Hugh Salmon

 

So, it is December 2010. Christmas is coming. And, as a load of snow is dumped on us, I have been reflecting on how the world has changed in 2010.

For I do think that, although 1984 and 2001 were going to be world-changing years, 2010 actually was. The likes of Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, smart phones and MP3 players have come of age – and tablets will become increasingly accepted as competition drives down price. I know some of these businesses started in the last decade, the last century even, but I do believe the year 2010 has defined them – and they have defined 2010.

No doubt, countless print and online articles are being written right now as we move into 2011. I am not the best person to add to the mass of information that will hit us as we approach the New Year. But I am sure technology will be a recurring theme.

I now realise my opening sentence is wrong already. I haven’t been reflecting on how the world has changed. I have been reflecting on how my world has changed.

Why should this be of any interest to anyone else?

Well, professionally, for various reasons and circumstances that I did not foresee (or want) my career has not developed in the way many would have predicted.

This has opened my eyes to a real world out there that I would not have experienced had my career path been more conventional. I think I can claim a unique perspective on our society from top to bottom and from good to bad.

How can I say this?

Well, since the beginning of my career at Ogilvy & Mather in 1979, a close friend of mine was made a peer this year and others have made millions, some hundreds of millions, of pounds. One has three aeroplanes, two of which take-off and land in his back garden. However, another friend broke his neck in a motor racing accident and has been paralysed from the neck down for 30 years. Without extraordinary medical technology, he would not be with us now. How and why do the dice fall this way?

More recently, earlier this week, I found myself with a poor old lady who was clearly severely disabled and in chronic pain. We were both awaiting a medical examination and told, after two hours in uncomfortable and unforgiving chairs, that the clinic had run out of time. We would have to re-arrange our appointments – and go home.

This was Tuesday, the first day of this week’s frozen weather. This lady, who could barely walk, had taken a train from Coulsdon to Purley, changed to Clapham Junction and then taken a bus to the clinic. Now she had to undergo the reverse procedure having not been seen by a doctor. And all to be repeated in two weeks for her re-arranged appointment.

Of course, I had driven there in my fancy car and parked less than 100 yards away. Concerned about her slipping on the ice, I offered her an umbrella from my car as a walking stick but her pride forced her to refuse. She shuffled and slid into the dark. I hope she’s ok. It has worried me all week. Should I have offered her a lift? Oh dear.

Who is looking after people like this lady? I couldn’t. Politicians and policies won’t. What humanity was shown by the Government-employed medics, for whom we had waited so needlessly not to see? The answer is none. They just wanted to get home. It’s cold outside.

I accept this small experience could have happened to any of us. I don’t know why but, in my life, it has happened to me more than most of us with ‘business careers’.

Perhaps because of this, the thought struck me that while my day had been spent online, on email and Facebook and Linked In and Twitter, connecting with people, this lady may not have connected with anyone at all, all day. She was alone. We were alone together in an inhospitable waiting room – but we are a world apart.

I said I have seen good and bad and, again, I think I can claim mine to have been a unique journey – certainly in our line of business.

I have been exposed to corporate corruption, financial fiddling and nasty little cheats who have got away with it – unpunished. I have seen the human effect of their cheap scams and met people whose careers, and lives, have been broken by these crooks. I tried to stand up to it, but where has that got me? A lot of money, yes, but I have never worked for a big agency again – not for the want of trying.

At the other end of the moral scale, I have met good people and seen great work, not just business and creative work, but good work and good works in charities and in the community where the depth of human kindness has truly touched me.

This week, I watched two TV programmes that support the case I am about to argue.

The Secret Millionaire features the exposure of rich people to the real lives of people living among us in a completely different world from that which we enjoy. Every time I see it, I cannot believe that these filthy rich people are so ignorant of the filthy, scary, violent world that pervades so much of our society.

Age of Do-Gooders, presented by Ian Hislop, showed the likes of William Wilberforce refusing to accept the lives of the ‘underclass’ and forcing through real social change on a scale that reveals how the shallow, and totally uncreative, slogans of ‘change’ thrown out by today’s politicians are part of the game of deception they live by.

William Wilberforce? The Slave Trade Act was passed through Parliament in 1807.

Two hundred years later, who matches him? Mandela, for sure. Who else? I hope, in the next decade, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and the billion-dollar-boys will join him. They are our only hope. It won’t be our second-rate politicians, that’s for sure.

So, as A Different Hat, I have been trying to carve this space where the commercial media and marketing worlds meet the real world outside and where, somehow, the skills employed within our industries can be used to a wider, social benefit – and not just the relatively trivial commercial products we promote for our livings.

And, it seems to me, that – despite all the talk of quantitative easing and benefit cuts and our young students facing a lifetime of the debt that today’s politicians are so keen to denounce yet, hypocritically, foist upon them – there must be hope.

And my hope is this. It is very simple. The connectivity which those of us who work in marketing and the media find relatively easy to adopt becomes increasingly available to those who need it – rather than just those of us who enjoy it.

This is the first of three 2010 legacy posts and I will return to this theme.

In the meantime, this quote by Mark Read, WPP Digital’s chief executive quoted by Brand Republic http://bit.ly/ef9wPk supports my retrospective view of 2010:

“As Facebook has surpassed the half-billion-users milestone, and is effectively the third largest country in the world, it is no longer a matter of if brands should have a presence on Facebook, but how they can be successful.”

As a society, the next challenge is to make this technology work for the benefit of everybody – and not just because Bill Gates has made so much money out of it.

In 2010, the world has turned.

 

Now, from the start, I have to own up to two vested interests.

First, I am a plain chocolate, not a milk chocolate person. Give me Bournville over Dairy Milk anyday – or, preferably, Co-op Fairtrade dark chocolate. Yummy.

The other thing is that I am a Co-founder and Director of www.Lovereading.co.uk.

So I know about the Book Trade. And I know the book trade is in a bad way. Waterstone’s are the only book chain on the High Street, until they unite with HMVs.  I don’t count WH Smith, other than their airport stores, which aren’t on High Streets. By definition, they are at ground level. Boom, boom.

And I know about the effect of the end of the Net Book Agreement in 1995, which has enabled major multiples to sell bestselling books at substantial discounts – sometimes, ridiculously, such as with the last Harry Potter, at a loss.

And I know this has polarised the book market between the bestsellers and the rest, which is why literary giants like Katie Price and Gordon Ramsay dominate the charts.

And I know that virtually every books that has ever been published is available on the internet – which is fine if you know what you want to buy, but not great if you would like some help and guidance on which book you might enjoy reading next (hence www.Lovereading.co.uk).

And I know that many of the friendly, local Independent bookstores – those owned by human beings who love books and know books and know you and know which books you might like to read – have struggled to survive. Or haven’t.

And I know all this makes it really difficult for new authors books to break through.

Because of technology, it is easier than ever to get your book printed and published – you can do it yourself through print-on-demand (POD). But, paradoxically, it has become harder than ever to enable readers to discover it. You can stick it online, but you almost certainly won’t find a bricks and mortar bookstore to stock it.

Here are two Insights that are unique to the book market and very important.

Unlike any other market I have worked in, in the book market it is the new books that are discounted. Thanks to the collapse of the Net Book Agreement, you can buy all the latest bestsellers at half-price (or less). If you want to buy a book that was published some time ago, although it is new to you, it either won’t be available at all (in a major multiple) or you will have to find it at the back of Waterstone’s racked, illogically, in alphabetical order by name of author, at the back of the store – or they will order it for you. And the ‘old’ book will be available at full price.

In this case, you might as well go home or back to the office and buy it online at a discount – but still not as great a discount as the new books on offer.

This is mad but true. Would a supermarket sell you fresh lettuce at a discount and charge more for last week’s stock? Of course not. It would be commercial suicide. But this is what happens in the Book Trade.

The other Insight is that, in books, you don’t know what you are buying. The pages you are paying to read, that you hope will fire your imagination, entrance you with someone else’s thoughts and take you into another world will, by definition, be new.

Other products like, say, Marmite or Corn Flakes, provide guaranteed taste and texture. You know what you are going to get. I once sat on a pavement in Saigon with an executive from Heineken, pouring bottle after bottle of past-sell-by-date beer into the gutter. Such was his commitment into the consistency of taste and integrity of his product that he had even bought and paid retail price for this redundant stock.

So, with a book, you need guidance and reassurance, before you start reading it. Before you buy it, you want to know that it is going to be good.

This was the dynamic behind the amazing success of the Richard & Judy Book Club. Why them? No idea. But it shows how desperate readers are for guidance.

Another way of reassuring readers that a book is worth reading is if it has been nominated for, or won, a book award. Because people do read. Millions of them. They just want the comfort of knowing they will enjoy the book they have chosen.

So I approve of Book Awards. And, as I live and work within the dynamics of a market economy, I understand that Book Awards need sponsorship.

One such Book Award is sponsored by Galaxy chocolate. ‘As sponsor of the Awards, Galaxy continues to unite reading and chocolate as the perfect match for women everywhere to enjoy their ultimate me time moment’, gushed ‘Galaxy Ambassador’ Claudia Winkleman at the Awards Ceremony. Why just ‘women’? Why ‘ambassador’?

Why? Sponsorship is one thing, but now things get really sticky.

Personally speaking, I find the connection between chocolate and books contrived, and rather tasteless, but if Galaxy advertising claims ‘melting into a good book with some silky smooth Galaxy chocolate is a wonderful indulgence’, what do I know?

What I really object to is the next line of the advertising and the next stage of the process, the sales promotion – ‘Galaxy are giving away a million books’.

Yes, you read that correctly – giving away and a million. Not ‘up to a million’. Not even ‘over a million’. A clearly and specifically defined statement of fact. A promise. Galaxy are giving away, FREE, not a hundred, not a thousand, not a hundred thousand but a MILLION books. Who on earth conceived and approved this counter-effective and,  I hope, sales-counter-reductive idea?

What effect is it going to have on the struggling Book Trade?

What threat will it be to the endangered Independent Bookstores in lost sales?

How many of these books would otherwise have been bought by readers?

And, if not these books, what other books might these readers have chosen?

Or will these books be given away as cheap Christmas presents?

Or be found, for years to come, un-read in charity shops up and down the country?

What ‘value’ is this going to add to the perception of books in general?

I am afraid I cannot answer these questions, which is why I am asking them, but I have diligently undertaken some market research and bought four bars of Galaxy. Even though I can’t stand the stuff, I melted into action.

What you do is go to their website and enter an ‘indulgent code’ provided by Galaxy. My ‘indulgent codes were ‘poetry’, ‘dream’, ‘virtue’ and ‘subtle’. You then enter ten random letters (which is quite tedious, particularly as they are not very legible). And then you are told you haven’t won.

But the wrapper says that ‘if you are a winner, you can indicate your top two preferences from a list of books, one of which you should receive’.

And the website says the choices are ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’ by Audrey Niffenegger, ‘Wedding Season’ by Katie Fforde, ‘The Truth about Melody Browne’ by Lisa Jewell, ‘The Beach House’ by Jane Green and ‘Knots & Crosses’ by Ian Rankin. All books by successful authors and all with convenient links to their own websites.

I would say, to give them their due, that Galaxy is not using this as a data collection exercise other than to ‘Like’ their Facebook page (as, at the time of writing, 594,335 sad people have done).

Apparently this gives you another chance to win a free book.

Anyway, having bought my four bars of sickly Galaxy chocolate, and read the packaging, I can tell you that this rather tasteless promotion ends on 25th May 2011.

We can then take a view on how much this little gimmick has cost the Book Trade and, in particular, the independent bookstores who are struggling so hard to survive.

And all for a few bars of ‘sugar, cocoa ingredients (cocoa butter, mass), skimmed milk powder, milk fat, whey powder, vegetable fat, emulsifier (soya lecithin), natural vanilla extract. Milk chocolate contains milk solids 14% minimum and cocoa solids 25% maximum plus vegetable fats in addition to cocoa butter’.

For this is what it takes to ‘melt into a good book’.

 

1. Marks & Spencer (M&S)

This week Marc Bolland, the new CEO of M&S, unveiled his strategic plan, including a target to grow internet sales from £500m now to between £800m and £1bn in 2014. I’m sure you can Google the rest.

One analyst described the review as ‘sensible but a little underwhelming’. Apparently the strategy is to ‘keep doing what M&S does – only better’.

Well I can tell you that, from a consumer perspective, this won’t be good enough.

I am qualified to say this because I have shopped in our local M&S for over 20 years. Indeed, with Paxman-like effrontery, I can reveal that I have never bought a pair of underpants from anywhere else.

And here is the problem facing the M&S brand. Cheap clothes. Expensive food. I exaggerate to make my point but it is like merging Primark with Harrods Food Hall. The two just don’t go together.

With so many High Street stores from which, for car parking reasons, customers are unable to load their trolleys and fill their boots, there is a limit to the amount of food that can be physically carried from most M&S stores. So I do understand they have to make a bigger margin on their bespoke, up-market food offering.

But then, having treated themselves to these fancy (but pricey) delicacies, M&S customers have to walk out past ranges of clothing that are cheap as chips.

This is the strategic dilemma facing M&S. As he is on a £15m pay package, I suspect Marc Bolland is more caviar than pants and will work this one out.

He needs to.

2. Iain Duncan Smith (IDS)

To return to the views I expressed two weeks ago in my longest and most read post – http://bit.ly/91z1vc – I can report that yesterday (11 Nov) the Conservatives made a major PR error which may lose them the next General Election.

They wheeled out IDS to announce the new uncaring ‘claimant contract’.

From a figure of fun as Leader of his Party, IDS has spent years trawling the country and re-positioned himself as a champion for the poor and needy in a ‘Broken Society’ (now ineptly re-branded ‘Big Society’). Two weeks ago, I said I believed IDS to be an innately good man who has made personal sacrifices to help the underclass in our country of which we should be so ashamed.

Now, in one day, the re-branding of IDS has been cut to shreds. What sort of PR strategy is that?

As a brand, IDS should have been wrapped in cotton wool and used to balance out the cruel cuts with his caring message. As a political party, the Conservatives have never convinced their doubters that, as long as the money is rolling in, they give a damn about ‘common’ people. Now, they have played into the hands of their opponents by fielding their one potential Mr Nice Guy as the voice of the devil.

Just wait until half of Manchester or Newcastle have to move to Bracknell or forego their benefits. After all that work in the slums, IDS will carry the can.

Poor guy.

And another thing

On Friday 29 October, I said “I fear the human effect of a keen but over-enthusiastic new Conservative led Government will result, at best, in unnecessary suffering and, at worst, social chaos”. You thought I was exaggerating? Being sensationalist?

On Wednesday 10 November, less than two weeks after this forecast, hundreds of ‘thuggish rioters’ broke into the Tory offices, caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage, smashed windows, pulled down ceilings, destroyed equipment, sprayed graffiti and left ten people in hospital. Fifty people were arrested.

I think this qualifies as ‘social chaos’.

I’m afraid there’s more to come – largely because the Coalition wouldn’t know a marketing strategy if it cut them in the face. Arguably, political ideas need to be ‘sold’ even more professionally than commercial products.

This lot just don’t think things through.

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that getting dressed is best on a dry floor.

This applies more to health clubs and gyms than it would in your home. I know this because I undertook a quantitative research study to confirm this important market dynamic. My only respondent was my wife – but I know from experience that if we agree then that is enough evidence to confirm the truth of any subject.

In any case, as anyone in marketing and communications knows, statistics exist to be manipulated to one’s advantage.

For example, I claim to visit my gym three times a week. I go once mid-week and once at week-ends but if the weekday visits are on say, Wednesdays, then that adds up to three visits in eight days, which is not much more than a week is it?

That’s the story I tell my doctor and I’m sticking to it. Such is the nature of statistics.

Anyway, I am seeking to overcome the following dilemma in health clubs and gyms.

On leaving the shower, it is impossible to dry one’s feet. Yes, one can attempt to do so have exited one’s shower but then walking the aisle back to the changing room only makes them wet again – for the showers are still furiously spewing out water after one has left them because they only turn off on an automatic basis.

This means, inevitably, that the floors of the changing rooms get wet because one has to walk through the shower area to get back into the changing room.

So, having returned to the wet-floored changing room to get dressed, one is required to put Foot One into one’s sock and then balance, and perhaps even hop about, on Foot Two so that Foot One (with the sock) can dangle in the air to avoid touching the wet floor before putting it into Foot One’s shoe. Please believe me when I say that one can feel slightly ridiculous performing this ungracious, arrhythmic dance.

The alternative is disaster. For nothing can be quite so uncomfortable than slipping a wet sock into a dry shoe. Or you could even slip over altogether. Health and safety!

Now, I think I have a radically innovative solution to this important problem.

In my health club – and further extensive research has shown that mine is not the only health club to carry this feature – there is a hand drier in the lavatorial area. You know, one of those machines that blows out hot air when you put your hands beneath them. Recently, I have read that these hand drying machines spread more bugs than not using them at all. I hope this does not apply to the showers that appear to carry the same auto on-off technology.

So what is my solution?

Well, surely the automatic hand dryer machines are wasted in their current position? After all, one picks up one’s own towel as one enters the changing room. A towel is essential to the gymming and swimming process.

Why do you need hand dryers in the lavatorial areas?

Wouldn’t these machines, rather than be fixed four feet from the floor in the lavatories be better placed one foot from the floor on the exit from the showers?

This way, one could blow-dry one’s feet under said machines, and perhaps even perform a dainty little samba, before entering the beautifully dry changing-room to get dressed without having to overcome the hateful wet-sock-dry-shoe syndrome?

I appreciate, especially on Guy Fawkes Day, that this little Insight won’t set the world on fire. But it might provide just a few people with a small degree of comfort. 

 

With all these massive changes in the our social welfare system going on, I wonder if they are being communicated with honesty and, in particular, if the Conservative element of the Coalition couldn’t be transmitting their message in a less damaging way to their brand?

Here’s my story (sorry it’s another long one):

In 2007 a professional contact, who has become a personal friend of mine, happened to be appointed to head up one of the Study Review Groups in Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice.

He asked me if I would run my eye over his team’s final report. I won’t say which one but it is an area of society in which I have some experience and expertise. And I like to think he asked me because he would value the wisdom of my input.

Anyway, once I had read the report, which ran to several hundred pages, we met to discuss my response. Overall, it was a very worthy piece of work on which I had a few minor comments.

I would like to emphasise that I was not a member of the Conservative Party and I am not now, but I am prepared to believe that Iain Duncan Smith is an innately good man and that what he was trying to achieve was genuine and for the overall public good, particularly the underclass in our society that rarely appears in our target audience profiles in the commercial world.

And, to give him his due, as an ex-leader of the Conservative Party, Duncan Smith could have spent his time making money on the after-dinner speaking circuit. But he didn’t. He got downbeat and dirty and tried to understand the real world out there. As a human being, as much as a politician, I admire him for that (not that they have PR’d it very well).

However, when we met, I did say to my friend that, as and when a General Election was called, there would be an over-arching barrier for all of Duncan Smith’s Social Review Groups to overcome.

This would be the deeply entrenched views held by many of the electorate about the Conservative Party and that these views would provoke a response that would override any specific policies, however worthy, just because they came from the Tories.

I advised that there was a communications challenge for the Conservatives to present themselves in a new light and, as a brand, to persuade people to throw away their old prejudices and re-consider the Tories in order for Duncan Smith’s initiatives to be accepted more readily and objectively and on their own merits.

As a non-member of the Conservative or any other political party, I felt from a professional point of view – if they were a client, if you like – that this would be an interesting intellectual challenge (and, ok I admit it, a bit of a pitch).

My friend suggested I submit my views to the Central Office of the Party, which I did.

So here is the verbatim presentation I provided, converted word-for-Word, from a Powerpoint presentation. Sorry it is rather long, and please note it was written four years ago, but it leads to a couple of points I would like to make at the end which I think are influencing the current national debate.

I will separate out the presentation by lines of asterisks so you can go straight to the end if you like:

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How to win the next election. Presentation to the Conservatives.

(The Salmon Agency. December 2007).

Background

Historically (until ‘New Labour’?), it was much easier to differentiate between Conservative and Labour. There were much clearer ideological differences between the two parties – and these differences were much easier to define: tax, privatisation etc.

Now the two parties aren’t seen to be very different at all: they both fight for the same ‘Centre Ground.’

To this day, New Labour harps back to the record of the Conservative Governments from 1979-1997. Yet, despite this, many of the policies of that period have been accepted, maintained and developed by Labour (see Appendix).

If the ideological wars are over, it was the Conservatives who won them.

This is the truth.

What is now called ‘the centre ground’ is where Conservatives have been all along – Labour had to move position, not the other way round. Brazenly, New Labour have stolen the Conservative position – and are being allowed to get away with it! This cannot be allowed to happen…..

What next?

The Conservatives have the right to claim:

i)        that the Conservatives who won the ‘ideological war’ – the Conservatives were right all along

ii)       that Labour, particularly Gordon Brown, have been forced to abandon all their past, socialist, principles

iii)       that Labour had to move to what is now called the ‘Centre Ground’ (which, ideologically, has always been the Conservative position)

iv)      that Labour don’t know HOW to govern Britain now they are there

v)       that, having won the ideological war, the Conservatives will now define a new politics to drive Britain (and the world) forward into the 21st century.

This is an inexorable logical flow. The question is, how to do it?

The 6 ‘C’s (of Conservative Communications)

We believe the Conservatives have 6 ‘C’s to consider:

–        Cynicism

–        Context

–        Competitiveness

–        Clarity

–        Creativity

–        Confidence

And that the following six pages will help the Conservatives win the next election……

Cynicism

Many of the electorate are cynical about the Conservatives (particularly in regard to the role of the State Sector in health and education and ‘caring’ for the needy).

Cynicism is an emotion which will not be overcome by rational arguments, particularly when presented as ‘policy proposals.’

(Consumer insight – people are not interested in policies, policies are boring, politicians do them).

Cynicism will not be overcome when presented in the negative.

(Consumer insight – people are not interested in ‘broken societies’, they want positive messages).

Cynicism and suspicion can be overcome by:

–        the personal charisma of a particular leader

–        an outstanding track record of delivery by one party (or, by default, by the chaotic state of the other)

–        creating a simple, easy-to-understand over-arching context.

Context

The Conservatives have a unique opportunity to take the high ground of British, and perhaps even international, politics.

Britain – and the rest of the world – exists as a market economy in a world market.

The old, socialist agenda was wrong – the Conservatives were right (sic).

The Conservatives have the right to claim this victory – and should be proud of it.

BUT… the price that has been paid by the anti-socialist, ‘market economy’ victory is electoral cynicism that Conservativism is a ‘money-means-all’ philosophy.

This can be overcome by a simple, easy-to-understand over-arching context:

–        by claiming victory against the old, socialist agenda

–        by building on this undeniable truth

–        by re-defining the role of Government in a modern ‘market economy’

–        and so establishing a competitive point of difference against Labour….

Competitiveness

The percentage of the electorate bothering to vote is decreasing. They find increasingly difficult to differentiate between the parties. Some generalisations:

–        ‘politicians’ speak in a language people don’t understand

–        people aren’t interested in ‘policies’

–        especially when parties steal them from each other

–        the major parties are see king the same ‘centre ground’

–        and are seen to be largely interchangeable

–        A competitive point of difference is staring the Conservatives in the face:

“ROLE OF GOVERNMENT”

Clarity

“ROLE OF GOVERNMENT”

There is a massive gap between Conservatives and Labour here:

–        it is NOT the Government or a Minister’s job to give you a flu jab

–        it is NOT the Government or a Minister’s job to teach your child to read

–        it is NOT the Government or a Minister’s job to arrest the local thief

GORDON BROWN THINKS IT IS!

It IS the Government’s job to ENABLE these things (not CONTROL them). And to do so efficiently and effectively.

There is an opportunity (a need?) for the Conservatives to ruthlessly examine every aspect of society and define the part Government has to play in it. In fact, through the Policy Groups, most of the work is already being done…

Creativity

The work of each of the Policy Groups could be presented more creatively ie….

–        more different (unique)

–        more relevant

–        more engaging

By applying one, simple over-arching context: “ROLE OF GOVERNMENT”

This is where The Salmon Agency can help by bringing fresh, creative thinking to each of the Policy Groups within this context. We already have some new ideas we can bring to the party.

And thus help the Conservatives become a party of positive change by presenting:

–        a clear point of difference vs Labour

–        an unarguable, rational reason to vote Conservative

–        an exciting vision of an new, world-leading Britain

–        and the emotional reward that we can all be part of a new future

Confidence

Right across society, the Policy Groups are doing a FANTASTIC job identifying problems (‘a broken society’) and producing ‘policies’ to overcome them but:

–        people don’t care about policies (they don’t see them as ‘solutions’)

–        and Labour can steal them

People want principles and values. So, it would be more POSITIVE to communicate that the Conservatives:

i)        have an unqualified commitment to the State sector, especially in defined areas e.g. Health, Education, Protection etc (needs discussion)

ii)       are absolutely committed to helping the poor and the needy, whoever they are and wherever they may be

iii        have ruthlessly interrogated every aspect of society and identified who:

–        need the help and protection of more effective Government

–        would benefit from the freedom of less intrusive Government 

And thus make more of the electorate FEEL confident enough to vote Conservative.

Conclusion

1.       Create clear space between Conservative and Labour.

2.       Take the moral and economic high ground by claiming victory over the old, socialist ideologies propounded by Labour (especially Gordon Brown).

3.       Promise the electorate a new, exciting future for Britain (and the developed world).

4.       Reassure the electorate that the Conservatives care about each and every UK citizen, including the poor, unhealthy and needy, and have thought through the way ‘The State’ can help every single one of them…

          …BY…

5.       Understanding and re-defining the ‘Role of Government’ in today’s market economy

6.       Re-thinking and re-presenting the work of the Policy Groups in this context (including fresh, ‘upstream’ creative thinking applied by The Salmon Agency)

7.       Developing a new, over-arching communications strategy based on principles (not ‘policies’)

8.       And so presenting a new ‘vision’ to make the Conservatives (and David Cameron) a more relevant, more attractive – and more electable – alternative to Labour.

Appendix

From ‘How to Get Rich’ (2007) by Felix Dennis (Britain’s ‘36th Richest Person’):

“I have little time for many of Margaret Thatcher’s policies….But she smashed the union’s grip on Britain’s economy and helped create a climate in which denationalisation of major industries became the cry for Socialist, Liberal and Conservative alike. And if you don’t like my reading of history, ask Tony Blair….

…I, and many thousands like me, will always be grateful to the old handbag for bringing the sweet aroma of competition to what, after all, is a nation of shopkeepers…

…I am a Labour man born and bred. I will die voting Labour. It’s a tribal thing…

…Even so, that lack of competition nearly ruined Britain…it brought us to the edge of an abyss from which I doubt we would have crawled out in my lifetime. Thatcher dragged us back from the brink and nobody knows that better than the current Labour administration. After all, they stole many of her and John Major’s policies, and made them their own. Very successfully, too.

Now that’s how to handle competition!”

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So that was my presentation.

It was submitted to Steve Hilton and Andy Coulson and their PAs. Steve Hilton agreed to a meeting but I couldn’t make the proposed date. I was on a photographic shoot in The Bahamas – well, you have to put your existing clients first, don’t you? And, by the time I had come back from the sun, he had gone cold on me.

Since then, the Conservatives have launched their ‘Big Society’ initiative. How closely that is related to re-defining the ‘Role of Government’? I will leave to you to decide.

So why do I, four years later, bring all this up again?

Well, I am concerned that the Coalition are using the deficit bequeathed to them as an excuse for making social changes they were planning to introduce anyway.

For example, take this week’s housing benefit announcement, presented as ‘necessary cuts’.

An ex-colleague of mine now has business interests in Barbados. Twice now, he has flown, in the luxury and comfort of a Business Class seat, next to a guy who holidays in Barbados six times a year but lives in a Council House back home.

Now, I suspect Iain Duncan Smith spotted that there are people like this and, as I think most of us would agree, there is something about it that is not quite right.

But, by wrapping what should and could have been all the positive ‘Big Society’ (‘Role of Government’) social changes into some sort of response to the deficit they inherited is not only negative and dishonest but will result in the following:

1.       Those that want to think of the Conservatives as cold and calculating will continue to do so. The Tories, especially the rather freaky George Osborne (look at his face as he sits behind David Cameron at PMQS!), have failed to show what they would call ‘the common touch’.

2.       The Liberal Democrats will realise that they have been conned (sic) and that the Conservatives have used the deficit to force through some of these radical social changes under the guise of deficit cuts.

3.       When the LibDems do realise they have been conned, the survival of the Coalition will be under threat, which will be a pity because I like it.

4.       Further divisions in an increasingly divided society.

Surely before charging into these savage cuts, which will affect our businesses and homes, it would have been better management to capitalise and monetise:

i)        the savings and inefficiencies identified by Sir Philip Green

ii)       the sale of unneeded physical assets, especially ‘Government’ property,

iii)       the forward value (‘securitisation’?) of the Bank shares we now hold?

And then cut.

By managing the ‘business of Britain’ of this way, the Conservatives could have made a positive out of a negative by communicating that cutting was the last, not the first, resort – just as their most diehard critics would expect their natural Tory instincts to be.

As it is, beyond the wrath of their own Mayor of London, I fear the human effect of a keen but over-enthusiastic new Conservative led Government will result, at best, in unnecessary suffering and, at worst, social chaos.

I do think that all this could have been avoided by researching these issues and thinking them through (strategy) and then communicating them in a more thoughtful, understanding and humane way (execution).

I hope I am wrong.

 

Earlier this year, my family and I moved home. We didn’t move far. Just one side of Clapham Common to the other (and still in Battersea, of course).

At our old house, where we had lived for nearly 20 years, I had become used to the habit of reading the newspaper over a brew and toast before heading off for work. This was a small piece of English life that I had sorely missed in the overseas posting that my agency had told me would advance my advertising career.

After our move (in Battersea not from the other side of the world) I found, to my horror, that the nearest newsagent didn’t do home deliveries. He told me: “It’s too much trouble managing the delivery persons” (that’s PC-speak for paper boys).

Well, back at our previous house, if the paper wasn’t delivered early in the morning, my whole routine broke down. The time taken to walk the short distance to the newsagent and back would start my day on completely the wrong footing.

Before you accuse me of laziness, I made a rule to myself that I would walk to the shop and buy my own newspapers on Saturdays and Sundays. This also allowed me a cheery face-to-face greeting and some friendly banter with the newsagent and/or his wife.

This couple are called Sachin and Shilpa (well they are not actually – their names have been changed to protect their privacy).

As human beings, I admire Sachin and Shilpa a much as anyone I have met.

For the whole time I have known them, which is since 1991, they have missed only one day serving their customers in their shop. This was for a family funeral.

And when I say ‘one day’ I mean ONE DAY, including Saturdays and Sundays, in nearly 20 years.

And when I say one ‘day’, I mean a DAY that starts at 5am and ends at 8pm.

A long day. Day after day. Year after year.

Sometimes, my newspaper of choice would be late from the wholesaler.On these occasions, I would receive an alternative newspaper with a little note of apology explaining the situation and saying that I could, of course, swap the paper for my preferred option later in the day. They would put it to one side just in case.

On other occasions, when I bought a Birthday Card, they would ask who the card was for and, if it was for one of my children, they would give them a chocolate bar or whatever they knew was their favourite confection.

When we went on holiday, in post- as well as pre-internet days, they knew I hated missing out certain pieces of news (including, as it happens, the Business pages).

For however long the time away, they would keep my newspaper in a pile in their already jam-packed shop. And when I returned, there they would be, all neatly sorted by day – beginning with the first date first, at the top of the pile.

So now I have moved house, I have to walk to the closest newsagent and buy my newspaper from there. Or, as my small moment of morning pleasure is denied me, I pick it up somewhere else later in the day. Sadly mid-week, Sachin and Shilpa’s shop has become just too far a walk.

But, at week-ends, what do I do?

I drive past a number of other newsagents to buy my paper from Sachin and Shilpa’s shop, as I have for nearly 20 years. They say ‘Good Morning’ and ‘How Are You?’ and ‘Thank You’ and, if they are not busy serving their other customers, we have a little chat.

I treasure their friendship.

My friendship with, and certainly my admiration for, this wonderful couple stems from the fact that day-in, day-out, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, they have looked after their customers like me.

You may have noticed the word ‘Ryanair’ in the headline of this post but that, until now, that I have not used this word at all.

And I am not going to use it again. Once is quite enough.

If you have been a customer of this airline, you will know why.

If you have not been a customer of this airline, look after yourself.

 

Last week, Justin King, CEO of Sainsbury complained that:

“The British education system is leaving supermarkets short of potential employees with appropriate specialist skills …. and that the supermarket sector in general does not receive the recognition it deserves as a career choice for graduates.”

At the same industry event last year Sir Terry Leahy, the Tesco chief executive said:

“Standards in schools are woefully low leaving employers to bear the consequences.” (http://bit.ly/c2t0Zj).

Isn’t this strange?

In the agency world, FMCG experience is an imperative on any high-flyer’s CV.

And you don’t do FMCG if you don’t do major-multiple retail.

My initial reaction to King and Leahy was not to blame the ‘British education system’ but for the likes of Sainsbury and Tesco to do something about it themselves.

If the retail sector, as arguably the most vital and influential part of the marketing chain, cannot compete with graduate enthusiasm to join the likes of P&G, Unilever and the multitude of agencies that supply them, then that is their own problem.

So I was delighted to read at the end of the piece that:

“The IGD, a body which says it is ‘dedicated to the development of the food and grocery industry’ and of which Mr King is president, yesterday launched the IGD Academy to offer training to people wanting to work in the sector. This year 2000 people will go through IGD training courses.”

I wonder if the new IGD Academy will approach the task with the same enthusiasm, talent and vigour that Marc Lewis has jet-propelled into the new, much smaller, School of Communication Arts (SCA 2.0), of which over 300 of us are mentors?

I do hope that the same level of creativity can be applied to the IGD curriculum.

I do hope the roles of marketing companies and agencies are included in the loop. (After all, if the retail sector cannot leverage the support of marketing and agency people, then no one can).

And I do hope that the retail sector will fund this initiative generously – both in cash and time, by enthusing its own industry experts as SCA 2.0 has done.

Perhaps, even, the IGD and SCA.20 courses could be dovetailed in such a way that students have the opportunity to look over both sides of the fence?

And is their an equivalent in marketing? Again, I do hope so. Then they could all get together.

However they develop, with the appalling level of debt that is about to be piled onto our graduate talent pool, the commercial sector owes it to society to fund and support more and more of these industry-led educational initiatives.

We certainly cannot trust our futures to the politicians who may or may not be clinging onto control of the education system about which Messrs King and Leahy have complained so vehemently.

Like Marc Lewis and SCA 2.0, we would be better off getting on with it ourselves.

 

For better or worse, the central theme of this blog is that we would live in a better world if the talents and skills that lie in the marketing, media and communications businesses were applied to society as a whole as well as to commercial objectives.

A core skill in the behavioural economics business is the sophisticated collection, analysis and interpretation of data.

In this light, would any self-respecting marketing company or advertising agency have endorsed the announcement of child benefit cuts this week?

As has been widely discussed: “Osborne sparked fury after admitting that a household with two people earning £43,000 each, totalling £86,000, could still receive the benefit, whereas a household where just one person was earning £45,000, would have it withdrawn. Osborne said this was because the government was trying to keep the system “as simple as possible”. He said he hoped higher-rate taxpayers would stop claiming child benefit but, if they did not, the same amount would be deducted from them through the tax system.” (http://bit.ly/a1R8Du).

It gets worse.

At best, couples will find ways to transfer their income from one to another to ensure they don’t hit the threshold.

At worst, this proposal will feed the black economy by encouraging people to work for ready cash; wheel and deal on a barter basis; establish fictitious or even dead people’s identities; set up companies to hide their real incomes by employing friends and family to ‘work’ in vital roles that, conveniently, fall just under the threshold, falsify Income Tax returns and – especially among those who used to receive these benefits – encourage more harmful crimes to make up for their lost income.

All you and your team have done, Mr Osborne, is lower the threshold of tax-avoiders from multi-millionaires to people earning just over 40 grand.

This is how it is in the real world.

And it is your actions that will provoke people to behave in this way.

And how will the HMRC police all this? How will they chase down the data required? They won’t be able to, of course.

As any grown-up manager in any agency could have told you, on a data collection basis alone, this scheme falls flat on its face.

Take it from me, you need professional help.

 

We are a sporting nation. Or are we?

Sport, unlike Christianity (unless the Pope is here – see last post last week), benefits from ubiquitous media coverage. The lives of our sports stars are ruthlessly exposed (unless they can help it).

Today, as if you didn’t know, it is the Ryder Cup – in which ‘we’ are Europe.

On Sunday, it is the Commonwealth Games, in which ‘we’ are – individually – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In 2012, it is the Olympic Games – in which ‘we’ will be Great Britain.

Except we won’t be.

Not in football, anyway.

From what I have gathered from Sky News (a pay-wall free online news channel):

“the Scottish, Welsh and Irish Football Associations have privately agreed to turn a blind eye to a one-off British team for the Olympic Games. In return for their co-operation it is thought that the English FA will not ask players outside England to join the team. The agreement should put an end to an argument which has raged since 2005, when London won the right to stage the Olympics. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been against the idea for fear it would set a dangerous precedent and jeopardise their independence in future competitions.”

This was published over a year ago, but I cannot find any more recent news, even on the official www.london2012.com website.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter because my point is this:

Why don’t we play as Great Britain in the biggest tournament of all – the football World Cup?

Well, having been lucky enough to have witnessed the inside of international sport in my time, I can tell you.

What happens is that each of the four regions that make up Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have a Committee. These Committees are very important with very important people. And they are allocated privileged tickets to World Cups, even if the ‘country’ they represent doesn’t qualify.

So, if we entered the World Cup as Great Britain, only a quarter of the men in suits and their fur-coated wives would get their four-yearly five-star treatment.

What must the other countries, each with their own cultural divisions, think?

Spain – which includes proud Catalans, Basques and Galicians – won the World Cup this year.

CNN reported (http://bit.ly/cGyXTT):

“Many of this morning’s newspapers in Spain have hinted that the victory could herald a new dawn for the country, where a sense of national identity might now take precedence over regional concerns….The transformative power of football, either by promoting national unity or through sparking a long-dormant national pride…. has been known to have huge political significance.”

Wouldn’t it have been great if Ryan Giggs, Kenny Dalglish and George Best had had the opportunity to play more competitively on the world stage?

Sadly, it seems the only way this will happen in football is if, one day, which may be soon upon us, we are so bad that Great Britain will have to unite as one to compete with other nations of the world.

Just as Britain became Europe to compete with the USA in the Ryder Cup.

So, whatever happens this week-end in Wales, or next week in India, we can look forward to our media being as one-eyed as they always are, whoever ‘we’ are.

Just you watch.