girl power

I'm writing this up simply because I think it's a lovely bit of data and I'm sure I can find a use for it somewhere.

Since the late 1960s men have improved their record marathon times by 3 minutes - but women have improved theirs by 31 minutes.

Ok so it's off a much lower base but still.

timber

I've just had one of those moments when you recognise exactly what it is that you do for a living and how odd this seems to the outside world.

Working on something for nike women my PowerPoint chart is full of terms like inspire her, make it interesting, digital hub, intimate comms etc.I was suddenly aware of the chap next to me looking at my screen a bit disdainfully and then looking away again - classic behaviour of somebody reading over your shoulder. The air was thick with "what the hell are you guffing on about, get a proper job boy" vibes without a word being spoken.

Slightly distracted I glanced over to see what he was reading. Materials in Construction. The book was open at Chapter 8. Timber. There's no grey area with timber is there? Good, solid, hard as trees timber. No destinations, barriers, consumer insights, uniting brands and people, looking at things from audience perspectives. Just a fuck off bit of timber. And sometimes you just need that clarity.

Disappointingly his book now seems to be differentiating between hardwood and softwood. Can't they just keep things simple? What's the matter with these people?!

Big Brother beats, er, Big Brother

Thanks to Anthony for this link from The Register - interesting on about a hundred levels.
Perhaps not actually surprising - it's just human nature to want to find out what's going on around you isn't it?
I think the point is one about relevance - if it's personal and relevant then people will be interested.

Thank you Don

Don has brilliantly shown me how to do the link thing with the name. Thanks Don.

Facebook 'fans'

Nick has done some interesting experiments with becoming a 'fan' of brands on facebook (given the new app fb launched this week which allows advertisers to create profiles.
I must learn to do that thing where I can change the text above so it links to it anyway from Nick's name or by saying click here - Don, how do I do that?!

UPDATE - Don has obviously now taught me to do this (see above) so I have gone back and changed the link so that it looks like I had managed to do the name-link thing from the start

More FOTC

Brilliant

installation day

working from home today and I'm pleased to report that Virgin Media have been - the telly is working, broadband is up and running (with a small hitch) and phone has been swapped over from BT without a glitch. I am absolutey elated - well out of proportion to what has been achieved. I think it might be that NTL's reputation is so bad that I was fearing the worst but I have been nothing but impressed so far. The courtesy call the other day, the installation took an hour and was very good, they explained how to use stuff and broadband was easy to install. At one point I had to phone their technical support (at 25p a minute for a 20 minute call) but at the end of it he said "I'm not charging you for this call as it wasn't your fault". Very impressed all round so far.
One small thing that saddens me only a little is that my email address is @ntlworld.com rather than @virginmedia.com - I know this is slightly ridiculous but goes to show the power of brands. I would probably never had done this if they were still called NTL. And where does this liking for the Virgin brand come from? Virgin Atlantic.

we don't have to take our clothes off, to have a good time. oh no.

Somebody at the station this morning got a call while waiting on the platform and this was his ringtone. I've rarely seen somebody reach for their phone so quickly. I strongly suspect he may not have been entirely sober when he chose to download it. Also Lindsay mentioned this week that she was going to see Meatloaf at Wembley having bought the tickets when "a bit drunk". It's got me thinking about brands or products that rely in part or entirely on people being under the influence for their success. I can think of a few - ringtones, ken's kebabs on the Albert road, pay per view porn channels probably, hula hoops (is it just me?) but it's interesting that e commerce has thrown up so many more opportunities to buy or do something that seemed like a good idea at the time (ebay I suspect does well out of this) but more rational purchase decisions such as concert tickets or even holidays can now be made pissed - just so long as you can function enough to type in your card number. Any other examples?

a courtesy call from virgin media!

Very promising ahead of Friday's grand installation! A call on the train home last night from Virgin to confirm they were coming and to remind me that Virgin Media installers always carry id and I should ask to see it.
A nice touch. A small thing but the small things count. And I've seen press reports this morning that Virgin attracted more new customers last month. Which combine to make me think I made the right decision.

Flight of the Conchords

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0

I absolutely love this.

2 things are quite interesting about this in my opinion,

First of all how I got to hear about this content, purely word of mouth (thanks to Anthony who had been to LA). Within 5 minutes I'd viewed several clips, knew when it was on in the UK (9.30 pm on BBC4)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/conchords/
and was wondering about when they might be touring.

Secondly this is the sort of content for which youtube was invented - short, sharp, funny, shareable and something you want to watch again and again. Just perfect. No conincidence it has over 1.6m views surely (and there are shedloads more clips out there).

Well done to New Zealand's 4th biggest folk band.

Shame I can't get the imbeded video to work but link is well worth clicking on

Nana

I just wanted to very briefly mark the passing on my nana on Friday. She was 92 and had been poorly for a few weeks.
A happy release as they say. And off to be reunited with her husband of 68 years.

I will remember a phenomenal woman, her spirit, her sense of humour, her amazing togetherness right until the end, her affection for Trevor Brooking, hundreds of games of newmarket played with her and Grandad when we were kids and her ability to serve deep dried chips for tea at 4 o'clock.

And is this is very loosely a marketing blog I should also note that the Daily Express have lost a loyal reader and Emmerdale's audience will decline by 1.

An amazing woman - bye Nana and god bless x

in praise of the AA

Let it be said that the AA is a brilliant breakdown service.

18.15 Last night on the way back from visiting Mags and Rob in Farnham.kids in car in their pyjamas, off we go, should be home by just after 7 and transfer the kids straight to bed, brilliant. But as I'm driving along thinking it's a bit dark I realise my headlights aren't working. Pull over, into Birdworld randomly, phone the AA, they say they'll aim to have someone out by 7. 5 mins later I get a text (brilliant) saying they will be with me by 18.40. And then at 18.35 van turns up. Sorts out problem (needed to change 2 lightbulbs), £16 for parts, a brief cameo from Lydia who wanted to get out of the car and see the "enormous torch" and away we go back on the road 20 mins later.

The AA are absolutely brilliant at breakdown service in my humble opinion.

It could be said and it has been argued in the past that this is the service I want them to deliver. Not home insurance or pet insurance. Stick to what you're good at.

But this isn't the time or the place for such a rant.

Well done AA. You're just like the 4th emergency service.

who said the people of haslemere were posh?

Greying distinguished looking chap in blue shirt, yellow tie, very loud pin striped suit to his mate opposite him
"would you be interested in going to the Barbarians game against South Africa"

His mate, dressed similarly, looking the same as him
"when is it?"

Original chap "December 1st"

His mate "well if it doesn't clash with shooting"

an inevitable post about Mentos

I was handed this flier today on my walk into work - can't go unfortunately as I've got to go to a meeting.

4 quick observations

1) it's interesting that they are doing this and they should probably be applauded for getting round to it. But strange that they should do it now (it's cold an dark today in London - why not do it in the Summer?) - a good year at least since the youtube think went mentos

2) Strange that there isn't a URL link to youtube on the flier. Why wouldn't you do that? Or even link to Mentos own site?

3) A shame that Diet Coke aren't involved in this - would have been nicer as a joint initiative. Much has been said about mentos embracing this more than diet coke so I won't go over old ground but a joint thing would have been better.

4) finally, hundreds of people filed past the distributors of these fliers (they were giving out mints as well) entirely disinterested which suggests this probably wasn't the most effective way of spreading the word about this. With all the free mags & newspapers in London currently the challenge of getting anybody to pick up anything has never been greater.

Don, Scanners & Tiffers say they might go and maybe take some photos so I might post some here later.

The net can be a wonderful thing sometimes can't it? This site uses letter images from Flickr to create any word you want it to spell

http://metaatem.net

here goes...

after a late wobble when I saw a Sky ad (realised they don't do mobile) I find myself back on page 10 of Sunday's Observer - big ad for Virgin Media. Calling now. It's 11.16 am.
I'm invited to enter my home number. I have 3 options. Press 1 to join Virgin Media. I'm doing that...NOW.
And straight through to sales. Good start.
Asked for postcode, do I want the 4 for £40 deal? yes.
1st November (Thursday) is the first date they can do it.
I ask lots and lots of questions which the chap is good at answering. For some reason I get 2 bills - 3 for £30 from NTL and a separate Virgin Mobile bill for £10.
They will cancel BT for me but I have to cancel T mobile (a bit annoying - and remember to get my packcode from them) and AOL.
10 minutes in and they've done a credit check. Which is all fine (good) - any the whole thing has taken 15 mins.
Being installed on Friday 9th Nov - do I want AM or PM? AM please. fine.
Aah, but I've been popped on hold and put through to the mobile team (annoying) who are now going to take my details for virgin mobile. They try to upsell me to another product (annoying) the bloke isn't very good - he's creating an account for me on Virgin Mobile's website. I can hardly hear him.
He's taking my date of birth, phone number, do i own my house, what's my password etc (I've already given this to Virgin Media - annoying). they now want sort code number (which I've already given to Virgin Media - annoying) they now want to do a credit check (again, which I've already done - annoying) - all in the virgin mobile bit added 12 minutes making the whole thing 27 minutes.
After the Virgin Media call I felt quite positive - having to do the whole thing again for Virgin Mobile is, well, annoying. But I've done it. Just need to cancel a couple of things now and I'm away.
Feeling quite proud of myself. 12 months of hell to follow then?

live blogging experiment

this might be fun or a massive anti-climax. I have decided that we're getting Virgin Media - tv, broadband, phone & mobile. I've been thinking about it for a while. Right now we have freeview, AOL broadband (£17 a month), BT (£20 a month ish) and T mobile (£16-17 a month ish) which I think equals about £53 a month. With Virgin media, according to an ad in yesterday's Observer - I can get the lot for £40. TV would include Setanta too which is a bonus. So I reckon I get to save about £12 a month and get a better service. Except. Except it's Virgin Media which everyone knows is NTL. Horror stories about bad service abound. But I'm going to give them a call - see how easy it is and maybe take the plunge. And try to live blog my way through it. Have to do a bit of work first so will come back to it in a minute. Exciting or what?

365

I am increasingly seeing the term "365" used in marketing. The brief I'm looking at now mentions it 3 times

Create a deeper connection 365

Build towards a goal 365

365 programme

The suffix "days of the year" has been dropped (and it was an annoying enough term when it was there).

There are about a million things wrong with using "365" in my view but let me highlight just 3

1. It is grotesquely American

2. Do you really want a deeper connection with your audience on Christmas Day? Boxing day even? What are you - DFS?

3.are you going to have to switch it to 366 for the leap year next year?

no. really?

Main story in tonight's London Paper (still paper tax less for now)

"The Conservatives were dealt a devastating blow to their party finances today after a High Court Judge ruled that a businessman who let them his £8.3m fortune was insane"

You don't say.

Tax all paper, reward walking!!!

The first thing you notice when saying that you are definitely going to do a post on a certain subject is how difficult it is to then write about said subject. It's probably the closest i'll ever come to writers block. So I'm going to make a list of a few things that I could blog about, have a think and then come back to it.

1) Paper should be taxed in the same way that alcohol or cigarettes are. That should prevent me having to slalom my way into the office via someone handing out random free papers, mags & fliers. It should also ensure that people think about what they're doing and the damage to the environment before they print 1 million newspapers a night (Associated Newspapers - you know who you are). There is however a bit of a flaw on this plan. Paper can be good. It makes books, which teach people to read and become educated and informed. without paper (and the printing press) the world would be a very different place. So let's impose a blanket tax on paper. Except books.

2) People should be rewarded for walking. When I take a cab to a meeting I save about 10 minutes in London (generally) - it costs about £7-8. I get a receipt and charge it to my company and then 3-4 weeks later the money appears in my account. But I could walk. It would require me to be organised and leave 10 minutes earlier but I could definitely walk. It would have the benefit of keeping me fit, allow me to get my head together before a meeting and be better for the environment. But I don't do it. Why not? Habit, lack of thought and the fact that ultimately it doesn't cost me anything. I reckon though that there has to be a way for somebody to do something positive with this thought and reward people for walking. If I could get a receipt for walking and get rewarded for that effort I would do it. Selfish isn't it? But could it actually be a workable plan? Could it be done via GPS or via scanning your mobile at certain points around London? (bit like an oyster card) - you then get rewards for walking. Could be an interesting idea? Open to abuse of course (nothing to stop you driving from one post to another if you really wanted to) but a sort of more accountable pedometer which is universally recognised and allows universal rewards (I'm making this up now slightly but there's an idea in here somewhere)

Interesting to see how companies are sort of organising something similar (see AKQA's facebook group which is a nice touch) - if everyone did one of these it could make a difference. Will start by suggesting we do one at MindShare
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12634040036

This post has been a horrendous ramble on my part (no change there then) but glad to be doing my (very small) part...

Just realised that my "list of things" is actually 2. Aah

Blog Action Day

I've signed up for Blog Action Day (a bit late) thanks to Nick for the prompt via his blog. So I will blog about the environment shortly.

Lost post - Random & beautiful

I found this in my "edit posts" function - it was written in April last year but has never seen the light of day as I didn't ever post it. Until now. Arguably not worth the effort...

Walking over hungerford bridge last night in the usual scramble to get the train - there was a 5 piece brass band playing "Take on Me" by Aha - seemingly for no reason. They weren't asking for money, they weren't there for commercial reason from what I could make out (certainly they weren't branded) it just looked for all the world as if they were there because they love playing glorious 80s cheese on their trumpets. And I thought it was beautiful. Random, but beautiful. More of this please, everyone in the world. Just doing cool stuff randomly and entertaining people. Must be able to do something like this for ITV I'm thinking. Will think a bit more about this.

universal avatar - cool

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7038039.stm

According to the BBC's website "plans are afoot to allow your avatar to roam from one virtual world to another" - a JV between IBM and Linden Lab (the creators of second life).

Next up - can someone invent something where you only need one password for everything in life?

An argument with a large tree...

Update on the lack of apology from South West Trains. This has just arrived. I actually quite like the response

"Dear Mr Wilding,
Not a good morning, sorry. points failure at Weybridge which blocked the up fast line for about 30 minutes, and a broken crossing at Wimbledon which required a 5 mph emergency speed restriction. There were delays of up to 40 minutes. We are very short of 444's at present. We have 2 stopped with collision damage following an argument with a large tree near Dorchester, and a minor collision in the depot at Northam which damaged a second 444. We are doing everything we can to turn out 42 per day, but out of a total fleet of 45 with 2 out of service it leaves us very tight for maintenance etc.
I hope to have at least one back by early December. In the meantime we will do everything we can to provide 42 per day.
Yours,
Stewart Palmer"

I like the term "an argument with a large tree" and the brilliantly understated yet seemingly genuinely apologetic (to me anyway) "not a good morning, sorry". More of this from SWT please (although getting the trains to run the right stock and turn up on time would be preferable.

The little things matter. Have I said that before somewhere?

Customer Service

I sent the below note to SouthWest trains on Thursday morning...

Dear Mr Palmer,
I hope you're well.
I will keep this one short.
The above service this morning
- Was a 4 coach 450 train, not a 5 coach 444 and was subsequently unbearably uncomfortable.
- Had no connecting train at guildford
- arrived at waterloo station 20 minutes late without any explanation or apology from the guard
Dare I ask for an explanation? An apology even?
At least it turned up this morning I suppose, which was more than happened yesterday.
Do you consider this to be acceptable Mr Palmer?

It is now Monday morning, some 72 hours later - no reply yet. It's a little thing but the little things matter

human traffic

I was working on something the other day where the key job to be done was to "drive traffic" to a certain site. It suddenly struck me that some of the terminology used in marketing is a bit, well, aggressive really.
Of course traffic in this case actually means people.

A collection of unique and beautiful human beings with feelings and passions summarised with a dry collective term used mostly negatively to describe too many vehicles on the road.

So instead of traffic, why not people?

And then the word "drive" which in this case almost implies we are bundling people to a destination against their will (and to before we "drive" them we target them, hit them, blitz them etc) and suggests that people are just reluctant passengers neither expecting to or wanting to have any say on where they end up.

Shouldnt we really be guiding, encouraging, inspiring even?

"driving traffic" v "guiding people". This might be semantics but they make a hell of a difference to how we behave.

plane silly?

There's an article on the MediaGuardian site at the moment which I would link to if I wasn't writing this on my blackberry. Anyway, a company called ad-air are selling adspace on the ground alongside flight paths at airports. Ads can be up to 5 acres in size, copy can be changed every year and the ads will run at 30 international airports. Inevitably and slightly depressingly the story is full of sales puff and terms like "business travellers", "ABC1 demographic", "81%", "clutter free" and "unprecedented scale". A classic interruptive piece of unaccountable bad old media, just aching to be filled by one of those faceless corporate companies who so enjoy rugby metaphor ads (see below).

If anyone takes up the space, I'm willing to wager that they very possibly have a small penis.

Tut Tut Toshiba...

I think I will allow myself one more bad corporate rugby ad from the economist this week.

"in the heat of the game, a players ability to anticipate the run of play triggers an explosive chain reaction within the whole team...Toshiba shares this tactical and unified vision of the game of rugby. Every day we explore new avenues and apply an innovative strategy to develop products, which bring advances to television, photocopying, mobile phones and airconditioning"

Does anybody actually talk like this? Bland corporate advertising which assumes that people are robotic clones spouting management talk.

"Good morning, here's your weekly shortlist"

I'm sure that producing a video for vendors distributing the new shortlist weekly magazine was probably meant well and seen as a good way of communicating with staff.

Starts off with a massive lie "so often I choose to take a newspaper because of the way it's presented to me" and goes fast downhill from there. Zero integrity, zero honesty and unspeakably patronising. I love this clip.

prompts on a train

My last post has made me think about something we should do for itv. Why don't we do a deal with SouthWest trains so that every commuter service out of Waterloo features a little 30 second announcement on what the best thing to watch on ITV that evening is. The guard would have to read it out probably but they can make it clear that ITV are paying for this to help subsidise train fares (as passengers we have to put up with enough announcements as it is so one more won't make any difference and as it could change every day might be quite welcome for bored commuters). What ITV get out of it is a last minute prompt reaching several thousand potential viewers, nearly all of whom are going home and many of which are probably light viewers. It would have to be executed in a way that doesn't irritate passengers and genuinely adds value but this is probably just an executional twist. Must look into this idea a bit more.

morning drinking

Every morning (and indeed evening) on South West trains the "on board steward" makes an announcement inviting people to part with the best part of a day's wage in return for something from their ropey refreshment trolley. It's only a small thing but the script they read out is exactly the same all day and makes no allowance for daypart. So when I get the 6.24 train in the morning (and lord knows I love that train) within minutes I am informed that the trolley is selling "a range of beers, wines and spirits". Now given that the loud speaker announcement is just someone talking I think this is a pretty bad failure to understand your audience's mindset (maybe the people getting on at Haslemere are party animals and filling their boots but I haven't noticed) and a real wasted opportunity for Southwest trains to create a bit of empathy with their passengers. Basic stuff really but the small things matter.

rugby world cup. is it.

One of the more depressing aspects of the rugby world cup (apart from the sheer predictability of almost every result and the fact that only about 9 nations play the game seriously) is the horrendous use of "rugby is just like business" metaphors from virtually every faceless corporate business / banking brand out there. You know the sort of thing I mean. An image of a scrum or a line out with actors caped in mud and headlines saying things like "success comes from a winning strategy" and "by working together we find the path to success" I'm making these up now but "teamwork and dedication create winning solutions" that sort of thing. Always executed in broadsheet sports sections, the economist or slightly vulgar massive signs at eurostar or airports. I know that rugby has a desirable audience for a lot of brands but I have to say that some of the stuff popping up around this tournament is very wobbly. Swap one companies logo or indeed comms strategy for anothers and I don't think anyone would notice. It's just all so predictable and a bit dull. Not unlike the tournament itself then...

not more northern rock surely?

Just reading some Jeremy Bullmore and he brilliantly sums up my argument far better than my ramblings below

"in this new and open commercial world future prizes will go not just to those who make the fewest errors - but also to those who recover, apologise and make amends most gracefully. There is ample evidence that a brand that takes corrective action quickly and sympathetically will not only be forgiven but may well, as a result, find itself even more thoroughly trusted"

between northern rock and a hard place

UPDATE – Northern Rock are in the papers today (Tuesdays) with a page ad from the Chief Executive saying sorry, thanking staff and reassuring customers. But the horse seems to have well and truly bolted because they just haven’t communicated effectively.

it's all gone a bit northern rock

So northern rock are seemingly in a bad place. I thought this was all a bit exagerated but in a cab earlier I saw a long line of people lined up outside a branch and presume not many of them were there to open new savings accounts...

And its got me thinking, what does all this tell us? Thought I'd offer up a few thoughts on this below.

1) People love a crisis (and love a queue) - it reminded me a bit of the petrol crisis from a few years back. You see a long queue and are very tempted to get into it. There is also a real sense that time / money is literally running out. Shows how brands have such success with limiting supplies of new products / tickets.

2) People are incredibly conservative / cautious with their money - quite obviously. Maybe I don't have enough savings (any?) to appreciate what it means to people to potentially lose a large chunk of cash but loads of experts and the govt have all reassured people. Effectively each person in the queue was saying "I am incredibly conservative, I'm not risking losing anything, I don't trust the govt and northern rock to sort this out". Makes you appreciate how important reassurance and stability are for many brands and many people (and explains how Volvo ever sell any cars)

3) Social movements are incredibly contagious - especially physical ones. I have no idea how many of Northern Rocks customers have actually withdrawn their money but just physically seeing them lined up outside was incredibly compelling. I suppose there could only have been 30 people lined up outside the branch but as a symbol of what that represents it was significant.

4) People will respond - I've worked with many brands where the obvious consumer barrier seems to be disinterest, irrelevance and apathy. You start to wonder if this is a reflection of consumers in general and whether increasingly its just getting harder to motivate people to do stuff. But this shows people will very much get off their arses and do something if you can make it important / compelling enough for them!

5) For God's sake do something!
Where is Northern Rock's crisis management strategy? Where is the PR? Where is the announcement ad in the press? (have I missed it?) where is the interview with the chief exec on youtube? Where is the mobilisation of social media? (because people have already demonstrated that they are incredibly interested in this and willing to seek information out). Where is the response frankly? What is their strategy? You can imagine if this happened to a brand like Virgin Branson would be on the news within minutes reassuring everyone.

Latest is that shares are down 42%. I'm very tempted to buy some. But I'm obviously far too conservative...

History of Youtube

http://youtube.com/watch?v=x2NQiVcdZRY
Just because it might be useful one day.

blogs on a train

Well if this works it will represent something of a minor personal breakthrough. My first blog entry from the blackberry. The chap behind has a carling and a packet of dry roasted. The woman in front is reading about the twins from big brother in heat and the 2 chaps to my left are doing some work bitching. Get over it chaps, its the weekend. They are talking about "go live" dates and "having an escalation on my hands" "there is now no contingency". What is it about the corporate world that turns what were probably once young dreamers into people who say stuff like "he does make inflamatory statements and I'm going to have to dial in on Monday and say to Malcolm that he has to let Barney direct that he can't escalate things to david painter directly"? Will have to make posts from train more interesting in future or stop doing them...

Audi TV - why?

http://tv.audi.com/

Now I know that audi TV is not new news by any means and has been going for a few years but I've been giving it some thought today in the context of a bit of thinking I've been doing on something else. Audi TV is basically what it sounds like - a TV channel (broadcast 24 hours a day on Sky Channel 884 and also streamed online on the URL above).
Now I have nothing against the production values particularly and you can see the logic behind it - we are a premium brand, our audience don't watch much tv but want good content, we can provide a lifestyle link to the brand, it's innovative yabba yabba (in fact I actually met the chap from BBH who runs Audi TV a year or so ago at an ITV function and he was very bright and very charming although I can't remember his name).

Anyway my issue with it is simply - why? Why do it? Does it really satisfy a consumer need / want? Isn't it just something that Audi have invented to meet their own marketing needs rather than the needs of their audience? Because while I can see what's in it for audi I really can't see what's in it for people / customers?
Don't people actually want audi to make good cars rather than content?
It's fine for brands to move into new areas in my view if (a) the product is brilliant and / or (b) there is likely to be genuine demand for it from people. For me audi TV doesn't deliver on either level really. Fundamentally the concept of audi TV assumes that audi's customers and potential customers have time in their lives to consume this content (when in reality they are probably some of the most time starved people around) and also that it's going to be of such good quality that people spend time with it. Judge for yourself on the link but I don't think so. It's hard enough for media brands with all the talent and budget in the world to engage audi's audience. Slightly arrogant for audi to assume they can do it in my view.

Clearly I have no record of how well audi TV is doing in terms of ratings - someone might surprise me and say it's doing loads of ratings, the audience loves it and it can be proved that audi have sold loads of cars off the back of it. But I'd be very surprised...

what's this got to do with the AA?

Oh yeah, I meant to mention in the previous post why this blog is called what it is - it's basically a reference to me using the AA as a case study to back up pretty much every argument I ever make. Makes a change from innocent smoothies I suppose.

Why are we here?

not in a metaphysical sense, but why am I doing this? Seeing I'm working on the assumption that not a single other human being is reading this I will anyway just outline for my own benefit what I intend to do with this blog. I've started one or two blogs before I think but can't remember passwords / urls etc and besides had no real idea what I was writing about.

My intention with this is to do a few things.
1) Write about comms / strategy / stuff that's loosely work - I know there are millions of blogs doing this and I probably won't do it very often what with having work to do but anything that is of interest to me I will stick up here.
2) Write about general stuff that interests me - whatever that is, and I'm not sure yet but just general stuff
3) Use it as an ideas hub - "ideas hub" sounds incredibly pretentious but what I mean is just to use it as a portal to write down some ideas that pop into my head and immediately disappear again. I figure that if I have them all in one place I might revisit them if they're any good (not sure)
4) See if I can write stuff on the move - I spend a lot of time on South West trains and quite often think of things or want to rant and I might try to do it on here.

So this might work. Or this might be my only post. In which case, thanks for reading. If indeed anybody is. (note to self, must develop better blog writing style this is way too random)