furtherandfaster

Function over form

Bought a watch today after looking for what seems over a year. I'd wanted to spend a reasonable amount of money on it - watches can be jewellery after all. But what I couldn't find was a watch which would clearly tell the time - the primary function of a watch. Particularly in workshops you need to be able to manage time. And the more expensive watches get the harder they are to read. Try it out yourself. Its as if to add value the designers have to add complexity. Why couldn't I buy an expensive watch which was readable? Couldn't find one.  So I had to wait until I was in  seaside town where the economy is dependent on people dropping a little money while on their holidays. The jeweller started me on a £10 watch and I wound up with one at £20 with a 2 year guarantee I neither wanted nor needed. But readable! At this price point you can't find watches for sale on the internet because the delivery costs are so high they don't bother trying to sell them. So I couldn't even get this on the internet.

Somehow this feels like the opposite of marketing. To have to wait and go to a particular place to buy a watch cheap enough to do what a watch is supposed to do.  Because the majority of products don't deliver. So for now I'm a happy camper. The watch shown above isn't the one - but makes the point quite well - legible but cheap. Let me know if you find legible and expensive..

Using the web for luxury branding

I went to the luxury briefing conference last October which was all about Web 2.0. And it was quite obvious that luxury brands really struggle with the possibilities of collaboration and co-creation. They hate losing control. But there's more to the web than participation. Have a look at this website here and their intro flash movie. When I was speaking at the IDM Academy at the DM show a couple of weeks ago someone gave me a business card made of stainless steel wrapped ina sleeve which was black the outside and red on the inside. Video on their website is lower res so they can't put in all those glamorous production values you have in magazines. But they can tell stories and they don't need high res to create mystery and intrigue.  I find this film compelling  because you really have no idea what the product is but you have to stay with it to find out. Though its a bit of a chuckle when you find out after all that suspense and Matrix soundtrack. It isn't at all clear what the connection the 3 young scottish widows on the South Bank have with what seems to me some rather pricey stainless steel cufflinks. Surely for that price I might expect platinum? The website also has to function so I can register my 'unique' cuffs - though I'm not clear why I have to do this  -  clearly the retailers aren't doing it. Am I going to be recognised by my cufflinks: Ah Welcome number 37 we haven't seen you for a while.

I wish the ARMREVOLUTION  luck. Can you build a brand around cufflinks? Links of London who I have worked with for some years started there and now the cufflinks are a footnote only - they switched their range towards women who get through a lot more jewellery than men do. I'm not sure about the product strategy. But this website a great example of using the web to do what the web does well - tell stories.  And you don't need co-creation to do that.

IDM Academy

I hurried back to do  a half hour presentation about how to build Strong Propositions in Earls Court this afternoon at the Direct Marketing Fair - I think Internet world was also there - I didn't really have time to look around afterwards. Exhibitions exhaust me - they are immensely tiring places for people to meet and to work out who they want to do business with. I did my free offer of the audience questionnaire which got me a plentiful supply of business cards. But no one had seen the video podcast that I went all the way to Richmond to film for the conference organisers back in March so I think I'll put that to one side for next year. One of the main points I make in the presentation is about people being different. Exhibitions do a dreadful job of making otherwise individual companies look very very samey.

Jewellery and precious metals

I've started a project on jewellery - so spent some of the afternoon wandering the west end stores sniffing the wind. I was intrigued to find what looked like a shift towards semi precious stones. But suspicious about whether this was to do with anticipating or driving consumer taste - or that with the cost of precious metals rocketing in the last 12 months - the margins are in shiny stones not in shiny metal. hmm. Did you know that the world's supply of silver currently stands at 11 years. Yup no more mined silver after 2020. Buy now to avoid disappointment.

If you hurry up....

you can catch my blog of Online Research 2008 the 2 day conference run by WARC

And you can catch my blog of the How to Workshop run by the Word of Mouth Association UK

I did a little bit of audio with both - interviews with some of the delegates for the Online Research conference, but a little WOM test for the speakers at the How to workshop - I asked them to tell me who had spoken before and after them and what they had talked about. You'll find this material rolled in with the blogs.

If you're a subscriber to WARC.com you can always check them out but if you're not then they are dropped behind the corporate ice after a month - and I blogged both during the month of March. So the clock is ticking.

Marketing training for publishers: introducing the peleton

No time to breathe – today  I ran a training course for the marketing team for a major publisher. Thinking through the implications for publishing leads to a new idea about developing a competitive offering. Most marketing in Western Europe works on the notion of establishing a point of difference. Whereas in publishing titles work best in groups where readers can find a similar author or title. So I use the idea of the peleton taken from cycle racing – the group take turns to lead the pack and bunch together to create a more aerodynamic shape, the slipstream also helps to pull along those at the back of the pack. Interesting idea to apply to titles.  At the end of the day there is a fascinating discussion about publishing, where it is going and how the business model is changing. Record companies are resigned themselves to almost free music but charging for concerts. What is the equivalent in publishing?