That Gormandizer Man

A good deed from Starbucks

Having studied ethicality during my MA, I learned a little bit about some not so good companies. One of these was Starbucks.  

(The only Creative Commons image of the coin I could find quickly was Japanese via dobharrison)

It's never black and white with companies this size (something we told Nike a while back) and it's very difficult for them to engage in 'good' stuff when they are so large. (It's pretty obvious really. When you get to that size and have that much influence over so many people in so many countries in so many different ways and you are making millions, then there is no 'good' or 'bad' - only 'better' and 'worse.')

Recently Starbucks have made steps to be a bit better. They've changed their coffee to Fairtrade suppliers as a standard measure whereas before you had to pay extra for this. Soya used to carry an extra charge whereas now it doesn't... if you get one of their membership cards. (I haven't looked into their shift in detail, but from a consumer point of view they're making some positive changes... regardless of why they're doing it... they have been in a bit of trouble lately...)

Anyway, so lately I've been debating the merits of whether to sign up for a Starbucks card. I don't like the fact I have to do this to get free Wi-Fi and so I don't have to pay extra for soya, but it may be worth it.

Then today when I was instore (paying with cash) I noticed that they are pledging 5p from every purchase to (RED) if you pay with the card. (Regardless of the merits of (RED) which has had a lot of criticism itself.) You can read more about it over here, but it seems pretty simple:

Every time you pay with the  (STARBUCKS)^RED Card until the 31st December 2010 we will contribute 5p to the Global Fund to help people living with AIDS in Africa.

So my mind was plotting immediately when I saw this in store this morning. I asked the barista what the cheapest thing is I could buy. Apparently it's a chocolate coin for 40p.

This means if I sign up to a (RED) card, put £10 worth of credit on it, I can buy 25 chocolate coins. As their end of the deal, if I pay for the coins separately, Starbucks will donate £1.25 to (RED). That's a 12.5% contribution of the products I've bought. (Of course it'll be more if we can find cheaper things to buy.)

Secondly, I've tried to find out of these coins are made from Fairtrade chocolate but ringing the Starbucks customer care number just now was no help - they were all busy. If it's Fairtrade, then it's another good thing.

On top of that, I'm going to donate the chocolate coins to a local charity so it's possibly 3 good deeds for the price of one.

So for £10, a local charity gets some gifts, Starbucks donate £1.25 to (RED) and I'm (possibly) supporting Fairtrade chocolate. I see that as a fair return. I rarely buy presents over Christmas, but these coins seem an OK gift to give to local charities to use as they see fit.

The key to me is if we can get a lot of people doing this. I know there's a recession on but £10 worth of coins could be useful to a lot of charities. If we get together and do this a lot, that's a lot of money and a lot of coins going toward good causes.

Branding landmarks

Usually, being a fan of Newcastle United doesn't cross over into my profession of working in Advertising. Sure I'll have opinions on how badly the club handle the press and how they have no concept of how to generate positive PR, but on a day to day professional basis there's no overlap.

That was until I read the news that Mike Ashley is listening to offers from brands to rename the stadium. From a personal perspective it appals me. From a brand point of view I also think it's potentially a really bad move. Let me explain...

St James' Park is the oldest football stadium in the North East. It's one of the few stadiums left in the country that has a city centre location. When you travel into Newcastle from the South (as the majority of our opponents do) you get the amazing sight of the stadium looking down over the city. It's a beautiful sight and one I still look forward to even after seeing it hundreds of times. Within the city it's a key focal point. On match day it's the centre of the universe. When you're not in the ground and Newcastle score you can here it in the city centre. It's a true multi-sensory experience that goes beyond its boundaries.

When I've spoken to opposition fans they've been unequivocal about their love of the ground. They can get off the train, walk through the city, and get up to the ground via several drinking holes. It's not located in a trading estate situated out of town like other stadia. (Of course it's not all romantic - some fans clash and some pubs are better than others.)

So with that in mind. With all of those positives I've listed above in mind, which brand do I think should name the ground?

Well, I think who it is is much less important than how they do it.

You see, St James' Park is old. It has heritage. People know it as St James' Park. It's not like other grounds that are known as a few different names (West Ham for example is known by some as Upton Park, and some as the Boleyn Ground) and it's never had a different name in the 117 years since Newcastle United was formed.

(Some other grounds have branded names but by and large these names were given when a new stadium was built.)

The simple fact is, St James' Park is a name that people have heard, talked about, trusted (despite ownership) and had deep emotional connections to for the whole of their lives. A brand is going to have to do something very special indeed to make sure they build on this and at the same time not destroy any positive consumer feelings toward their brand.

So what would I say if I were advising a brand on this issue?

Two very simple things:

Firstly, I wouldn't change the name. It's as simple as that. Do not call it 'The [Brand] Stadium.' It'll do you more harm than good. Newcastle United fans (many of whom are global by the way) will simply resent your brand. They'll still call it St James' Park and they'll resent your brand. Opposition fans have also always called it St James' Park so the chances of them calling it anything different is slim. They've had a constant message of "St James' Park" all of their lives, so how long will you have to buy the sponsorship to change even a small percentage? A long, long time. Not a good ROI.

Secondly, I'd communicate with the fans and ask them what they want out of it. It may be a privately owned business, but it'd disappear tomorrow if the fans stopped watching. This is a key learning the brand can take from the people they'll buy the rights from: the Ashley regime. If you study how they have conducted themselves since buying the club, simply do the opposite. They are shockingly bad at communicating with the fans. You need to be much, much better. Ask them what they would be comfortable with. Test ideas with them. Speak to them as people, not as nameless animals. If you do this they'll respect your business as a brand, but they'll also build up a trust with the people behind the brand.

Own the rights to name it, let everyone know you own those rights (subtly in some cases) but respect the name and don't change it.

It will be a brave brand that does the above, but it'll be a respected brand. It'll be a brand that will be supported by the fans instead of being disowned by them. It'll be a brand that goes up in my estimations, my friends estimations and my family's estimations. I'd guess that other fans may feel the same as me too. It'll be a positive action. Not a negative action.

So, pass this on to the brands thinking about it, and comment below. Let's help them do it the right way, and let's get chatting to them.

Mark
madesignstudies@gmail.com

British Gas Fail

British Gas. If you're really that interested in keeping me as a paying customer then at least have the courtesy to check that the person you've addressed the letter to is the person you're trying to convince to stay.

If I were presenting a planning document to a client, told them the campaign was perfect for them and explained why they should choose us, and them on the next slide it had another clients logo on, it wouldn't go down too well would it...

So, British Gas, instead of picking up the phone, engaging me and asking me why I want to leave you've given me more ammunition to leave you. That's a big FAIL in my book.

As I've mentioned several times - a consumer telling you something negative is a perfect opportunity to build something positive with them. But not British Gas... oh no...

A new receipt system

Here in the UK we're very good at using scapegoats to save us the brain power in having to think about the bigger picture. Take the whole 'be more ethical' movement. It's a massively complex situation that involves politics, religion, multi-national corporations and a few billion people.

Yet in the UK, it's apparently all the fault of the plastic bag. As soon as Anya Hindmarch launched a fashion line that touched on it, it was instantly on the front pages of the press. The plastic bag was the reason the planet was falling apart.

When I studied my MA a few years back I focused on ethicality and packaging, so I do know how bad plastic bags can be for the planet. It's obvious really: use less packaging, and make sure the stuff you do use is biodegradable and recyclable. But that goes with all packaging, not just plastic bags and I'm happy to see this being addressed now. A few years ago people were happily turning down free plastic bags but then proceeding to buy individually wrapped bananas...

But I think there's a new kid on the block that seems to have slipped through the net.

I'm always very careful when it comes to plastic bags and I only get them when I need them. I try and balance out being given plastic bags with not buying black bin bags. So most of the time I'll refrain from accepting a plastic bag. However, the majority of the time I simply do not need a receipt. Let's face it, when you buy some shower gel or some dried fruit, you rarely take the item back. Yet over the weekend when I bought those items I ended up with 4 very large pieces of paper with information on them that was simply of no interest to me. I can understand a receipt with some goods, of course, but not for all.

Why can't I have some information built into my credit/ debit card that tells the till to send an electronic version of my receipt to an email address? That way I can log in if I need it, and I'm not lumbered with having to store pieces of paper, and the environment benefits too? Is that too much to ask? And if I pay with cash why can't I have a Tesco Clubcard style key fob? I tap it on the till and it sends my email address a receipt of the transaction?

Am I missing something and this has been done already? It seems so simple...

How London buses are numbered - TfL come up trumps!

I tweeted yesterday that I'd received the most interesting email I'd ever been sent. I think that's still true.

As a Planner, I'm supposed to be interested in everything. Well, regardless of whether I should or shouldn't be interested in everything, I am. It's just the person I am. When I don't fully understand something, I try and find the answer or some context to the subject.

Last week I was waiting for the bus and wondered why they are numbered as they are, and why some have letters in front of a number.

I emailed the following note to TfL:

I just have a simple question that I'm hoping you can explain to me. Most buses are a number, but some are letters and numbers. So I catch the number 55 to work. But I also see the C2 when I'm around Old Street.

I'm just wondering can you explain the number system to me please? And also, who decides which number goes on which route?

Thanks

Well, yesterday I received this response. I'm pasting it verbatim (but anonymising the member of staff as he may not want his name made public):

We appreciate the importance of route numbers to London's bus passengers. They might be described as the shop window by which passengers recognise a route. In some cases - particularly with regard the long-established routes - a particular number may even evoke affection.

The numbering of London's bus routes has evolved slowly since the earliest days of regular bus operation in the capital. In a few instances, it is possible to trace the lineage of sections of existing routes back to their identically numbered predecessors from horse-drawn days. You may be interested to know that in 2 years time one London bus route will incontrovertibly reach its centenary. Route 24 first started operating between Pimlico and Hampstead Heath
under The General Omnibus Company in 1911, and since then the route has been subject only to minor changes to accommodate one-way systems.

There is a tradition for route planners within Transport for London and its forerunner organisations deliberately to respect the past by re-using numbers that have local historic associations. That is the case with route 55 that you mention. It was first introduced between Central London and Leyton during a major service re-organisation around forty years ago. Its number was a deliberate echo of a trolleybus route 555 that had run along Old Street to Hackney and beyond some years previously, and also of the tram route 55 that the trolleybus had replaced.

London Transport operated the capital's buses in various guises between 1933 and 1984. Until 1970 the organisation also had responsibility for routes in a doughnut-like ring of the outer surrounding countryside. The routes that served this area utilised numbers between 300 and 499, and 800 between and 899, with the 700 series set aside for Green Line coaches. With the resulting pressure on available numbers for new routes in the Central area (operated by red buses), in 1968 London Transport first started using the system of prefix numbers that continues to this day. The idea is that the prefix letter should designate the place around which the routes cluster - P for Peckham in the case of routes P4, P5, and P13; E  for Ealing in the case of series E1 to E11, for instance. The C in C2 stands for Central. The prefix 'N', however, denotes a night bus.

Now, with over 700 routes within Greater London alone, it is necessary for us to maintain this system. When we introduce a new route - or make alterations to an existing route by splitting it - the last digit or digits of the historic 'parent' route are used wherever possible, so that passengers might associate the incoming route with its predecessor. This was the case in 2003, for instance, when route 414 was chosen as the number for the new route between Maida Hill and Putney Bridge, which was intended to augment route historic route 14 south of Hyde Park Corner. 

How interesting is that!? What I love about it most is the passion which the person obviously has about the subject. He has managed to turn something that could be quite mundane into something that is compelling because of his passion for the subject. Brilliant.

My first thought on receiving this was "why can't all encounters with TfL be as this rewarding"... but that's a post for a different time.

What it also reminded me of is how much we take the web for granted. I didn't want to scour google for the answer, I wanted it from the horses mouth. I fired off an email and received a superb reply quickly. We shouldn't forget how easy it is to find answers to things. They may just be an email away.

I'd like to publicly thank the chap for making me enjoy something that could easily have turned into another bad experience with a brand.

Twestival

I popped along to the Twestival last week.

It was what you would expect, really. A bit different to the Harvest Twestival I visited last year, but OK. It's definitely maturing as a channel, and there were a lot more people in suits talking business than last time, and a lot more people who'd heard of it because of celebs.

My highlight was receiving this pic afterwards:

 
(That's me looking daft in a hat pilfered from a friend.)

A lady called Carole Edrich took it when I was sat by the superb Tipped board. Carole messaged me after and emailed me the pic yesterday. I just thought I'd say thanks to her publicly. Ten years ago, if a stranger snapped me when I was out, contacted me after and gave me a print for free I'd be humbled and very appreciative... the same as now.

Thanks Carole! It's cool!

Sir Ken and my brothers

I popped down to The RSA at lunchtime yesterday to see Sir Ken Robinson speak. He was very, very good. Very inspiring and well worth seeing whenever you can. Also, his TED talk is legendary so make sure you watch it here.

He talked for a while about vocational education and as a society how we belittle it and think academic education is much more important. On top of that how the very act of teaching is not about facilitating and encouraging risktaking and self-expression, but about box ticking and teaching kids how to play the system.

Having experience of teaching at Higher Education here in the UK has certainly emphasised this to me. I was exposed to a large proportion of teachers who merely made "mini-me's" in their own image. (Not from the course I tutored on I hasten to add. There's a reason I tutored on that course, and a lot of it was down to the fact that we actively encouraged risk taking, we celebrated making mistakes and we in no way made clones of ourselves. I can think of nothing worse than a younger, better looking, more energetic, less pessimitic version of myself... and I'm sure you can't either.)

But I don't really want to talk about that. I want to talk about my brothers. I talked about my dad a while ago, now it's time for Our Paul and Our Stephen.

  

You see, we're brothers. We've been through some shit in our lives and that has brought us closer together. But, we're all very different.

Our Stephen: He's my younger brother. He's the manager of a bookies in the North East. He tried out Sixth Form after school, but didn't fancy it. He's not really the academic type but he's bloody brainy. He likes the life in the North East and still lives there. He enjoys his life, enjoys his job and is happy doing what he does. I think he sees work as a job and not so much a career. He works to live, much like our dad... and boy does he live. Our Stephen is like: Rodney. The youngest, but possibly the brainiest.

Our Paul: He's our older brother. He's different to both of us in a way. In a way he's an extreme version of both of us. He actively distanced himself from academia as soon as he could. I hope he won't mind me saying he didn't ace his GCSEs. He just wasn't engaged academically, but like Our Stephen he's a tremendously brainy person. His artistic skills used to be amazing and I used to spend hours looking at his sketches. He left school and learned from the university of life. As cliched as it sounds he really did: He's lived on building sites, he's sold door-to-door and he's really got himself into some scrapes... most of which I'm sure I don't know about and don't want to know about. If the economy collapsed tomorrow (as it may do) he'll be fine. He can always find money from somewhere by using his superb selling and schmoozing skills. Our Paul is like: Boycie. Has the skills to really catapult himself up.

Me: I'm the one that the Government love. I went to Uni, got into loads of debt, play everything by the rules and am very academic. I like studying. If I'm honest, I like the fact I'm a Master of the Arts from a good Uni. Sad as it sounds that gives me a bit of a buzz. I'm a career boy. I'm always looking for the next bit of responsibility and how to fast track my career. I'm passionate about what I do and I think I'm pretty good at it. But I want to get much, much better at what I do and will work hard to do that. I'm the one that has 'made it' in the family. (They're not my words.) I always want to read more, learn more and be at the forefront of what I'm doing. I'm not really one for too much schmoozing so I'm hoping to do this through genuine hard graft and some skill. We'll see. I'm like: Cassandra's dad, Alan. Supposedly in a better career, but not so sure, and a bit jealous of Boycie and Rodney.

The point I'm trying to make here is to mirror what Sir Ken said yesterday.

My choice to be academic instead of vocational hasn't really made any difference in my professional happiness, even though the education system I was part of implicitly told me it would. Professionally I'm no better than my brothers at all. We're the same but different. Emotionally I'd even go as so far as to say they're happier than me. If not happier then as happy at the very least.

Sir Ken talked about how the education system shouldn't be managed with systems and compared to running a service like Railtrack. The fact is, education is about people, and people are organic things. We're not the same. We learn in different ways, at different speeds, and we're interested in different things. We shouldn't treat education as a national standard, it should be micro managed to suit relevant interests. Relavent to the people learning, not the government. The sooner we realise this, the better for the country and society as a whole.

Something to do with supermarkets

I remember sketching this up one afternoon after a boozy lunch.

 

I now have no idea what I was trying to explain. Knowing me it'll be something to do with social class, the credit crunch and North v South.

If you can interpret it drop me a line.

Being priced out of 'traditional culture'

I've lived in London for the best part of 12 years now. I love it and loathe it in equal measure. There are so many things about London that make my life more enjoyable but there are also parts of it that take away some of that glee.

Latest on the list of things that I don't like about London is how much certain things cost here.

I've made a conscious effort recently to really go for it and do loads of 'cultured' stuff. I'm a great believer that everything can be beneficial if viewed in the right way, but by 'culture' I mean the typical things you'd do to learn about a place if you were a tourist, and the things you'd generally do to learn as much as possible about a place. For me this means doing some touristy stuff, visiting things that wouldn't usually be top of my list and doing stuff that I may not enjoy, but that I will find interesting.

So I've been watching more films in the cinema, I've been going to shops I don't usually go to, I've been eating food I've not tried before, I've been going into places I usually walk past, I've been trying different routes into the office and other stuff along those lines. You know the stuff - not defaulting to the usual music on the iPod, not defaulting to the usual TV programme or the usual pub.

One of the things I've made a big effort to do is all the stuff in London I should do. This includes cafes I've been told about but it's also the museums and galleries I haven't really spent much time in. I've tried to do a lot of these... but they're just too damn expensive!

Over the past few months I've visited Barcelona, Berlin and San Francisco - pretty much on a shoestring budget. In all of them I experienced the cities how I like to experience them: wandering around, doing a few of the 'must do' things, speaking to locals, going to a gig etc. Out of all three trips, the most expensive tourist activity I participated in was a trip to Alcatraz Island.

I've always been fascinated with Alcatraz so it was a big moment for me. It cost $26 which would usually mean about £13, but in reality meant closer to about £16 when I went over there... thanks Gordon. That got me a return ferry trip, an excellent audio tour, and allowed me as much time on the island as I wanted. You simply hopped onto the ferry when you wanted to go back. Photographs were allowed and there were free demonstrations and talks throughout the day. When I was there we were told about Christmas Day for the inmates. I have no gripes at all and would easily pay the money again - it was excellent.

Now I'd like to highlight 3 experiences I've had recently in London.

1. The Science Museum. One of my favourite London museums. I paid £8 for the Japan Car exhibition, and it was shocking. They've obviously had complaints as they made it plain when buying the tickets that the cars on show are production cars and not concept cars. That's fine, they can be interesting too. We couldn't touch the cars, there was very little information about them and the show was so small I had finished walking around it in about 15 minutes. To compound matters, the feedback computer at the end asked 'What is the best part of the exhibition?' but didn't ask 'What is the worst part of the exhibition?' Selective feedback indeed.
2. The Natural History Museum. To visit the Charles Darwin exhibition costs £9. When I asked if I could pop my head in to see if it was worth £9 I was politely told no. I asked if photographs were allowed and I was politely told no. I politely told them they weren't getting £9 of my money then.
3. St. Paul's Cathedral. This one irks me most of all. I'm now lucky enough to live within walking distance of this so a couple of weeks ago I wandered down on a Sunday afternoon. Not only did I find out on entering the building that most of it was closed off because it was Sunday, but I also found out that when it is open it costs £11 to walk around. Again, no photography is allowed. They'll be waiting for my £11 in that case... A charity with a turnover of over £1B, profits of over £20M in 2004, and dwindling parishoners and I have to pay £11 to experience it.

I'd say that something about Charles Darwin, about the future of travel (and the environment) and something about religion would be good things to go to and good things to experience and to learn from. Yet to do all three would cost me £28, and I could probably do all three in a couple of hours.

It strikes me that with the economy as it is at the moment, these prices are simply too high. If they're too high for me, then they're too high for a lot of other people in the UK. What this means is that I'm being 'cultured' in a lot of other ways. I'm simply walking the streets more, viewing architecture, taking photographs, popping into stores and seeing how they are marketing their goods. All of this is stuff I would be doing anyway, but I'm doing more of it because I'm simply being priced out of 'traditional culture'.

How long until the museums realise this and reduce their prices? Does anyone have stats about how many people go into the free areas of museums versus the paid sections?

The saviour of the music store?

When I was in San Francisco I dropped into a couple of record stores. I was in that holiday mindset that you get into, and I went in there with a slightly different mentality than I would if I popped into one here in the UK.

When I was in Amoeba Music in Berkeley I spotted this little contraption:

 

I've not seen these in the UK (but I dont' get to record stores as much as other people - like Mr. Gower - so let me know if they are around, Charlie?), but they may be around.

It was a great little thing, and because of this I spent well over an hour in the store as opposed to the usual 10-20 minutes I'd usually spend.

Eseentially it was a very simple bar code reader. I shopped as I usually do, and browsed album covers for something to strike me such as this when I was there.

I was sure I'd heard the name, loved the cover so scanned the barcode. In an instant I had samples of the songs on the album, some context about the band in text form, a discography and a 'similar artists' button. All streamed from a web-based database.

This instantly removed one of my dislikes about buying from record shops: the risk of wasting money.

As you've probably noticed from this blog, I love taking risks and urge others to do so (including when I taught at St. Martins), but in these credit crunch times* I can't afford to waste money on records I may not like. This little tool took that risk away and I lapped up the information it gave me, spent a bit of time on it browsing around and found one or two other things that I liked.

If these were in record stores more over here I'd spend more time in them. I'd probably spend more money in them, too. But I'm not holding my breath.

(* I apologise profusely for mentioning the elephant in the room, I'm sick of hearing about it too.)