Benson the Fish – RIP

Another classic story in the news this week – from last week’s story about cheese, to this week’s, about fish. Not wanting to seem food-obsessed, I’d like to point out that it’s not the eating kind, but the living kind. Well, actually, Benson, the fish in question, has now died. He leaves behind him the accolade of being Britain’s oldest, and largest carp, weighing in at a whopping 64lbs! Fatty fish eh? He survived for 25 years, and was caught, (and put back) over 60 times. I suppose being 64lbs meant he didn’t really have speed on his side, hence the reason why he was caught so much.

Benson...may he rest in that fishy heaven in the sea...

However, the point of my story is this: is it a slow news day?! This story made the FRONT page of The Times. The Times?! It then achieved a full page on page 4 of the same newspaper. Not being funny, but aren’t there other, slightly more important things to write about, such as the latest troops and their lack of equipment, or how a man has been arrested in connection to the Milly Dowler murder after all these years – that could have made the front page.

It’s a great light-hearted story, but I’m still amazed it was given so much space. Mind you, that doesn’t amaze me as much as the fact that the fish was 64 lbs. That’s more than half of my weight. Mental!

The first X Factor suicide?

It’s nearly that time of year again, when we all start casually cancelling our weekend plans, and staying in, rather than going out as YES, X Factor time will soon be upon us!!  (I realise that maybe it’s just me who cancels their plans….loser.)

However, this one story troubled me and I thought I should share it with you:

“An X Factor contestant has reportedly threatened to kill herself after failing an audition for the show.”

Dear. Lord. Apparently, after getting four no’s from the judges, the woman in her 50s ran out screaming she was going to ‘kill herself’. Producers were reportedly still with the woman an hour and a half after she made the threat, making sure she was ok.

Now don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t realise something like the X Factor could cause someone that much stress! I know you get your regular sob stories, and I’m not afraid to admit I get sucked in by them too – in fact, I love them. Even more worryingly, after the SuBo fiasco, this is the first year that the show’s producers have decided to have a doctor at the auditions, ‘just in case’.

I can see that shows like this are ‘make or break’ for someone, if it’s their dream. But suicide – seriously??

The perfect crime?

The usual suspects?

Have you ever thought about pulling off the perfect heist? Of course, there’s always the pesky police to worry about… but what if they refused to get involved? What if you could steal a million pounds with no risk of being caught?

Step up the latest trend in online crime. This time the victims are players of increasingly popular MMPORGs like World of Warcraft and Everquest. More and more Trojans are now being developed to steal players’ account passwords, so that thieves can get their hands on high-level characters and equipment. These can then be sold through online auction sites for large sums of money – reportedly some players will pay up to $1000 for a good character. Wash, rinse and repeat a few hundred times and you have a lot of money indeed.

As for the police, a player reporting such a crime might well meet with confusion and the injunction to “get a girlfriend” (or a life). It can even be argued that no crime has been committed because many developers state that in-game content remains their property…

How private is private?

Well, not very if you’re a celebrity. And, yes, I know that’s a given and pretty obvious, but I’d like to use a case study to highlight my point here.

Katie Price and Peter Andre: the perfect couple?

I’d like to look at the recent media coverage on what is undoubtedly turning into the country’s biggest marriage break-up (since Jen and Brad, of course).

At the start of the week, the media was reporting the break up in a fairly tasteful manner, stating that ‘Katie and Peter wanted to be left alone’ and that this was a ‘time when their privacy should be respected’.  Fast forward a few days however and you can’t turn the page in a newspaper or magazine without seeing their faces splashed all over it. It’s all turned pretty ugly, in fact.

Peter casually carries his promo CD to a meeting with his divorce lawyer...

Once again, the media has started a feeding frenzy on someone’s life, and fair do’s, celebrities offer themselves up on a plate for it.

However, this is what the public thrive on – well, those who love their daily dose of celebrity (and I include myself in this). A story has far more longevity if you can bring in past lovers, expert opinions on the matter (body language specialists are always my favourite) and so on and so forth. Dragging out a story is the media’s speciality, especially if it keeps changing every day, and some new juicy gossip arises.

Mind you, can you really blame the media, when celebs such as Mr Andre carry their new album around with them…?

SusanBoyle.com, anyone??

I’ve just read a fascinating piece about the Britain’s Got Talent ‘stars’ having their domain names registered unofficially, by cheeky web users wanting to cash in on their new found fame.

The Telegraph reports that ‘thirty-three of the 40 semi-final talent show contestants have had their names registered by internet users, otherwise known as cybersquatters, hoping to make money from the global interest in the show.’

This could be brilliant news for all the Susan Boyle lovers out there, or maybe those who are more fans of the superb Flawless dance crew, as it lets them get even more info on the contestants than what’s already been reported in the papers.

Cybersquatting, however, is nothing new. Previous serious cases of this occurring date back to 2003, when Marks & Spencer had their domain name unofficially registered, which resulted in a court case.  In 2008, cybersquatting hit an all time high, according to Reuters, of 2,329 separate cases.

Cybersquatting is actually relatively easy – it costs from as little as $12 to register a domain name. That’s why ‘unofficial’ sites pop up around big events, or in this case, the Britain’s Got Talent final, as it’s easy to set up a temporary site and cash in on other people’s new found fame.

However, this does pose a threat to the contestants, as Stephen Waddington (@wadds, thanks Twitter) of Speed Communications suggests – about ‘potentially explicit material that may be damaging to their reputations’ being posted.

What do web trends and subway maps have in common?

Answer: Quite a lot if you live in Japan. Some clever people at Information Architects have mapped the most popular web trends of 2009 onto the Tokyo tube system map. Each rail line represents a topic – for example there is an Advertising Line, Entertainment Line and a News Line – whereas each station represents a particular trend, which could be a brand, person or internet meme.

But what’s really clever is that each web trend correlates to the characteristics of each real-life station. For example, if this was a map of the London Underground we might see YouTube represented as Liverpool Street, due its large traffic and association with flash-mob videos.  Similarly, Old Street might be Twitter due to the large population of social media types based in Shoreditch.

Obviously these subtleties will make more sense to those living in Japan but it’s an impressive piece of work none-the-less, and they’ve picked up quite a bit of coverage off the back of it too. Click here for a high-res version of the map.

Death of the retainer?

With the current economic crisis – is it a recession or depression now? – starting to really bite into budgets, we were wondering how the marketing and PR industries are responding. So we’ve set up a few questions on LinkedIn to survey those in charge of the money and find out what’s really going on.

If you fancy taking part, please click on the below links to be part of the survey, and leave comments below to offer your thoughts.

http://polls.linkedin.com/p/26974/izctp

http://polls.linkedin.com/p/26973/tagdy

http://polls.linkedin.com/p/26972/eszzl

http://polls.linkedin.com/p/26970/vgnfj

Amazon.com – covers all your worldly needs, from DVDs, CDs, books to cheese!

The other day I was wondering how unhealthy goat’s cheese was for the average person… as you do… and so I Googled it. One of the hits, pretty high up the page, was telling me that you could buy cheese from Amazon. 

Amazon, I hear you cry?! Yes, apparently they’ve been selling gourmet food since 2003.

After a bit more digging, I discovered that food is only available on amazon.com, not amazon.co.uk, hence why I probably haven’t heard of the service before. However, this got me thinking about how difficult it can be to change perceptions of a brand once those perceptions are set in the minds of consumers.

Anyone for a bit of cheese?

The ‘Got your number’ campaign from direct assistance service 118118 is a good example of how PR can be used to change perceptions.  Last year the company recruited a PR agency to realign the 118118 brand with texting and support their ‘Safe Text’ campaign. The client apparently reported an 11 per cent spike in text volume around the launch, which is certainly impressive.  

So what’s next – HMV selling popcorn to accompany your DVD of choice when you buy online? Play.com forming a partnership with Ben and Jerry’s so you get a free tub with every purchase? Well Blockbuster already offers these sorts of deals in store, so why not online?

In my mind, if brands stick to their ‘roots’, so to speak, then consumers are more likely to see it as a natural progression and more likely to make that all important purchase. Right now, it seems a random leap for me for Amazon to go from books, DVDs etc, to gourmet food…

That said, the goat’s cheese from Madam Chevre does look pretty appetising… and it’s at better price than any other generic online supermarket…  

Now where’s my purse?!?

Thin enough? Sure. Catchy enough? Not sure.

Whilst casually browsing the internet today I stumbled upon this gem of a story: Sony using a ‘plus-size model’ to advertise the thinnest LCD TV ever.

Ian Morris from CNET, has highlighted the irony of using Katie Green,  who ‘famously’ refused to lose weight when her agents told her it would beneficial to her career, and I have to say I agree with him.

Ignoring the TV, which I admit does look rather fabulous, I can’t help but wonder who came up with the idea of using the ‘Thin Enough?’ campaign. I can’t say it’s the most original advert I’ve ever seen.

Surely it’s going back to the ‘sex sells’ angle – which Sony clearly think is the case in this instance. Maybe this advert will appeal to men in the first instance, purely because it features a half naked, gorgeous woman – who looks remarkably thin, I might add. But as for reeling in women – a notoriously hard market to captivate in technology – a picture of a semi naked woman isn’t going to cut it.

Spammers have manners

Swinton Insurance emailed me twice today within two hours.
(So far so fascinating….)
The first time they emailed was to tell me that it was only 15 days until my house insurance is due for renewal.
(Can you hold your excitement?)
The second was to apologise for their mistake as my house insurance isn’t due at all.

See. Thing is, that’s the first time that I’ve ever had an apology from someone for spamming me. In a sad old way, I was quite touched, almost like we’d returned to the good old days when manners were manners and people gave up their seat for old people on the bus. OK, not quite. But nevertheless, I’ve decided I quite like this spam ettiquette. In fact, you never know, I might just look up Swinton Insurance when my home insurance is actually due…