4 Fuks Saké

Tesco. Fat And Knackered.

I think they’re in trouble. Well, I say trouble. Tesco announced profits of £3.7bn in the UK this morning so they’re hardly in shit. More than we made last year. 

That said, shareholders aren’t going to take too kindly to days when the share price drops 16%.

The headlines say the supermarket's Christmas campaign failed to entice shoppers into store. This won't be a marketing issue, but an operational one. This is a company that is massive, bloated and listless. Its non-food businesses have done bonkers numbers in the last few years, and now occupy enormous acres of floor space. The shrinking core food business retracts apologetically, literally in front of the eyes of customers.

Its massive bloatedness and no doubt hideous bureaucracy, will be hampering clear thinking and communication. Its nearest and dearest rivals remain crystal in the conscious of the public. ASDA – price. Sainsbury’s – value. Waitrose – posh. Lidl/ALDI – cheap. Tesco? Huge and "I don’t know where everything is."

For a large of the population that’s the level of decision-making as the keys go into the ignition.

You've got to feel for CEO, Philip Clarke - the Wilf McGuinness to Sir Terry Leahy's Matt Busby. They’ve got a few issues in there, and they're not going to be fixed in a quarter. 

Pic: MrLomo/Flickr

Racism: 140 Characters Probably Not Enough

It's not easy being a politician in 2012 for five reasons.

1. You are born with an in-built lack of humility based on your assumption you are qualified to govern. 

2. You're surrounded by people who are exactly the same.

3. You've done nothing with your life other than train to, or be, a politician. 

4. You cannot see the wood for the trees. 

5. That's it.

Reason 4 is the only explanation I can find for Diane Abbott choosing to use Twitter to pile into a complex debate around race, the day Stephen Lawrence's murderers are banged up. I - like many others - like her. She strikes me as someone who has three virtues you rarely see in a politician. She's honest, passionate and brave. (On bravery, how else to explain her Labour leadership bid?)

Politicians and Twitter are going to end up eating each other. Watch Question Time or listen to Any Questions, and it's not enough to listen to the views of 5 guests and an audience of 100 people. You have to have a Dimbleby stumbling over the term 'hashtag' before they start.

In its purest form, politics is about shaping a debate and influencing people within a larger narrative called society. Ideas and arguments need oxygen. They need room to breathe. They generally need more than 140 characters. Speeches, articles, print, blogs, podcasts. They're all there. And we do have time to think about these things.

Just use 130 characters and a bit.ly next time Diane. Save yourself a world of shit. 

(Pic: Flickr/Amnesty International UK)

Fat Mitchell/Webb/Abbott

Diane Abbott tweets before she thinks. Which reminded me of this.

 

The European Bailout Explained

Love this. (From "Guardianoid" on Xtranormal)

 

Democracy. Rubbish Commercially.

Ever so slightly nauseated this week by The Guardian's decision to publish its newslist. "You can help us make the news." "Have your say." All that bullshit. It's the sort of move that grants some swooning at a Haymarket conference with words like "progressive," "open" and "bold experiment," bandied around.

I love The Guardian and its variety of digital and paper products. I'm 38 years old, work in something media related and crucially, know who Korn are. On that basis, it's the only paper I'm allowed to buy. The only downside to The Guardian unfortunately is that for all its cleverness - the bastard hemorrhages money.

If you want to make money one day (retain readership, properly monetise that large global audience etc) don't cheapen the product. Handing the editorship of the paper over to bored people in train carriages with smartphones seems counter to what you ought to be paying for. I'd like to hand my money over to an editor, who selects some great writing and presents it to me in a nice typeface on a couple of screens and on paper. I'm not giving it to the bloke sat next to me.

Dennis Wise Up

"We haven't considered making them a big offer because we believe that they are fans of Chelsea Football Club and want to do what's best for Chelsea Football Club and we've offered them a couple of things relating to their role as a fan." Bruce Buck, Chairman, Chelsea FC. 

So concludes one of the most objectionable, offensive and idiotic quotes from a football businessman since...er...since probably Garry Cook tried to pin the cancer gag on the IT guy.

Nearly 20 years ago Chelsea were shit, playing in front of 20,000 South/South West Londoners. Today, visiting fans to a packed Stamford Bridge sing the simple song: "Where were you when you were shit?" Answer: anywhere but there. 

Except for a minority. A minority were actually there when they were shit, and some organised themselves to buy the freehold to keep football in SW6. Nice little patch that for property developers, after all. You could imagine a hotel there, maybe some restaurants. Oh, hold on. 

Since then, a lot of people have got rich at Chelsea. Players. Managers. Sacked managers. Peter Kenyon. Marco Pierre White. The hotel people. A bunch of other knobheads.

A lot of people have got poorer at Chelsea. The fans. Football is more expensive than it used to be, but the game is the same.

Football is big business as Buck, Richard Scudamore are keen to tell the FT and Asian-based sponsors. Fans become a customer database. The club becomes a vehicle to talk to a global market. Fans will stay in line of course, do what they're told, they'll be 'loyal.' Clubs beseech them to be 'true fans.'

Hypocrisy, insensitivity and ignorance knows no bounds in football. CPO: you're part of the business not the football. Tell Buck to do one and pay the market rate. You deserve recognition financially for the commercial value of your contribution.

Yours,

A QPR fan.

The Economics Of Prostitution

The prostitution industry has had a good couple of months. The pendulum of tabloid coverage swings ferociously from heroin-addled serial killer victims to posh, classy girls earning well off the rich. The industry walks a constant tightrope as it attempts to attract talent to its workforce, and income from its customer base. Of late, we're seeing a lot more of the Sophias and Fionas and fewer Joannes and Paulines who 'sadly grew apart from their families.'

Amongst all the super injunction bits and pieces, various news outlets have reported a short story about "Wayne Rooney vice girl Helen Wood." Helen, 24, appears to be super-injuncted and as a result has suggested she may head to the US, steer clear of UK libel laws, and get a book published. Helen, it is reported, was paid £195 for sex with someone. 

I have never gone commercial, nor have any plans to do so. However, £195 feels an obtainable sum for a mainstream customer let alone someone rich and famous. For Helen the supplier, it seems the margins are starting to slim. After all, I recall Helen's ancestors - women like Heather Mills - who it was reported earned thousands a session, and comfortably six-figure annual salaries.

Clearly the business model is changing. Much like the video games industry or the mobile industry it seems simple. Cut the price at entry level (free phone, cheap console; in the case of prostitution just under £200 for the full English).  Then once they're in, rake it in. In video games that's software; in mobiles, data.  In Helen's case, £195 opens up a world of book deals, tip-off fees, PAs and then finally compensation from News International for having hacked her phone in the first place. 

i Is Feeling Slightly Patronised. You?

A few years back, I remember a pretty senior client being damned by one of his colleagues. "Ah 'xxxx.' He is an ocean wide but an inch deep." He sprung to mind this morning when I spent 20p on i, the newspaper "designed for people with busy, modern lives."

The product itself reeks so much of a supercilious focus group, you can smell the lukewarm samosas.

Indulging in uncomfortable business small talk, we invariably ask 'how's business?' The guaranteed answer is always the same. "Busy." (Focus group = tick, they're busy).

It's only after the meeting, and several more, plus a few pints one night that those same people admit that they watch X Factor and quite like Aiden. You don't get that insight in a one hour focus group of showboating strangers. The result - i is a smartly designed Metro without the pictures of Lily Allen. And you have to pay for it.

Turn to Kelner's opening editorial and the insecure get more reassurance. i is "the perfect way for an intelligent person to start the day...at a more affordable price than a cappuccino."

I prefer to start my day with a double espresso. It delivers. It doesn't fanny about. And that's the issue.

If I'm busy, am I better to read, think and learn from 2 or 3 pieces of quality writing in the morning? From learning and engaging in a piece, we absorb and think. From understanding comes knowledge, ideas, insight and ultimately, output. Sounds pompous but I think that's true. 

It's tempting though to spend 20p, skim read and bullshit your way through til 6 o'clock. Worked for client xxxx and a load more I've met since.  

Write As You Talk And People Will Listen

Let’s put the unnecessarily gargantuan and catastrophic loss of life in Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan to one side for a moment. I’d like to quickly rush to the defence of Tony Blair.

Blair’s crime (literary, not war) is that his memoirs are just a bit too informal for your average political tome. A largely complimentary piece dissects his writing style here, but you get the sense the praise is all through gritted teeth. “It is all about being colloquial…Blair likes to write as if he had the reader with him...it's 'anti-literary.'" Etc.  

Writing is only great if people want to read it. Memoirs are the personal recollections of the man or woman himself. You want to hear the voice. That’s what makes Alan Clark’s Diaries a masterpiece. That’s what makes the job of Wayne Rooney’s ghostwriter the ultimate hospital pass.

As our brains change shape to cope with the welter of information we’re having to deal with (read old post here), we’re finding it harder to read. Which means writing skills need to get better. They seem to be getting worse, and there seems to be a lot less love for the actual craft which bodes badly for the future. 

At the end of the day, the job of writing is communication. Blair reads like he sounds, and people listened to him. It’s a good skill to have if you want to get things done, especially if you need votes to do it. 3 election victories are good KPIs.

Save Whales, (don't worry about the Welsh).

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