

Ripoff at the Royal Academy - Byzantium

  Its not often that I rant, but my experience at the Royal Academy today was a real disaster. Avoid the new show Byzantium and keep your money in your pocket.

First, the show costs £10 to get in and was grossly overcrowded on a thursday morning. There were so many people that you had to barge your way in to see many of the exhibits. It didn't help that a high proportion of people were using the obnoxious headphones, the ones where you have to have the volume up high enough to be an irritation, but not high enough that you can actually benefit from hearing what is being said. I think having the audio commentary slows down the viewing process and distracts people.

Second, the show is incredibly badly laid out and lit. Dark, dingy, diabolical are some of the words that come to mind. The flow of people around the exhibits seems very poor with lots of bottlenecks where people get stuck in corners. The cases are so big that you can't get close to what are some very small objects. Some beautiful gold coins are absolutely wasted. You can't see any details whatsoever and the poor quality englarged pictures beside them are gross. There are bits of "furniture" to evoke church or home scattered in the middle of the floor that do nothing whatsoever to enhance the experience. There is one row of household items in a long line where instead of spreading the items and their descriptions so they can be seen from both sides, you are virtually forced down one side of the line. Much of the gold and tempura paintings are dull and lifeless. In the rare examples where they are well lit, it is almost impossible to stand and look at the items without casting a shadow on them because the lights are behind you.

Third, the show just doesn't hang together. There is very little sense of chronology in the show with you jumping geography and timeperiods from room to room. Even where the items are grouped thematically it is tough to see progress or difference between the items. There are some magnificent items here, but they are lost in the clutter. And I don't really know what to say about Byzantium after having been to the show.

If there is a redeeming feature it is the last room where some fantastic pieces from the Monastery of St Catherine of Sinai sing out through the dark and the gloom. At the end of a tedious trudge through the crowds, I almost missed how gorgeous they are. If I had been one of the people on the first days who missed them because they had trouble getting to the UK I would have been severely disappointed. They are the highlight of the show. And the shock of going out into the brightly lit gift shop at the end is truly jarring. The new temple of mammon, brightly lit, with cash registers ringing, and better looking copies than the original.

Don't bother going to the show. If you want to spend money, go buy the extortionally expensive book which at least shows off the pieces in all their original colour and glory. Better still, just drop in and spend 30 minutes flicking through a copy in the gift shop. Probably less crowded, certainly better value, and a much better representation of Byzantium. The Royal Academy probably won't care. They are getting plenty of people through the door and willing to be ripped off.

Boating casualty

At the recent Southampton boat show, I spent some time on the Raymarine stand. Some of our electronics have been recently unreliable. A nice gentleman from Sea Ventures took our details and said someone would take a look within a week or so. Didn't hear back, but did find out why they haven't been in touch.

Sea Ventures have gone into receivership, meaning that one of the largest Jeanneau dealers in the world has gone. In the scheme of things, our little bit of electronics servicing wouldn't have been high on their list of things to do. I'm very sorry for all the people who will be affected.

What they missed, however, was that they could have turned a one hour service call into a very profitable sale. We were contemplating replacing all the electronics on our boat, including redoing the wiring, the antennas, the gizmos at the top of the mast, and setting up so that we could have the latest charting toys down below as well as new instruments and radio. My guess was that this would have cost between £2000 and £3000 and been a pretty good earner for Sea Ventures. It could have been done in a slow time for them, optimising their work force, because it didn't matter much to us when it happened. They could have probably sold us extra stuff we hadn't thought of. They would have made decent margins on the electronics and great margins on the labour. And they were located about 100 yards from our boat, so not far to travel.

Perhaps one of their skilled installers is looking for work?

How much confidence do you have?

Right now there is huge effort being exerted by the leaders of the major economies of the world to build your confidence in the financial system. Enormous sums are being talked about. $700Bn translates to about twice the net borrowing of the US government in 2007 or 15% of total tax receipts for that year. The UK and European governments are mounting similar efforts to assist local banks.

Confidence isn't just about savings, retirement plans and house prices. It is all about attitudes at work - how much risk will enterprises take in this environment, how many people will be in work, how much expansion and new business gets written. But if people are worrying about their personal losses, they probably won't make great decisions that will help the economy overall to recover.

So when you go into work today, how much confidence do you have, and how will it affect your business recommendations and decisions?

It's the neighbourhood, stupid

Recently we have had a lot of news about knife crime with some really sad deaths. Now Gordon Brown wants to target 110,000 families with "disruptive" youngsters. Other commentators wring their hands and say that fixing some of these issues will take a long time. David Cameron makes a big deal out of family values as well.

At the same time I have been reading The Tipping Poing by Malcolm Gladwell. A couple of quotes from a much longer discussion. "Peer influence and community influence are more inportant than family influence in determining how children turn out. ...  A child is better off in a good neighbourhood and a troubled family than be or she is in a troubled neighbourhood and a good family. ...children are powerbully shaped by their external environment...It isn't just serious criminal behaviour, in the end, that is sensitive to environmental cues, it is all behaviour."

It's pretty tough to intervene directly in families and get results, as well as being hugely expensive for the state. Instead, lets put all those CCTV cameras and other resources to having a zero tolerance for litter, graffitti, and poor maintenance of all buildings in target neighbourhoods. Repair and keep clean the lifts. Make sure that parks are clean, safe, well maintained. Remove abandoned cars and enforce parking regulations. Focus on teen unemployment by incentivising specific job creation. Make it attractive for Tesco or Asda to open a supermarket with lots of part time jobs. Do the little things to make sure that deprived neigbourhoods don't look and feel deprived. Then they will come around, and remarkably quickly as well.

What's your inflation?

The nice people at the government statistics office have a cool new tool. Now you can figure out what your personal inflation figures are based on how much you spend on stuff each month. You can compare yourself to the average and figure out if you can do anything about it.

I'd show you a pretty picture, but the same nice folks who produced this stuff don't let you export it in any manner that allows me to share it. Whoops. How to spoil a nice idea.  Well, lets give them 50% for trying. 

It won't surprise you to know that the official inflation rate has moved from 2.5% to over 4% and that mine has gone from a smidge under 4% to around 6%. Time for that chat about a raise, or else about moving to a new country.

Change This!

Just found a cool site www.changethis.com. Its the antithesis of the sound bite. Read their 9 page manifesto. Sounds like a lot, but its a good and compelling read. I haven't dived into any more of the content, but it sounds intriguing. I'd like to have my mind changed with compelling arguments rather than mainstream media content. We'll see.

Free Swimming

A fascinating show on BBC4 last night that tracks a number of kids from birth to adulthood. They are now about 8 years old. Lots of interesting stuff, but one that struck me was that borders have really shrunk for most of the kids. When asked if they would go to the shops and buy a pint of milk, most said no. Most weren't allowed to play outside unsupervised.

This morning brought an announcement that there would be proposals for free swimming for over 60s and under 16s as part of the 2012 legacy. In principle a good idea, although probably not both groups at once! Now the question is how many kids would be allowed to go there and participate by their nervous parents?

What other kind of wounding is there?

All over the news yesterday was a conviction for unlawful wounding. The phrase got me thinking and wondering if there was any other kind?

Wikipedia lumps unlawful wounding and grievous bodily harm together and references back to an Act put on the statute books in 1851. There is also detail on the different kinds of charges on the Crown Prosecution Service web site.

Finally I came to the realisation that doctors and dentists "wound" you in the course of treatment, if "wounding means the breaking of the continuity of the whole of the outer skin, or the inner skin within the cheek or lip". Mystery solved.

Shocking Statistics

Shocking, but probably not in the way that you think. If you read the recent UK housing news, you might remember that repossession orders have climbed 17% in the first quarter over the same period last yeat. Shocking....but the really shocking thing is how FEW people are affected, not how many.

Digging through the story, the following figures emerge. Mortgage claims are the triggering of the process that may ultimately lead to reposession, although often there are alternative arrangements made. And it is clear that mortgage claims are rising.

	Q1 2008	% of mortgages	Q1 2007	% of mortgages
Mortgage claims	38,688	0.33%	33,344	0.28%
Mortgage reposessions	27,530	0.23%	23,438	0.20%
Number of mortgages	11,800,000		11,800,000

But would you be shocked to learn that only 0.23% of mortgage owners got reposessed? One quarter of one percent of mortgage holders had to hand in their keys. Admitted that this is quite a lot families affected - approximately 27, 530, but given that nearly 12 MILLION mortgage holders are managing to pay their bills and keep their properties, it isn't a lot.

It also might not surprise you to know that where you live in the UK has a pretty big impact on the repossessions. The Midlands, North West and Wales are reposession hotspots, so what is it about those areas. It isn't unemployment, at least officially. They are around the national average. GDP per head in Midlands and North West are lower than average but not as low as the North East which has very little growth in repossessions.

Regional breakdown of possession orders and claims

Region	Possession claims: Annual change since 2007 Q1	Possession orders: Annual change since 2007 Q1
London	-1%	-6%
Midlands	22%	22%
North East	20%	1%
North West	24%	23%
South East	13%	9%
South West	17%	11%
Wales	21%	26%
Source: Ministry of Justice. Figures are not seasonally adjusted

Does it dwisott?

Translation - Does it do what it says on the tin? A great marketing phrase invented by the clever people at Ronseal that now gets applied to lots of different products and has made it into OUP idioms.

What is sad is that so often the product promise is at odds with the product experience. I've just moved doctors because I moved house, and was dreading the experience. My last surgery wouldn't issue anyone an appointment more than a day in advance. This was because if they forced people to phone up on the morning of the day they wanted the appointment, they made the government's target for seeing people in less than 48 hours. You couldn't book a non urgent appointment to suit your convenience. And you had to call between 8:30 and 9 or there were no appointments. Too bad, call tomorrow. The staff were surly, the waiting room dreary and tired, the doctor's offices pretty dire.

When I went into the new surgery in Central London there were a number of interesting differences. There was a smiling person behind the desk, but there was also an automated check in for people who were willing to use the touchscreen with large letters and a very easy to use display. Because this was my first time, I got given  forms to fill in, asked a couple of questions, and had to show some id. I had my national health card, so the nice person behind the desk said, "good, one less form to fill in" and took one of the forms back.

I'm registered. I can call any time to book an appointment. They will do non urgent appointments at a mutually convenient time. They have a vampire service (sorry blood taking service) that happens every morning for routine bloodwork. And my nic shiny new national health card arrived in the mail less than a week after I handed it in.

You know, some of the investment in the national health service might just be paying off. My wife tells me that all the doctors that she has met at the surgery are nice, competent, helpful. Just maybe the practice does dwisott.

Great marketing absorbs place and time

Over the weekend I went to an exhibition at Tate Britain of pictures by Peter Doig.

This is one example, called Blotter. Peter Doig says that "The title refers to (amongst other things) the notion of one's being absorbed into a place or landscape, and to the process through which the painting developed: soaking paint into the canvas."

It was a fascinating experience because the paintings evoked real nostalgia for Canada in me. Peter Doig was born in the UK, and spent significant time growing up in Canada. The paintings were mostly done while he was resident in the UK and some done in Trinidad where he now lives.

Blotter is fairly easy for anyone to deconstruct but most of his paintings do have enormous extra resonance for anyone who has lived in Central Canada. The subjects, the detail, the use of reflection on water all provoked  intense reactions from my wife and myself. I doubt that they will achieve the same effect for anyone who has not spent a lot of time there. It's that extra resonance that great marketing achieves and does evoke time and place. How about the iconic volkswagen print ads? The Apple 1984 TV ad? Everyone can relate to them, but they have an especially powerful effect on people who remember the original context.