Tubular Blues

Here at Custard HQ, I get the feeling that very few things actually bring down the mood and general buzz in the office. So what could possibly be at the top of the list for PR office bug bears? My theory……..the journey in! Not for the fear of the coming day, but that old devil called TFL (Transport for F*?”ing London).

Everyone would surely agree with me that the rush hour tube journey is not your friend. It was probably never your friend. In fact, I think I heard someone say it kind of hates you. But when I was pushing past the unwashed masses this morning my mind started to focus on all those little things I find myself doing in order to make that tube journey that little bit more bearable.

First thing to remember about the tube is that it’s all about getting the seat! There is a clear hierarchy of tube users and the people who have a seat are always at the top.
Everyone stares on with envy at the people who have seats, especially the ones who have to mould themselves into the door frame…hoping beyond hope that when that little alarm starts to ring that they wont have to take a hit from the doors. So to avoid getting thrust into the face of that ominous anorak-clad stranger, I would always attempt to strategically stand opposite people who I think are most likely to get off first (usually students and old people).

Another way people seem to keep their mind off the slow and torturous journey is with a little bit of full volume music and reading (preferably at the same time). This allows you to ignore all others around you, and avoids such awkward decisions as ‘should I give up my seat that that person who may not actually be pregnant or may not really be that old.’

Avoiding major hygiene risks is also another huge part of surviving the rush hour tube journey. Avoid at all costs (by subtly rotating towards someone else) the sneezing plague victims that you just know would rather hang onto the rails of the carriage than lift a hand to their mouth when they cough. A friend also informed me the other day that the hand rails on the tube have some frighteningly large percentage of human excrement on them........lovely.

Making the tube journey as brief as possible is always important, and as such, before I get on I always try and estimate where I need to be when I get off at my next stop. Usually this would only save seconds, but oh no, not in rush hour. If you get off the tube directly opposite that tunnel that leads to your next tube/ the way out, you can avoid that frustratingly slow moving penguin huddle around the entrance.

Anyway, blog venting over and back to the caffeinated joys of PR, as where would everyone actually be without that classic excuse “Sorry I’m late, the underground was really bad today” (nice little positive PR spin there.)

Hold on to your hats it’s been confirmed the crunch is now officially on!

This weekend while reading the In Gear section of The Sunday Times, I came across a car more fabulous than Carrie Bradshaw’s (SATC) collection of Manolo Blahniks, more bling than Mariah Carey, but frankly just a little bit too understated for the likes of us Lushes at Custard PR :-)

It’s a Swarovski crystal encrusted Mercedes-Benz SL 600. See I told you bad times have hit, this time last year it would have been diamonds!

The car was on display at a department store in Osaka, Japan, where it’s hoped to lift the mood of the shoppers by “enabling them to forget their troubles and think of the bright future”. Hmm, pretty though it is I’m not too sure how the unemployed in Japan will feel about this being the trigger to a happier and more fulfilled life.

Unfortunately there isn’t a link to it on The Sunday Times website so check out is sparkly magic here, but be warned once you look at it you’ll find your inner self lifting to a higher state of contentment and euphoria and your troubles will all have melted away…ah…

Armistace Day 2008

Here at Custard Towers we've just observed the national two minute silence of rememberance for Armistace Day - along with our sister agency Rainier PR. However, the majority of people in the Oxford Circus area didn't seem to do so - going about their usual business without noticing. Even the buses continued to move this year. It's a sad state of affairs - when the majority of people i.e. The Great British public - forgets the ultimate sacrifice that others made. My message to all those people who don't care about the significane of rememberance is simply that this country would be a very different place today, if those 1000's of soldiers hadn't laid down their lives for our freedom and this country. So maybe next year, more people will remember... now there's a PR job to be done.
(picture copyright AFP)

Books by text?

As reported in the Metro this morning, one school is to abandon text books and instead allow pupils to download information from the school intranet on to their mobile phones. The City Academy in Hackney, which opens in September ’09, will pioneer the e-books in a hope to bring down the costs of text books.

Is this a good idea I hear you ask? In this era of ever progressing technology I think that the smartest schools are the ones that not only keep up with technology, but embrace it too. I for one would have been exceedingly happy to be able to click a button and get my homework instead of having to lug home a massive text book in my back pack!

The City Academy has the right idea about communicating with the pupils in this digital age. This lush just wishes it had come a decade earlier!

Would you like to come back to my place and see my etchings?

Who remembers Etch A sketch? Hours of fun drawing indescribable pictures, claiming that the strange cubic blob that you’ve been toiling over for the past 20 minutes is in fact a picture of your Dad asleep on the sofa? I do!

In a moment of internet boredom I though I’d check out what sites there are offering the experience online and I have two very different but firm favourites, well I only looked at two, but even if I’d looked at 10 these would still have been my favourites.

OK first up is the “keeping it real” Online Etch a Sketch. This site is true to the original in that what you see is what you get – static screen with simple cursor line drawing feature. The movement is a little slow but overall a nice, perfectly satisfactory simple sketch. See my masterpiece below.




Second site in my Etch A Sketch quest was the all more advanced and feature rich Create Fun With Your Sketches. To be honest there is just too much to tell you about, but in essence the site is more colourful, interactive and the sketch movement is more fluid. Thanks to this I found myself taking on a more Cubist direction, (in case you’re completely art illiterate, Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature, ahem…thanks Wikipedia ;-)

3. I think you can all agree that this is far better! Good, OK that’s job number one on my busy PR to do list finished.
   
   1. Successfully complete Etch a Sketch site comparison – Done
   2. Arrange interview with Brad Pitt – pending…

We never had this when I were a lad - ours were far more advanced

This Lush had mixed emotions this morning when he received the latest Firebox newsletter into his Hotmail. Kota is an adorable 40” tall baby Triceratops with movable eyes, horns, mouth and tail – batteries not included.

a) Envy - I want one, however believe my weight may crush his tiny Jurassic spine
b) Incredulity - £300 is a fair whack for a parent to fork out for a ride-able dino baby *WARNING DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN SEE THIS PRODUCT IF YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD ANYTHING ELSE THIS CHRISTMAS*
c) Smugness – I believe the Tomy Verbot I received (and still have on my bedside table) for Christmas in the 1980s was more advanced than this roaring animatronic fluff ball

So has technology moved backwards? My Verbot could bring me a can of coke from across the room at the mere sound of my voice (granted he did spill it all over my Mum’s carpet – I have the scars to prove it) surely by now we should have flying robots that can tell the future and unclog our drains for us. Still I’d love to PR this cute little gadget – Kota manufacturers get in touch!

Poptastic!

There are a few things about men that I will probably never understand. How they can eat as much as they like without putting on weight? How they can wear the same pair of socks two days in a row? And how they can drink ten pints without falling down? However, one of the main things that I won’t ever understand is why men cannot walk past a roll of bubble wrap without popping the bubbles. I mean, don’t we all find the snapping noise annoying when it happens by accident? Why then would they choose to do it on purpose, and seemingly without noticing?For the sake of saving our office roll of bubble wrap, I have taken to hiding it from the guys in the office, but even in the cupboard I can still hear the cracking. However, I think I have finally found something that might put a stop to it for good. The genius people at iwantoneofthose.com have started selling the ‘Poptastic’. With 7 compelling, utterly addictive buttons to 'pop' this device will keep even the most addicted popper busy. The buttons don't disintegrate after the first pop like traditional bubble wrap, they go on and on and on and on and on…

It may not be the tech product I thought I would be talking about, but if this Lush wants a hope in hell of having any useful bubble wrap available at the end of the week, I’ll need a rush order!

Stephen Fry and the proliferation of a very virtual gentleman

After countless arguments with friends and family over the importance of video game culture – me: gaming is an art form – them: gaming is for kids. I believe my side of the argument is getting some high level support from a very interesting quarter.

Undoubtedly two of the biggest games of the year were launched amid much fanfare and rampant PR this weekend. They are two very different games for two warring platforms, the PS3 and the Xbox 360. Little Big Planet is an uber cute platformer with a nice line in user generated content and Fable 2 is an in depth role playing game where user actions have an immeasurable effect on the world around you.

The similarity as you may have guessed from the title is the fact that classically trained actor and raconteur Mr Fry appears in both. His dulcet tones grace the tutorial of LBP and he appears as a foppish hero in the delightful Fable 2. So there you go, if gaming is good enough for Stephen Fry, it’s definitely good enough for this Lush!

Designer laptops for the pre-teen market?

So just when you thought the 7 year old in your life had everything, along come NEC, Hello Kitty and French fashion brand Courrèges and bang!...The wonderfully named 'NEC LaVie G Hello Kitty Courrèges' is born. This new laptop is aimed solely at young girlie girls, with it's funky pink 'hello kitty' exterior it's essentially the ideal product for a 'my first laptop'. The only draw back?... The price!! At £850 I can't imagine any under-ten being able to shake that many pennies out of their piggy banks! This PR chick certainly couldn't! Will pester power win over? Only time will tell.

Car crash TV

There are only three words I can think of to describe this ‘Car Crash TV’!

It’s nauseating, painful and absolutely compulsive viewing. I implore you all to go to YouTube and watch Kerry Katona’s further demise on today's This Morning by the end of today, if only to make you realise that at least your life ain’t that bad. In fact do it now, be one of the first (well sort of. There were 31,726 views by 15:28 this afternoon which by You Tube numbers is quite low but then again it’s only been uploaded for three hours. Think of how many people will have watched it by tomorrow! Oh, the shame!)

Kerry’s PR Guru Max Clifford told Radio 1 Newsbeat, "I must admit after today and in view of what's gone on over the last couple of months, I am increasingly concerned for her health and happiness." Now that speaks volumes.

At a time when pennies are being pinched Mr Clifford will have his work cut out. The great British public won’t have a lot of sympathy for the lady who having just been declared bankrupt, swans off to a fancy clinic and embarks on a £15,000 “transformation”. Especially when it’s been less than effective – hardly a caterpillar to a butterfly situation, more like a tadpole to a frog (sorry frogs!)

Next stop for Miss Katona is Booby’s barbers where she’s booked herself in for a number one all over!

Symbian Smartphone Show '08

The Symbian Smartphone Show 2008 is taking place at the moment and this smartphone loving PR attended for a couple of hours yesterday.

Highlights of the show included the remote control car controlled by the pitch and roll of a motion sensitive mobile phone, massages and oxygen bars for those stressed out delegates and journos and of course the smartphones themselves. Probably top of my list was a little bobby dazzler from Samsung. I touched the delectable Samsung i8510 8-megapixel camera phone, complete with stunning 8 megapixel camera, awesome multimedia capabilities and GPS.

Finally, I saw a rather bored looking Posh and Becks sitting in a corner of the show, sending text messages and generally blinging about for all and sundry.

Profitable spelling mistakes

Google has been criticised for earning millions from web users’ spelling mistakes. Advertisers are buying media space on domains for the sole reason that there might be a chance that web users will arrive at the destination because of a spelling mistake or a typing error. Benjamin G. Edelman, assistant professor at Harvard Business School, claims Google earns between $32 and $50 million from such advertising deals.

For instance www.whitehouse.com is a popular site that gets many hits which is the incorrect domain if you are trying to get the American Presidential White House. The correct domain is www.whitehouse.gov. Another popular mistake is www.microsfot.com which you can probably guess is a spelling mistake for www.microsoft.com which again receives numerous hits.

Advertisers buying this type of space might not get as many hits as they would have originally liked considering they are betting on spelling mistakes, however it is a whole lot cheaper making the deal more cost effective. The advertisers get the figures they need to justify the purchase to its clients and Google get richer and all because of a society which is lackadaisical when it comes to spelling and grammar. History truly does repeat itself, this is not the first time one mans fault is another mans gain, although I personally don’t think Google should be criticised for this.

Plus, on the advertising front you’ve got to think that people, once they realise they are on the wrong site will immediately click off, meaning they will not absorb as much of the advertising message as someone on a site who arrived there deliberately. The company who’s had its ad placed there is the ultimate loser.

Edible Ebay

After numerous years of buying on Ebay, I have finally decided, with full credit-crunch mindset, to actually, potentially, sell something. The thing that last put me off the addictive money-making (and I don’t mean for myself) machine, is that while attempting to show off my technical skills to my partner, he asked me to sell his mobile phone. ‘Easy-peasy’ I said, ‘I bet I can get at least 20 quid for it’. His expression showed one of pure delight as he pulled out his extremely old, Sony Ericsson wi-something-or-other, and my face faltered somewhat. Anyway, several days and bids later, it was almost sealed at £26.50. I had done him proud, and myself, as secretly I couldn’t figure out why any human being would want to pay more than a fiver for it. My instinctive paranoia was right. We had been the victims of fraudulent Ebay bidding, and after five emails from a mad criminal in Jamaica posing as a ‘PayPal’ Security Executive, I nearly handed over £10 of my own money! Bitter and dejected, I gave up and haven’t touched it since.

Until last night. I checked my bank balance and realised with the mortgage payment looming I needed to actually get off my backside and earn some extra cash. Rooting through the cupboards I found a number of items, including numerous Playstation games (sorry but, what would I need with Resistance-Fall of Man when I’ve got Tomb Raider Underworld coming out in a month?) and a handbag that has just simply never suited me. Dreading the ‘Sell’ button, I clicked away in hope. And, I was genuinely surprised. For years whenever I have had problems with Ebay, I longed to be able to phone them up and actually talk to someone…instead I was subjected to 24 hour email automated responses, that, quite frankly, have never responded.

Instead this time, when I had an issue with logging in because, ‘My computer was not recognised’ I was quickly reverted to a Live Chat room and began speaking with ‘Johanna’. Within five minutes I had changed my password, entered my phone number, and logged on under my ‘new computer’ which thankfully was now firmly on the selling list. The outcome? A brand new approach to Ebay security that has lovingly provided a step by step guide to a safer world of selling. Since then, I’ve had two bids with 5 days to go. Hurrah!

Who said selling old tat for small amounts was dead? Go forth and sell! (At least I can then buy new PS3 games without feeling guilty.)

Gartner’s strategic technologies report 2009.

Gartner, the world’s leading and information technology research and advisory company, has recently unveiled its report identifying the top ten strategic technologies that businesses need to be aware of in 2009. These technologies have been defined as having a potentially significant impact on enterprises by increasing efficiency, cutting costs and ensuring more reliable IT to avoid costly upgrades and crashes. David Cearley, vice president stated; “Strategic technologies affect, run, grow and transform the business initiatives of an organization,”

The report could not come at a better time and there is no doubt that there is an agenda behind it. It is times like these when we see big changes in the consumer market, buying habits alter, new products replace the old and on the whole people are more acceptable to change as they are in a state of flux themselves.

Here at Digital Lushes we see a prime opportunity for some big consumer tech PR campaigns. See the link below for the top ten strategic technologies report for 2009.

http://gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=777212

Why the internet is so ace

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989 he can have had little inkling of the impact it would have on the world. So far so ‘every blog you’ve ever read about the birth of the internet.’ Every day we claim there’s a new internet revolution a mere click away. However, when my 60 year old mother (damn she won’t appreciate me revealing that) recommends a piece of internet content to me I sit up and take notice. Firstly, because I’m amazed that she even knows what UGC content is (she has difficulty finding Google, I kid you not,) but secondly that it is this type of content which is driving more and more unlikely users to the net. Along with PR, UGC is an incredibly valuable tool to drive unlikely users to sites.

Case in point, Battle at Kruger, current YouTube viewings - 37,755,499 – how many of those millions are late to middle aged housewives living in Surrey I do not care to guess.

*SPOILER ALERT* If you don’t want to know the ins and outs of this fantastic piece of UGC look away now. Lions vs buffalo calf, crocodiles vs. buffalo calf, crocodiles vs. lions, lions vs. herd of stampeding angry buffalos who want their baby back, increasingly stunned South African safari guide. The best thing you’ll watch this week? Definitely.

Space and Beyond

Barack Obama has been posted up on a banner in the game Burnout Paradise encouraging people to vote. This development shows two very important implications. Firstly, the intricacies of modern games and secondly, the distinct growing demand for exposure in virtual worlds where people spend more of their time browsing, playing, and socialising.

Games used as a new distribution channel for information is clearly becoming a desired and beneficial form of advertising. It is much more targeted than banners in real life. By looking at the demographics of certain gamers, users and consumers, advertisers can target its desired audience with much more accuracy.

There is also a consensus about the innocence of advertising in games as it is still a fairly new phenomenon making the adverts more conspicuous because it holds a novelty factor. It has not been around enough to become imposingly annoying basically.

In the next couple of years we will see larger amount of investment coming from advertisers to create the spaces needed to sell further products, brands and campaign spaces. Second Life is a successful example of how a virtual world has been able to sustain and exchange large quantities of monetary wealth through ownership of space, products and lifestyles. No wonder Google and Microsoft are eager to tap into this space.

Google and the beer goggles

Try saying that headline after a few pints and see how far you get…

Google, the Web giant, self-publicity behemoth and all-round Master of the Universe (now that the world’s bankers are being put out to pasture on the golf courses) has come up with another way to make its services indispensible.

At first we were meant to use Gmail because it offered a gigabyte of storage space in a world where Hotmail offered a tight-fisted 10 meg.  Now that the rest of the webmail world has caught up (thus proving that your USP is always a moving target, even for Google) it needs new reasons to make us put up with Gmail’s rather byzantine inbox structure.

And now it has it.  Mail Goggles: a test application designed to stop us from sending embarrassing drunken emails.

We’ve all done it.  Supposedly.  Had a few sherbets, tottered home, ill-advisedly fired up the laptop and, a few minutes later either sent your ex something embarrassing or emailed a part of your personal anatomy to a hairdresser in Penge. 

Now, thanks to Google, you need worry no more.  Mail Goggles is tied to the clock in your own time zone and will automatically make you answer a short series of maths problems before letting you send an email after a certain time at night.  All theoretically laudable, except for: - 

• High functioning drunks (like our good self in our drinking days) who may have had eight pints but would never dream of missing out that semi-colon
• The innumerate – they might know how many beans make five, but why should that stop them forwarding ‘This made me LOL’ emails to their friends after midnight?
• Nightworkers, insomniacs or business travelers.  Being faced with repeated maths tests is going to get old very quickly for them

It’s easy to be cynical about these things, but then cynicism is so much fun!  Part of me wants to say this is another piece of ‘Web 2.0 innovation solving real world problems’.  The other part of me, however, just thinks it’s a damn good publicity stunt.

Of course if they bring the same thing into Android that’s a different matter.  Drunken text messages are the major social hazard of our times.  Solve that one and the iPhone could soon be dead in the water.

 

Hmmmm credit crunch, did someone tell the game devs?

Contrary to popular belief we PRs aren't always rolling around in gold dust, quaffing beluga cocktails and flirting with hotel heiresses, so this Lush is beside himself about the current state of the console market. Why, oh, why do they do it to us? Avid gamers are subjected to huge barren patches of quality gaming where we have to put up with pap for months on end. Then, like the proverbial N29, a traffic jam turns up all at once.

The only answer can be a SMERSH style cabal of top gaming executives who plot together around a huge oval table to bring out not three, not four, not even five, but six incredible looking games over the course of a fortnight! See below:

Saint’s Row 2 - 17/10/08 - www.saintsrow.com/age_gate
Fable 2 - 24/10/08 - www.lionhead.com/fable2
Far Cry 2 - 24/10/08 - http://farcry.us.ubi.com/agegate.php?destURL=/index.php
Fallout 3 - 31/10/08 - http://fallout.bethsoft.com/index.html
Gears of War 2 - 07/11/08 - http://gearsofwar.xbox.com/AgeGate.htm
Tom Clancy’s End War - 07/11/08 - http://endwargame.us.ubi.com/

All of these not only look beautiful, but the technology behind each is truly groundbreaking in its own way. Take the Fable 2 character development model; non playable characters react differently to you based on your accumulated actions and your face displays scars built up over the ages. The there's End War where you can control your forces from beginning to end via voice interface.

This Lush pleads with the NGO (New Gaming Order) to relent and to think of this poor PR's wallet and pace yourselves guys.

If in any doubt use my handy equation (can someone check this as I flunked maths?)

rupert's pay day x lovely Xbox 360 release
_____________________________ x girlfriend's patience - social life
12

Oh, another way that gaming companies could overcome this horrific problem would be to send all new releases to me "The Lush" care of Custard PR and I'll review them for the site. Go on you know it makes sense.

Established and Sons

There are not many truly British brands that exist anymore. Most British brands have foreign financers, influencers, manufactures or even workforce. Even the term British is questionable and undefined now a days, so what makes Established & Sons the most British brand out there?

Established & Sons is a design and manufacturing company dedicated to promoting British design and production. Everything from conceptualisation to production is done locally by some of the most interesting and talented contemporary designers and architects from England. The brand is gaining critical acclaim not only among other designers but design conscious consumers. The unique look and production is cementing British design in the international arena.

Established & Sons also has an online magazine called Estd. The magazine contains information about the designers and projects on the go. Go to http://www.establishedandsons.com/ to look at site and magazine.

Overeager rebranders

What is the world coming to? As if the global financial problems and the general doom and gloom aren’t enough, I’ve just read in Marketing Magazine the shock news of the temporary death of Pizza Hut!

Being a former employee of ‘The Hut’ I am shocked and saddened that some branding expert has decided that the way to boost sales is to rename the successful pizza chain… ‘Pasta Hut’.

‘Pasta Hut’?! Seriously? I mean, the loyal fans of Pizza Hut go there for one reason – Pizza! (Well, that and the fantastic waitressesJ)

Did the ‘rebranding world’ not learn from the ‘choco crispies’ fiasco? Or that annoying ‘C’ in place of the ‘J’ in Jif. Or when Ulay became Olay? Sometimes it really does seem that companies rebrand for the sake of it. Here at Custard Towers we Digital Lushes are standing firm – just say no to rebranding for the sake of it!

I’ve just had a look at the new Pasta Hut website too. Oddly, the Pizza Hut website is still fully operational and looks like it will be staying that way. But check out the new microsite for all things pasta-related.