Old brands die hard. As the BBC is discovering. But when the audience is gone, it’s time to move on. Even if you have to take your criticism for doing so. Even if you are partly responsible for creating the situation yourselves. And, after 50 years, that looks like being the case with Blue Peter. When I was a kid, I watched it because it was on, when nothing else was. It was a wholesome way of passing the time before The Magic Roundabout. Now, Blue Peter is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Last year, the BBC moved it from its slot to accommodate The Weakest Link, a programme with built-in obsolescence if ever I saw one. Cruelly, there was even a Weakest Link Blue Peter special. Now, the BBC Children’s Controller wants to re-model what remains of Blue Peter into a show with the buzz of Top Gear. While it doesn’t surprise me at all that Top Gear is seen as a children’s programme, the thought of Jeremy Clarkson saying ‘And here’s one I made earlier’ is enough to make me join Al Qaeda. All this comes to mind on the day that John Noakes is 75. Blue Peter’s longest serving presenter, he unknowingly did all of his famous death-defying stunts uninsured. He was voted off 2nd on the Weakest Link special. When host Anne Robinson mentioned Shep, John’s famous Blue Peter dog, who died in 1987, she brought the man to tears. I liked John Noakes. When I was a child, he seemed like an intrepid iron man with a heart. A bit like my friend, Dean. He is an example of the kind of British spirit I’ve been writing about. Much braver than the BBC. And now for something completely different! Today, comedian Alan Davies is 43. You know, I think he’d have made a very good Blue Peter presenter.
Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk
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"Old brands die hard" is right. The crucial question is what makes them 'old' in the first place.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the virtues of old in this context?
(I recognise I venture onto an area of your particular expertise) but I would suggest that Guinness is old in years and yet the brand is not. Contrast this with the slightly older brand Bass, which is old in every sense.
Moving closer to my area of expertise. Both Apple and Atari where formed in 1976. Through innovation and trauma Apple has constantly recreated itself and has succeeded- Atari didn't and hasn't. In technology, successful innovation keeps you from being 'old'. A phrase I learned from HP (another successor) was that they were always striving to 'eat their own babies' - not milking a successful product but trying to kill it with a better one.
That's technology. But it clearly doesn't apply to Guinness - where the product has stayed the same and the consumers change (they get older and eventually die). Guinness work hard at keeping the product relevant and alive for new consumers.
I remember my good friend JD Sully doing a similar job on a 'dead' brand - Brylcreem. I thought he was mad a the time, but he moved it from the top shelf in back street barbers to a new the gents grooming aisle in every supermarket.
So I come back to Blue Peter. I am sad too to see its decline. For me it was immune to the young and thrusting ITV variant 'Magpie' - but only so long as they continued to emulate. Once they innovated, and the BBC did not, they were living on borrowed time and in the memories of parents that once cared.
My kids don't even know what Blue Peter is, and I am now past caring.