Sheepish-pigs stats confusion in categories…

A trio of Hungarian wooly pigs which look like sheep have arrived at the Tropical Wings Zoo, Essex, in an attempt to save the rare breed from extinction..
Given the need for accurate description, and pre-election political hypersensitivity to immigration transparency, the real issue has to be how the mults will label the resulting exotic produce, not only the edible offer, but also the spun-fabric from the wooly hides…
Also, given the fact that the wooly coats will protect the pigs from burning in the summer sun, can H&B suppliers expect a resulting downturn in demand for suncream protection products from sensitive pig farmers, as the niche enters the mainstream?

Have a wild, wooly weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Airline chaos: another nail in the coffin of discretionary business travel?

The past week's compulsory grounding coupled with the 'regular' delays, body-scans, strip-searches, cost and general inconvenience of air travel has given a shot-in-the-arm to video conferencing and net-based meetings.
Obviously, nothing beats the real thing (?), but business travellers have to question whether the advantage of face-to-face over screen-to-face is always worth the trouble?
Suppose this results in a 20% drop in business air-travel, then there will be a drop in premium-fare revenue. The reduction in this subsidy will then increase the cost of economy travel, further alienating non-business travellers.
As world governments are now insisting that airlines compensate travellers for last week's 'act-of-God' costs, the result will be an increase in insurance cover by the airlines, causing them cut costs including staff-reductions thereby reducing service-levels... This will oviously cause them to raise their prices, making alternative transport and comms-media even more attractive, physically and financially….

Time to re-consider an 'inhouse' EMR-Namnews webinar, tailored to your categories, customers and trade issues, without leaving your laptop?
Contact bmoore@namnews.com for details

The Race for Asda?

The fact that bookmaker Paddy Power is giving betting odds on possible successors to Andy Bond, may cause interested punters to miss the real race at Asda.

Whilst the possibility of growing share via a takeover of Argos and Homebase will possibly share some of the on-course enclosure limelight (Competition Commission permitting), the real issue has to be the fact that Asda has never been able to meet Walmart's scale ambitions in the UK because competition and planning legislation prevented both growth via acquisition and organically.

Perhaps better for Walmart to liquidate its UK interests and use the proceeds from a sale of Asda to fund development in India and China.

Having restructured its financial relationship with Asda by placing it within their UK Corinth Finance operation, it becomes technically easier to sell the company. At something between 5 x earnings and 50% of turnover i.e. between £5bn and £9bn it would appeal to either a Private Equity company or a Sovereign Wealth Fund (China or Middle East)

However, as a Private Equity owner would need a 5 year exit-strategy via flotation at ratios comparable with Tesco, this is a no-go because of the same growth restrictions being experienced by Walmart. Given that Asda is probably in reality 'a nice little earner', our money is on the probability of a Sovereign Wealth Fund being the ultimate winner….

That leaves it a toss-up between Chinese (side-bet Mandarin or Cantonese?) and Arabic evening lessons for Asda NAMs over the coming months.

Getting the last drop?

News that attempts are being made to bring Dracula back to his roots* via a new course at the University of Hertfordshire "Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture" suggests that there may be an opportunity for the government to jointly promote GSCOP as a means of reducing buyer-pressure on suppliers….

Meanwhile, have a bloody good weekend, from the Namnews Team!

GSCOP: All you need to know, in 2.5 minutes!

Morrisons on the way to cracking a philosophical dilemma, chicken or egg?

News that Morrisons, the first of the multiples to switch to selling 100% British free-range own-label eggs, have introduced an online egg-tracker to help customers trace the origin of the eggs to the farm where they were laid, raises the question of how far back they will want to go….
Presumably their customer relations department have been briefed on how to handle those customers that insist on proof of not only name and ethnicity of the hen but will also require supply chain reassurance that the Original Egg was not born without parents…..

Have a long cracking weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Adjusting for consumer height?

Berlin-based artist Hans Hemmert (famous for his work with balloons) threw a party where guests wore shoe-extenders to make them all the same height of 2 meters. Aside from bringing the partygoers all to a common eye level (and eliminating the awkward postures of party talk between the tall and the short), this could be a way of optimising shopper traffic-flow and settle the question of different charge-out rates for shelves, to comply with the new GSCOP?
Source Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic

More experiments in public space

Penalties for over-stocking?

Not an application of GSCOP excess-ordering penalties, but a Dutch cannabis shop-owner has been fined 10 million euros for breaking Netherlands drug laws. The Checkpoint coffee shop in Terneuzen which used to serve up to 3,000 customers a day, has been selling ten kilograms of marijuana and hashish per day, vs maximum permitted trading stocks of 500 grams of cannabis at any particular time.

A disappointment for those KAMs wishing to include the coffee-shop in their routine store-check trips (in case of memory-lapse, Terneuzen is close to the Belgian border) well worth the trip for many…

Have a forgetable weekend from the Namnews Team!

The Folding 3-pin Plug, a Lateral Solution for an 'impossible' Problem?

In 1946, it was decided to standardise the UK three-pin plug for all sockets and appliances. However, it has proved a bulky inconvenience in the modern world.
Min-Kyu Choi, 29, a design student from Bayswater, West London, determined to end the 64-year reign of the unwieldy three-pin electrical plug and has won the Brit Insurance design of the year award, by realising that the barrier was the plug, not the socket.
Despite TVs going flat, videos being junked for the slimline DVD and record players being replaced by MP3 devices, the plug remained virtually unchanged for more than half a century.

A lesson for us all in refusing to accept the status quo…

Have a really experimental weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Getting Past the Buyer's Gut-instinct…?

In the absence of sufficient data and sufficient time, a buyer is right to fall back on gut-instinct…
But today, you can do this quickly and inexpensively via online research, in 3 easy steps:

1. We carefully select a sample of that retailer’s main shoppers who buy your category, from a pool of over 250,000 registered panel members
2. We design a questionnaire that investigates the buyer’s key objections and then gather actual feedback from their real category buyers
3. We feedback easy-to-digest charts that makes customers’ views clear, and decision making easy

For an example of what your buyer might need to see, if they are relying purely on gut-instinct, see KamLibrary

By Barney Byfield, POW Marketing, 020 7993 6137 / 0113 322 6454

NIVEA Conversion of an empty shop in Hamburg….

Still think empty shops are just empty opportunities...?

See 'Empty Shop Usage' below

Virtual window-shopping at empty units or bigtime product placement?

Local councils in the UK such as Brighton & Hove (above) are attempting to restore life to the high street by adding fake shop-fronts to empty shops at a cost of £1,500 per unit. The government-funded projects involve colourful graphic designs featuring a range of different shop-types and café/restaurants, which are either taped inside the windows or screwed to the facia so they can be removed and reused as required.

Whilst this is intended as a way of keeping the high street alive in terms of appeal to shoppers and potential investors, perhaps the big idea might be for brand suppliers to see the move as a whole new approach to product placement?

Imaginatively designed shopfronts that feature retail-partner windows and displays of sponsor-brands, varied by promotional period, have to represent cost-effective and novel alternatives to traditional poster-advertising…whilst making a positive contribution to the local community….

Meanwhile, pro-active brand-owners already running with the ball?


NB See this as a long-term placement opportunity. Unlikely that many empty shops will revert to traditional usage because of fundamental changes in shopping habits...
Need convincing?
See 'Kind of Blue on the UK High Street http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDzfzB6nVfI

A new open-door opportunity to re-enter a closed shop for Tesco?

Following the Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT's) year-long investigation into the estate agency sector, the regulator has proposed changes to the law which would allow supermarkets and search engines, for example, to sell property for a flat fee, a change from current levels of 1.5% to 3.5% of the sale price.

This means that multiple retailers and online search engines (Tesco and Google, for those needing pointing) can opetrate via a (low) flat fee....

Under the OFT proposals, a firm such as Tesco would be exempt from the need to check the accuracy of each house sale advertisement on its website. The seller would be responsible.
OFT spokeswoman: "…. we just need enough to start shaking things up and putting pressure on the traditional model.”
Wanna bet?
Have a de-regulated weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Customer Magazines - the ultimate consumer-shopper-brand connection?

Latest ABC circulation data reveal that the 4 major multiples now account for a combined circulation of 6.5m copies
July-Dec 09
- Tesco Magazine 2,055,391 +1.9% YoY.
- Asda Magazine 1,859,697 - 36.4% YoY.
- Sainsburys Magazine 1,499,244 + 0.4% YoY.
- Morrisons Magazine 974,431 YoY N/A.

Take their total focus upon their shopper needs and appropriate meal-solutions, add a little aspiration, stir in a some 'Clubcard insight', a modicum of supplier brand investment, and make the a la carte menu available where the shopper buys, for unforgettable anticipation and prolonging of the instore shopping experience….

Alternatively, why not try the traditional 'table d'hote' approach of third party media….?

Speech in recession back to basics?

A new survey reveals the most annoying jargon:
1. Thinking outside the box (21 percent)
2. Let's touch base (20)
3. Blue sky thinking (19)
4. Blamestorming (16) (sitting down and working out whose fault something is)
5. Drill down to a more granular level (15) (Look into something in more detail)
6. Let's not throw pies in the dark (15) (we need a plan rather than a haphazard approach)
7. I've got that on my radar (13)
8. Push the envelope (12)
9. Bring your A-game (11) (Be ready to do something to best of ability)
10. Get all your ducks in a row (11)

In this totally new era, why not go all the way and distil a deal down to 'cost' and 'value' to optimise joint profitability?

Have a concentrated and 'essentials' weekend, from the Namnews Team!