Ideally Speaking

Who reads your sustainability report?

2011-11-21T19:37:00.003Z

I went into the Ethical Corporation CR (corporate responsibility) Reporting and Communications conference last week dead against the idea of integrating sustainability reporting into a company’s annual report. Why? Because I feared it would put people off reading them.

Many CR reports are already huge. But that’s the nature of the beast. Leading the way means reporting on all the GRI indicators relevant to you. And, more importantly, being open and transparent in what you report. So it’s no wonder you get 125-page reports and equally large ‘micro’sites. Integrate all your CR information into your annual financial reporting and it’s going to be like an annual sequel to War and Peace. Who’s going to read that?

Whose job?
As it turns out, CR professionals, socially responsible investors (SRIs) and students are the only ones actually reading sustainability reports, according to the presenters’ research. And according to all the debate, we professionals only read them because it’s our job. None of us does it for fun or a good read. And it’s the ‘job’ of students as well as SRIs to read them. And NGOs whose role it is to see if a company’s telling the truth, covering up or lying about its operations.

But, it transpired, other stakeholders – employees, customers, suppliers and community partners – are not reading them. You can’t blame them. For me,it’s like expecting everyone who uses a PC to read an annual 100-page report on the latest Microsoft operating software. It’s not going to happen. We expect our IT experts to do that for us and then ‘translate’ the really relevant bits into something we can easily digest and make use of. The same holds true for sustainability reporting: we experts need to translate it into something relevant for non-specialists.

Audience. Audience. Audience.
The conference had several good examples of companies who understood this – ‘X-Factor’ winner BAA Heathrow most notably. I loved the idea of their single issue regular(ish) briefings that were short and to the point and more appealing to employees, customers and their local community. They haven’t got it 100% right just yet, and I’m not convinced it was right to replace their annual CR report with these leaflets, but it was a brave step. I personally think the briefings should be in addition to a full report.

Coloplast have started to take this approach, producing tailored mini reports for key stakeholders who they knew weren’t reading their main CR report. The presenter told me it’d started an internal marketing craze, with everyone wanting mini reports for their customers. Who’d have thought a CR spin off could start a trend!

There were plenty of other examples of bespoke communications and initiatives to engage employees. One that caught my eye was Enel’s sustainability e-learning course. And, as you might expect, companies continue to work and communicate in very tailored ways with community partners. It’s all horses for courses. Audience. Audience. Audience.

Integrated strategy
So, getting back to where I started. On digesting all the experiences, I realise that integrated reporting actually has its place – for the investment audience. For listed companies, investors are a key stakeholder and sustainability information needs to be presented to them in the way they want it. There wasn’t anyone from an SRI company at the conference to confirm it, but the consensus is that this particular audience wants integrated reports. On reflection, I’m now happy with that. Give your audience what they want. Just as long as you remember all your audiences....

That means CR and comms professionals need to work even harder. It means continuing to collect and publish all the relevant annual CR performance data. As an open, honest and transparent reference document. Nothing fancy, just there for those who need to scrutinise it. Complemented by bespoke communications to suit your stakeholders. So, an annual integrated report for investors and regular bite-sized comms and stories for everyone else.

In short, it’s not just about integrated reporting, it’s about integrating all of a company’s stakeholders into a much broader sustainability communications strategy.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Is officials: meerkat marketing works

2011-10-20T17:19:00.003+01:00

I’m now the very proud owner of Maiya – meerkat teacher from Meerkovo. I was secretly hoping for Sergei or Aleksandr, but Maiya is much more apt for someone like me who loves education.

The seed for considering switching car insurance through ComparetheMarket.com was planted by brilliant advertising – on TV, radio and billboards. Actually, the latter nearly caused me to prang the car, but anyways …

Congratulations, as Aleksandr says, to the marketers who came up with the idea to give away limited edition meerkat toys and more congratulations to the clever advertising execs who built up the desire to get my hands on one.

When the insurance came up for renewal, I had to give it a go. I didn’t go for the cheapest quote, but I did get a Which? Recommended insurer at 30 quid less than our existing supplier. Which? + £30 + meerkat toy = no brainer. I’d been seduced and switched.

Then came the really clever part. First, the online video with the Meerkovo meerkats personally thanking me ‘for knowing difference between meerkat and market’. With links to share my movie on Twitter and Facebook. How cool.

Next, the ‘Postkat tracker’ where I could track delivery from Yakov’s workshop to my door. What a fantastic way to keep your new customer engaged with the brand. Excellents!

It took a while - until the penny dropped and I read the smallprint – to actually get my meerkat. Of course, it wouldn’t actually arrive until the policy started and I’d gone past the cooling off period. But fair dos, they kept me smiling with the occasional email and made the wait both fun and a hot topic of conversation with family members following Postkat’s ‘journey’ across Europe.

When my meerkat arrived is was surprisingly top quality and came with ‘officials certificate’ and a lovely on-brand letter from Aleksandr.

All told, it is a brilliant piece of marketing - executed to perfection and completely living up to the brand offer in the ads and carried through 100% on-brand in every detail of the ensuing comms and collateral.

I read an article the other day saying that CTM won’t be able to take the meerkat brand much further. I disagree. The creativity to date has been top drawer (love the new Susie Dixon ad). And the brand affinity built up with customers has surely converted more than yours truly.

The only thing I’d suggest would be to add some cause-related marketing into the mix. Meerkats are, afterall, community spirited and it would be a natural brand extension for Alexsandr to appear in a campaign that benefitted a good cause. I could just see him in his own version of a Red Nose or Pudsey spotted hanky with some simples method to donate to charity!

Debbie Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Why I haven't got the energy to switch

2011-09-02T12:43:00.001+01:00

I’m not the only one worried about way-above-inflation rises in energy costs. I heard it all from an old dear who stopped me in the street the other day. Family and friends complain about it. You read about it in the news. Every week, a different supplier comes out with a press release saying they’ve had to put up their prices.

So when I calculated our energy consumption for the past year, I thought it was time to look into switching. Despite the good news that we’ve cut our gas consumption by 12%, our electricity usage increased by 4%.

We’re with Scottish Power on their H2O dual fuel tariff. We switched to them four years ago, specifically for their green energy tariff. Believing there would be more competition in the market now, I was confident I could get a better deal while sticking to our eco-credentials. I was wrong.

According to SwitchwithWhich, I could save hundreds of pound a year – as long as I didn’t want green electricity. Insisting on that was bad news: they could only find me suppliers that would cost me more.

Good Energy was 20% more expensive than Scottish Power. I know they source 100% renewable energy, but their costs are unaffordable to the mainstream. Ecotricity was even higher.

I’d read about Ovo in a Which? Report – a fairly new, small and independent player who offers two simple options, one of which is a green tariff. Their site said they could save me money, but they didn’t show up on the Which comparison. They featured on the USwitch one, but the savings were much smaller than claimed by the supplier. And then there was the small print about fixed contract and cancellation fees. Plus negative user reviews online…

My interest was raised by LoCO2 Energy. They have a range of very novel tariffs to suit deep greens as well as those wanting fairly-priced electricity that is 100% renewable or low carbon. According to USwitch, they can save me money, so why haven’t I switched?

At £1 a week less for the year, it’s not worth it – for now at least. The company’s only been around a couple of years and while I’m all for diversity and supporting independents trying to do things differently, we’re also very cautious and great believers in recommendations. And I can’t find any customer reviews about them.

So, we’ll stick with what we have at the moment, but only for temporary peace of mind. We’ll review again next year and if I hear positive news about the smaller independents with the sensible prices, we’ll seriously consider switching.

In the meantime, the emphasis for us has to be on reducing our consumption of electricity. As 10:10 and the Mayday Network remind us, reduced use really is the key to cutting costs and environmental impacts.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Ryanair goes eco? I doubt it

2011-07-31T18:44:00.002+01:00

So, if we’re to believe the news this week, Ryanair is going green. I can’t wait to see the adverts. Given the remarks Mr O’Leary has spouted in the past against environmentalists, it will be fascinating to see how they try and reposition the brand to appeal to all the people he’s pissed off over many years.

It sounds like the latest marketing gimmick to me, based on the fact that they’ve updated their aircraft. All credit to them, having an up-to-date efficiently functioning fleet is a very important step in the right direction.

Ideal was thrilled to be profiled by 10:10 this week for reducing our travel-related carbon emissions. Our main reason for buying a hybrid car was to reduce CO2, but its fuel and cost savings are an added bonus.

But when it comes to Ryanair, I can’t help believing their new fleet was actually purchased to keep fuel costs rather than CO2 emissions low. This is fine in itself, but isn’t enough to support overblown claims about being the greenest airline out there.

Sustainability is about balancing social, economic and environmental impacts – areas where the company has lots of history to work on.

Where’s Ryanair’s social responsibility in disrespecting the EU protection afforded to passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled? And making pilots and air crew pay for their own drinking water? O’Leary’s hardly an advert for an employer of choice. This is also a man who prefers to land 70km outside a main city because he can push these suppliers right down on price, instead of creating sustainable relationships, built on trust, with the airports people actually want to reach without emitting more CO2 from a taxi or hire car.

People who fly with Ryanair do so because it’s cheap. The new fleet will keep costs low and so they should be able to retain existing customers. But it’s going to take much more than low emissions to persuade anyone with a conscience to overturn their boycott of the most unethical businessman in the industry.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Save our Picture House...

2011-07-15T09:51:00.003+01:00

...from irresponsible town planning and weeks’ worth of Harry Potter!!

Plans are underway for a multiplex cinema to be built as part of the redevelopment of the hapless Stratford Town Square.

Now, in Stratford on Avon Picture House, this town already has a good two-screen cinema, which shows a great variety of films from around the world. It would undoubtedly suffer if a big, mainstream cinema came in. It’s arguable whether a town the size of Stratford needs a multiplex cinema. While our council is determined to increase the size of the town and blight the lives of existing residents for years by building on Bordon Hill, Stratford certainly can’t sustain two cinemas.

Now, we understand that, in order to pay the way to put on art films from around the world, Stratford Picture House has to screen the likes of Harry Potter. But, for a whole week or two, to the exclusion of everything else? OK, the kids are off school and they’ll pack it to the rafters. Who can argue with that? Well, we can. Won’t this kind of blanket approach provide the evidence that Stratford does need a multiplex that shows blockbusters?

All in all, we don’t want a second cinema in Stratford. We like the one we’ve got, despite the odd fortnightly diversion into blockbuster world that pays the bills. Maybe this is the start of a campaign the 4N Stratford Daily could support.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Beware the wounded monster

2011-07-13T17:58:00.003+01:00

It’s not all over. The monster isn’t dead, merely wounded. At the eleventh hour, it’s the unlikely victory of the first battle in a long war – a war that will actually continue long after the monster is dead, which can’t be long away now. There are very many equerries of evil ready to do his bidding, through alternative strategies that are already in place as we rejoice...

Anyway, enough of the cod psycho-mythological-speak. Basically, many people are gloating over a struggle that has not been and may never be won – assuring that British media and broadcasting remains as plural and diverse as possible.

History shows that tyrants destroy what they cannot have. Those who seek to protect BSkyB and the BBC may be relieved today, but they should remain very worried about the next campaign in the destructive career of this businessman from beyond.

Having controlled our media for 40 years, Murdoch is hell-bent on bringing down the BBC, the last great British institution we have. There’s no point in protecting an institution just because it is one. But there is no better broadcaster in the world than the BBC. Despite its recent troubles, its quality remains untouchable today. It is the envy of the world and I want to protect that quality.

Due to the rarity of success, we have a tendency in this country to gloat over victories, something that the rest of the world knows how to take advantage of. This is no time to gloat. Heave a sigh of relief at a close-run thing, yes, but let’s not put this subject away just yet. Our politicians almost let us down big time on this one. Only a week or so ago they were all at the parties and taking the phone calls. If we have scared and frightened politicians, how can we protect what is really valuable in our lives?

The power of social media today is such that it’s very hard to believe that Tony Blair would’ve been able to take this country into disastrous war in Iraq, had that digital power been available back in 2003. Indeed, Tony Blair was very lucky that he governed when the power of the public to intervene and put pressure on politicians was in its infancy.

Cameron must be shocked. He can’t have foreseen this. Great. It means that there is no longer any subject on which politicians can take the electorate for granted, at any time in the electoral cycle, however strong their majority in Parliament.

Digital pressure group, 38 Degrees, is asking its membership right now whether to sustain the anti-Murdoch game or move on to something else. They must press on. There are new dangers ahead.

Who can now believe that one man has influenced UK political life so closely for 40 years? It cannot happen again. Freedom and democracy in this country depend on keeping Murdoch out of power here. But the real battles over the continuing success and honesty of our media institutions do not recognise national boundaries.

13th July 2011 has been a great day as far as the goals of Ideal are concerned. In one day, we’ve seen Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall take the wishes of millions of Europeans with him to politicians in charge of Fisheries policy in the EU. And we’ve seen an angry monster accept he’s lost a big battle.

But the war is not won. As Gordon Brown has said, lawbreaking on an industrial scale has taken place. Politicians – the people whom we elect to defend our interests - must continue to be held to account. When he was in power himself, Gordon Brown did nothing.

We here at Ideal will continue supporting organisations like 38 Degrees and Avaaz and urge everyone who cares about important issues of freedom and democracy to do the same.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Action on branding loss

2011-06-28T17:15:00.009+01:00

The jury inside my head was out. So I gave it a few weeks. I wanted my left brain to provide a counter thought to what my right brain was saying. I’ve waited in vain. My mind still does not like the RNID name change, launched for the charity’s 100th anniversary.

I had thought that Action On Hearing Loss was a good strapline. I’m no fan of acronyms, but if you’ve got one that has some equity, why throw it away in favour of...well, something that sounds like a start-up charity in the backwaters of Birmingham?

It’s as if the charity said to itself: “We look too swanky and sophisticated. We need to get back to our roots and look and sound like a hard-edge, warts-and-all campaigning charity for people who are hard of hearing.”

The charity can point to research that told it that the RNID initials were often confused by the public with RNIB, or even RNLI. So, was the best course of action to leave the ‘RN’ field to these other charities, or to work harder at creating a context so that the public would not be confused?

I don’t doubt that what the charity calls its new ‘underline-strikethrough’ logo addresses the need to point to the negative effects of hearing loss. But if the whole idea was to emphasise that the charity is not just about deafness, but varying degrees of hearing loss, does the new name really serve the purpose? Am I splitting hairs when I say that ‘hearing loss’ sends the same meaning as ‘deafness’?

It seems that there’s a lot of politics behind a name change that leaves some deaf people wondering whether they’ve been left behind, now that the focus is on the varying stages of hearing loss that precede deafness. As anyone who has worked with charities or organisations in this part of the disability sector will know, deaf people are anything but quiet when it comes to airing their views. Is it harder to raise money for people who are already deaf? Harder than it is to raise money and awareness with people who are in danger of losing their hearing? Which, in the end, is so many of us.

The thing is, I don’t like the new name now, but I may come to like it soon. The reason for this is that I never said I didn’t like the rebrand – the change of focus and attempt to become more relevant to people who, literally, need to hear the message. And that new message is probably a lot clearer than the old message.

Action On Hearing Loss wants people to acknowledge their hearing loss and take action. It wants to create more support for people with hearing loss. It believes that no-one should be isolated through varying degrees of hearing loss. It wants people to protect themselves against hearing loss and tinnitus. Ultimately, it wants to cure hearing loss and tinnitus.

I can’t argue with any of this. In the end, an organisation’s name acquires the meaning that all the brand activity gives to it. So, I’ll be left admiring all this, but still disliking the logo.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

In a pickle over waste

2011-06-14T11:03:00.005+01:00

Great news about the government’s latest u-turn: Eric Pickles’ plans for weekly bin collections are to be dropped.

‘Forcing’ households to sort their waste has resulted in positive increases in recycling across the country. I know this not only from the news and statistics, but from personal experience, too. Members of our families have started taking a much more active role in recycling. They don’t share our idealism about saving the planet – they are simply making sure they have enough room in their dustbin for a fortnight. Different reasons, but same result: more recycling, less waste going to landfill.

Had the weekly collections been forced upon councils, too many people would have gone back to the lazy days of not having to sort their rubbish.

The ‘greenest government ever’ (not) surely couldn’t argue with these outcomes, but it appears that the climb down is financial rather than environmental. Oh well, different reason, same result: we all need to keep recycling to save room in our black bin.

The biggest issue, of course, comes with food waste. Leave that in bins or bags for a fortnight and it can – and does – lead to problems. But the solution isn’t to bring back weekly collections. We have our own compost bins, but I’m always funny about adding food waste to them – ever since I inadvertently spiked a mouse who was feasting inside a heap I was turning with a fork!! We pre-treat our food waste in a bokashi composter, but they are only small and sometimes all ours are full. We’ve got a wormery, but they are very fussy eaters – no onions or acidic fruit etc etc – I don’t have the time to sort it all sometimes.

Fortunately, in Stratford on Avon, our district council is really good about recycling and we can put food waste in our green bin or black bin. So, effectively, people do have a weekly collection of food waste. Personally, I put excess food waste in the green bin – it’s thick plastic and no rodents can get in. Mixed with the garden waste, the smell’s no worse either – never had any issues with flies.

Watching Springwatch on the rubbish dump last night, they reckon about a third of our food is wasted. OK it provides a meal for gulls and cute fox families, but if we could get more councils offering green waste collections – at no extra charge – and allowing kitchen as well as garden waste in them, it would make a massive difference – now there’s some food for thought, Mr Pickles!

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Why our food is legless

2011-05-06T10:43:00.000+01:00

This is my 21st year without meat and Mark’s 17th. Our reasons have changed quite a bit. Mark first did it out of laziness when we got together - I wouldn’t cook meat, so it was easier for him to give up and enjoy my meals (although he had been ethically veggie years before we met). I originally gave up meat for animal welfare reasons. I love animals, especially pigs, and didn’t like to think they were dying just to feed my face.

Let’s be straight from the start, we’re not actually ‘vegetarians’ but ‘pescetarians’ ie we eat fish (pesce =fish) and vegetables. Not many people seem to know the term, but it is gaining some currency. I read once about some celeb shunning 'meat with four legs' and changed that into 'legless food' to describe our diet (NB: crabs have claws!)

Why eat fish? Isn’t that just as cruel, you ask. As an A-level biologist I used to be able to tell you all about the differences between the nervous sensory system of a mammal, bird and fish. I can’t any more, but basically the upshot is that a fish’s is a lot less developed so does not feel pain like a lamb.

We were vegetarians (‘lacto-ovo-veggies’ ie eating diary and eggs) for about five years, after Mark came back from lunching with Steve McIvor who never ate ‘anything with eyes’. That was it! As soon as he mentioned it, the fish went (even the clams – do they have eyes?)

Being a veggie in 1990’s Britain was relatively simple with restaurants offering good choices, plus the launch of Quorn and the Linda McCartney brands. Nowadays, our supermarkets are packed with meat-free options, but the choice in restaurants seems to have taken a bit of a backward step. A bit of fish here, a bit of chorizo there – anyone would think all chefs trained in France!

Foreign travel has always proved an issue. We went for years struggling to eat decent food on holidays and finally went back to eating fish after getting married in Tobago: we were served spaghetti in tomato sauce atop mashed potato, while our friends enjoyed fine dining on fresh fish. Enough was enough!

When it comes to ethical lifestyle choices, those who do nothing are always the first to take a pot at anyone who goes part of the way. For them, unless you’re whiter than white, you’re a fraud and they will gladly taunt you for not going all the way and being completely vegan. But our stance is this: doing something – however small - is better than doing nothing. Eating veggie food 80% of the time is better than eating meat or fish every day.

And more importantly, it’s a personal choice. We don’t ram the meat-free message down anyone’s throat. We can easily sit next to Stan eating a rare steak. I even cook meat for the dog and for family and friends who really don’t like anything else (believe me, we’ve tried veggie with all of them!)

I said our attitudes have changed. Now, our reasons for being meat free are about sustainability. We don’t think it is right that world famine continues while rich nations use land to grow crops for cattle that could be better used to grow enough crops to feed the world’s human population.

Environmentally, turning over acres of land to meat production still involves destroying important natural habitats that keep eco-systems in balance and reduce climate change. Livestock production is responsible for 70% of Amazon deforestation. It also takes thousands more litres of water to produce a kilo of beef than to grow the same quantity of basic crops.

We cannot continue along this path. We cannot continue with current Western consumption and accommodate the growing appetites for meat in China and India where it has, so far, been economically out of the question for the majority of consumers.

The Earth’s fertile land is finite. We think it is better to use the land we have for producing food that can sustain all people – equally – all around the world.

In an ideal world, the majority, not the minority, would be vegetarian, by choice. But we think that’s rather unlikely. People like the taste too much – we did (and still do with fish).

As meat and fish can be farmed organically and sustainably, surely the trick is to eat just a little bit of high quality every now and then, rather than gorge daily on cheap, unsustainably farmed mega quantities?

By eating less meat and fish less often, we could reduce overall consumer demand, which in turn would reduce the demands on the land and seas.

Now here’s some food for thought ... May 23-29 is National Vegetarian Week. If we pledge to support it by cutting out fish, could you pledge to go meat free for a bit?

Debbie Griffiths

Inspired loss

2011-04-11T16:51:00.004+01:00

It's a very strange feeling … having to come to terms with the loss of something I've created and cared for - and written millions of words about - for nearly a decade. Sadly, the Yellow Woods Challenge eco-educational initiative from Yell has closed for good.

From a 'back of a beermat' idea to an award-winning campaign, I've been there every step of the way. In the early days, we used the Robert Frost poem for inspiration:

Two roads diverged in a (yellow) wood, and I
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We did indeed tread a new path with Yellow Woods Challenge and the campaign mascot, Kirk. They did, indeed, make a difference to millions of kids and to the environment. Millions of directories were recycled into useful new products; 3m children learnt about nature; schools won money for eco-projects, and Yell won acclaim and many friends for its approach to CSR and sustainability.

The world’s moved on massively since 2001 – environmentally and economically – and the Challenge was no longer a sustainable option for a business going down new roads. But hopefully, many of those children will keep the recycling bug they caught at school and go on to become lifelong environmentalists. The Wombles did it for me! Will Kirk enjoy the same legacy?

And all the trees planted thanks to the match funding for the Woodland Trust will be there in woods for generations to come. They may or may not inspire poetry, but they will provide important habitats lots of real-life Kirks!

Debbie Griffiths http://www.idealcsr.co.uk/

Volunteering a few insights

2011-02-07T11:16:00.001Z

The effect of government cuts on volunteering is top of today’s news. Good on Dame Elisabeth Hoodless for speaking out and telling the nation how the government's spending cuts are "destroying" volunteering and undermining its "big society" vision.

I thought it was just happening locally. It seemed as soon as I’d made a commitment to do more as an enterprise ambassador last year, I’d put the kiss of death on the idea. A few weeks later, I got news that the Warwickshire EBP (Education and Business Partnership) was closing at the end of March due to lack of funding.

The EBP have been instrumental in facilitating volunteering in schools for me and lots of other business people, giving teenagers the chance to learn, first hand, what the world of work is like and to try out their own skills with various enterprise challenges. It is a shame that these opportunities are now being taken away from young people. I’m very sorry that very soon the Warks EBP will no longer exist and make it easy for busy business people to give back to the nation’s future.

Also, since the New Year I’ve been trying to sign up to a road safety scheme that’s literally on my doorstep. But the local police have been undergoing lots of changes too and nothing’s come of it yet, despite several attempts by my local councillor to get me on the list for training.

I hope they sort something out soon as apparently the speed cameras are going to be switched off across the West Midlands if no funding can be found before April.
I’m sure so much more is going to disappear in the new financial year. We’re only glimpsing the tip of the iceberg at the moment.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Do we really care about sustainability? Weight on a minute…

2011-02-04T14:27:00.003Z

Do we really care about sustainability? That’s the title of a Marketing Week article (2 Feb 2011). However, the article is really about sustainable packaging and it would appear that the majority of folk do not care as much about it as the marketers do.

Why would we? We should, not least because packaging adds to the cost of goods. The article cites Sainsbury’s milk in squidgy packs and the trials Asda have done with refillable fabric conditioner packaging. In both cases, the products are sold at a cheaper price. I applaud this because it shows these retailers are passing on the cost savings to customers – always a good sign.

The article also highlights Kenco’s refill packs and focuses on their claim of ‘97% less packaging weight’. Personally, I don’t drink instant coffee, but I do drink milk and eat tinned tomatoes and use fabric conditioner.

As someone who cares much more about sustainability than the average consumer, I always tread carefully with any ‘packaging with less weight’ marketing. For me, the most important question is whether the packaging is easily recyclable? If it is, then I’ll buy it. If not, I’ll stick with what I can recycle after I’ve consumed the goods.

I remember the debate when Sainsbury’s switched to chopped tomatoes in Tetra packs. Yes, much lighter than tins, but at the time, there was no outlet for recycling them. So, I stuck with tins. Similarly, glass can be easily recycled, so this would persuade me to stick with a jar of coffee rather than a plastic bag that I can’t put in my recycling bin. Same goes for the milk in bags – nice idea, but my council collects plastic bottles for recycling, so this is actually less wasteful than sending a hundred milk bags a year to landfill.

Refills are a great idea, but as the article says, you have to take the pouches back into the store with you. I shop online, but most people don’t. So give it time. A few years ago, I worked on the campaigns to get people to re-use carrier bags. It seemed quite a tall order then, but now it’s second nature to most people.

It’s encouraging to see manufacturers looking at packaging, but it is only one aspect of sustainability.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

How and why Ideal supported 10:10:10

2010-10-11T17:24:00.003+01:00

Yesterday was 10 October 2010 (10:10:10) – a day for global action on cutting carbon, masterminded by 10:10.

We did our bit by leaving the car at home and walking the dog on her walkies – she normally gets chauffeured to her fave places! I reset the Owl energy monitor and kept a close eye on it all day.

We had a mega low carbon lunch - raw veggies grown organically in our garden dipped in a lovely sauce (thanks Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for the recipe!) We abandoned ideas of doing the hedges with our huge electric shears. The washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer remained silent all day.

Sunday dinner was a slow cooked home grown veg bake. When I tested the energy use on the Owl, it showed that the slow cooker used just one tenth the energy of the fan oven. OK, it was on longer, but I reckon we cut energy use by 60% on that meal alone. And the real fun bit was eating it all by candlelight. It felt really special – will definitely do that again!

We supported the Global Day of Doing because we wanted to join in an event dedicated to some positive action on the environment. As it fell on a Sunday, it was also mega easy, and fun.

Ideal signed up to 10:10 over a year ago. It promotes a simple idea: to cut carbon emissions by 10% each year. As a business supporter, they ask you to focus on gas and electricity use and car and air travel. As we’d been increasing our emissions, we wanted to sign up to something to help motivate us in reducing our impact. We’ve just completed our first year of data and we’re chuffed to bits to learn we’d managed an overall 15% reduction.

We’ve always been impressed with 10:10, we’ve promoted the organisation to others and made a couple of donations as part of our 2010 cause related marketing initiative. We were impressed to be called and have a chat about our plans for 10:10:10 - great to have a volunteer pick up the phone.

Then last week we were absolutely appalled by 10:10 and their ill-conceived video nasty to promote 10:10:10 - the one by Richard Curtis where people, including schoolchildren, got blown up if they wouldn’t join in with attempts to cut carbon. We were also very disappointed by their initial response to the furore surrounding the video.

Instead of blogging publicly about the issue last week, we wrote directly to 10:10 and expressed our disgust of the violence. We said we would continue doing our bit to cut carbon, but would wait and see how things developed before making a decision on withdrawing our support for 10:10.

We were very heartened to see the full and sincere apology posted by Eugenie Harvey. We’re still waiting for an individual response, but we’re glad that our email was one of many that caused them to rethink and retract their earlier statements.

We enjoyed taking part in 10:10:10 and we’re keen to try and reduce our gas and electricity use by 10% this year. So, we’re sticking with 10:10. Yes, they made a big mistake, but they’ve said sorry and it’s time for them and us to get back to focusing positively on the things we can do to cut carbon.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

If rebranding your clients is second nature...

2010-09-27T09:23:00.005+01:00

...how come rebranding yourselves is so difficult?

If you know and work with creative agencies, this is a very good question. Those of us who do and have, can tell a few stories about how the very thing that agencies do so well for their own clients they struggle to do for themselves.

Like any of its clients, a creative agency needs to rebrand and maybe even reposition itself in the marketplace from time to time. Yet, for a variety of reasons, this rarely seems to happen at the time it should and, then, with any degree of ease. Given that the agency’s very reason for existence is rebranding, why should this be?

On the face of it – and some agency directors have told me this – there is no market for a service to help creative agencies rebrand themselves. If they can’t do it, they shouldn’t be in the business. If this were true, then, by extension, there would be no alcoholic doctors, all millionaires would be happy and nothing would stop England winning the World Cup.

But it isn’t true. You know who you are but can’t seem to express it simply, clearly, effectively. It’s too close and personal, your baby. You’re concerned about not taking your people with you. There isn’t enough time, because clients come first. If you could do it well yourselves, you’d have done it already. Frankly, it’s a puzzling mixture of some or all of these and the product is proscrastination.

So, this week, Ideal has officially launched our agency rebranding service. Far from a speculative punt, this is based on work we’ve done with around ten creative agencies of all shapes and sizes in the UK over the past three or four years.

Some creative agencies are good at design but poor at language. So the help required can come in the form of key messages, a strapline, the re-writing of a website or even the agency’s new business credentials. Others have grown over a decade or so and reached a watershed, where what they were is no longer of any use for what they need to be. This calls for repositioning work and a strategic overview, to refocus business goals and find a new direction, before even considering creative expression. Some agencies have outgrown their marketplace and need to adopt a different personality to target new markets. Others are developing and integrating new products or services that need promoting in a different way. In a constantly moving marketplace, all agencies are seeking that special USP that keeps them discrete and distinctive. They are all in need of remotivating their own team and keeping people on their toes. I know. I’ve been there.

None of these aspects is easy to see from the inside of an agency. If they were easy to see and act upon from the inside, agencies themselves would have very few clients.

It’s good for an agency to become a client.

At some point, soon, your agency will be ready for a rebrand. It’s been a while. It’s time for a refresh. Or, is there more to it than that?...

Ask yourselves the question. Better still, ask us. We, too, are a creative agency. Just the two of us, Mark and Debbie Griffiths. Wordsmiths and branding consultants with decades of experience across commercial and not for profit sectors. We have close working relationships with creative agencies across the UK and Ireland. You are our customers. We’re valued by clients for our creative and strategic insights and ability with words. We can be an external sounding board and expert guiding hand in rebranding agencies.

We can help you understand the real reasons for doing your own rebrand and set the goals and expected outcomes of doing it. We’re good at bringing together and clarifying your thinking to date in a way that builds consensus. We will help you bottle your essence, find and express your real key messages, rebrand in the right way for you. Last but not least, we’ll make life easier for your new business development people while you just get on with your business with your clients.

Ideal’s agency rebranding is a great little service. Some have yet to believe. We’ll keep you posted on the challenge.

Mark Griffiths www.idealbrand.co.uk

Give as you spend

2010-08-31T09:23:00.003+01:00

It’s not every time you open up a credit card statement and have something to smile about. But you do with an Amex RED credit card. You see, every month there’s a little bit on your statement showing you how much money you’ve contributed this month to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS in Africa and how much you’ve donated since you took out the credit card. It’s amazing how quickly it adds up.

(Product) RED was launched in a blaze of publicity a few years ago by Bono and Bobby Shriver to help raise funds to fights AIDS in Africa. I remember loads of things like RED iPods, Motorola phones, GAP t-shirts etc. It’s all gone a bit quiet and I did struggle to find a link to the card on the Amex website, but you could still join in.

Basically, every time you use your Amex RED card to buy something, they donate 1% to the Global Fund on your behalf. Admittedly, it’s usually only the bigger outlets that take Amex due to the high retailer charges, but whenever you spend, the credit card company donates to charity on your behalf using money from the fees it charges the big boy retailers.

There are hundreds of other charity credit cards besides Amex RED. I also carry a Woodland Trust Visa card. It’s ever so pretty – lovely pictures of a bluebell wood. Gets people talking and they think you’re very nice when you tell the retailer that a % goes to charity when you pay with this card. OK, the Co-op monthly donation is less generous than the Amex per pound spent, but they do plant a tree when you take out the card!

Next time you’re thinking about swapping credit cards, have a look and see how your favourite charity could benefit if you took out their card.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Why not Pakistan?

2010-08-23T15:31:00.001+01:00

At last, some progress in the international aid response to the Pakistan flooding disaster! Amazing how the world expects Pakistan to do its bidding in the fight against terrorism, but has been so slow to help with something that is likely to put back anything Pakistan tries to achieve as a nation.

We learn, in the media, that the response has been slow. There are delays in helping people affected by flood. The media suggests that these delays are down to poor political leadership in Pakistan. When this began, Cameron had made his controversial comments about Pakistan in India. Then the Pakistani leader chose to continue a state visit to Britain when the flood had happened. Overall, we have a situation where politics has assumed the higher ground and left ordinary people literally drowning or starving on the lower ground. This is being presented as a political disaster. What will it take for our media to report it as a humanitarian disaster on a massive scale, just like any other?

As a result, I believe the media has adversely affected the DEC fundraising approach by (a) showing the Pakistani political leadership as poor and slow to react and (b) being eager to report that extremist organisations have stepped in to the vacuum to help – a corollary of the fight against terrorism. So, why should the British public give money? Where’s it going?

Ultimately, the media seems more intent on reporting that the British public sees Pakistan as a less deserving choice than, say, Haiti. This is reminiscent of New Orleans and the Bush response. It seems there is something less tragic about river flooding than earthquakes. In reality, there are those who deserve our help more than others, apparently.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Giving as you earn

2010-08-09T10:24:00.001+01:00

Have you ever thought about opening up a Charities Aid Foundation account? It’s a great little way to put money aside for giving to charity and responding to the latest (emergency) appeal.

This morning I got an email asking me to donate to the DEC appeal for the Pakistan Floods. So we logged on to CAF, saw how much we’d got in our accounts and made a donation. Simple.

It’s how we give to disasters, Pudsey, Red Nose and all those other TV-telethons.

Each month we add in a regular Give As You Earn (GAYE) donation through our payroll making it tax efficient. Because you get the tax relief through your pay packet, it costs you less to give what you want. It’s a bit like the tax man topping up your net pension contribution.

I used to get annoyed that sites like JustGiving don’t accept CAF account cards for everyone who wants you to sponsor them, but now I see my CAF account as my ‘emergency’ and ‘appeals’ account that I dip into when needed.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Cause related marketing works

2010-08-02T11:37:00.001+01:00

People often get confused by the term ‘cause related marketing’. They shouldn’t: it’s simply marketing related to a good cause.

The idea is that people will buy your goods or services because you have told them that a proportion of the sale price will be given to a charity or good cause.

Research shows that when price and quality of goods/services are equal, people tend to choose the one that offers this feel good factor.

In the UK, people are very familiar with this type of marketing around Red Nose Day and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Big brands line up to sell us consumer goods and let us know that 1p or 10p for each purchase will go to charity. The same principle applies for companies selling services.

Even though we’re a tiny business, Ideal has always practised cause related marketing. Partly to practise what we preach, but mainly because it works.

Each year we choose a month to donate 1% of fee income to overseas aid via UNICEF. We tell everyone about it with a bit of humour and, without fail, that month sees an increase in business.

This year has been no exception. Thank you to everyone we did business with in July - one percent of your invoice this month is being given to UNICEF to buy footballs.

If you want a sounding board for your cause related marketing ideas, please get in touch.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Coalition education – nein Danke!

2010-07-30T10:37:00.004+01:00

The headline on the local paper this morning announced £1m cuts to schools’ technology budgets. Can’t we have a different word of the day? Education, education, education has turned into cuts, cuts, cuts – tut, tut, tut!

I’m passionate about state education because it’s the only way I got to where I am today. A council-house kid getting a fantastic education from the local comprehensive followed by a full grant to go to university. Now running my own business and paying back in taxes and a few voluntary talks to inspire Year 9s to aim high and be enterprising.

One of the first things the new government did was to abolish Becta – the old government’s agency for technology in education. Ideal did a lot of work with Becta helping them communicate the benefits of technology in education. What I learned and wrote about really inspired me.

Youngsters from all sorts of backgrounds really benefiting from computers, interactive whiteboards, home broadband to keep in touch with school teachers and friends.

Quiet, shy kids (or those with English as a Second Language) who never speak in class suddenly finding their voice on a school blog or sending notes to the teacher. Every member of the class being encouraged to come to the whiteboard while getting support from their peers.

Kids who were excluded from school finding a way back in – catching up via computer at the community centre so they weren’t a disruption when they tried to get off the streets and reintegrate with school.

Young people with autism being able to take their laptop to a quieter room to continue the online task when being in class gets too much for them.

Parents having access to school portals to see what their children are learning in school and getting the tools to help them find safe and secure sites on the internet to boost their studies in subjects beyond a parent's grasp.

For me, as a linguist I’d have loved the opportunities technology brings for modern foreign languages – being able to connect and converse with peers in another country.

But this isn’t the way they teach in private schools, where technology takes a back seat to traditional methods so it’s hardly surprising the coalition government are cutting back on technology. It’s not something they are used to, understand or see the need for. It’s not something you need to produce an elite ruling class. Besides, if you want technology mummy and daddy will provide.

I find it worrying that Britain is taking this backward step on technology in education. This is the future and children were flying with it. The local paper said the cuts were because of the transfer of funds for the new academies. Great that high-flying schools can run their own budgets, but what about the poorer schools in the poorer areas? The type of place where I went to school? I succeeded because of the opportunities I was given. I feel very sad that these opportunities for learning with technology are going to be taken away from the children who benefit most from them.

Why the title of my blog? As a linguist and environmentalist I used to plaster my student walls with posters from the German Greens. Atomkraft - nein Danke (nuclear power – no thanks). But don’t get me started on nuclear today (I thought I voted for Clegg to scrap Trident?!)

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Yah! Boo! Sucks! Marketing with Ryanair

2010-07-27T10:15:00.000+01:00

Slag off your competitors in an OTT way. Get pulled up for it. Use the apology to have another go. What a marketing shower they are over at Ryanair! What will the company do if and when easyJet is no longer up there to climb all over? easyJet doesn’t need Ryanair to pull it to pieces. With its Stelios-inspired infighting, it’s making a good job of it by itself.

I’ve often wondered if Ryanair ever thinks about what we think about its phoney war with easyJet and the constant barrage of deathly but now boring and childish marketing jibes it sends the orange-clad airline’s way. Ryanair needs easyJet in the way Jose Mourinho needs the authorities in whatever country he happens to be plying his trade this year. Ryanair doesn’t market on its business, it markets on that of its competitors. To me, that’s marketing from the bottom drawer. Pretty poor stuff. Why can’t Ryanair market market on its strengths and qualities? Oh, sorry, I forgot...what are they?

But, of course, every time we highlight Ryanair’s latest puerile attempts, we do their marketing for them. Take a look at what they put in The Guardian of all places today...

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletin/brandrepublicnewsbulletin/article/1018479/ryanair-keeps-focus-easyjets-performance/

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Wylie coyote

2010-07-26T15:03:00.001+01:00

In the week when Amazon claims its eBook sales have passed those of hardbacks, superagent Andrew Wylie is bypassing conventional publishers by selling his clients’ eBooks direct to Amazon. Now it’s all a brave new world, with old publishers disappearing, no more middle men taking 90% for doing diddly squat.

Hmmm...stop and think for a minute. Isn’t this just substituting one parasitic business model for another? In terms of power, won’t it just turn agents into publishers, replacing a demon with a fiend? Apart from the agents themselves, the true beneficiaries of this development will be those fruity purveyors of shiny plastic gizmos we need to replace every three months.

And why did we see the rise of agents in the first place? Because publishers were remote and hard to reach. The same thing will happen with agents. So, there’ll be a business opportunity for a group of people to step in between poor, ignorant authors and the electronic agent publishers. They’ll be angry and hungry like the authors they represent. What will we call them? Ragents?!

The truly brave new world will come when authors dispense with agents and publishers altogether and connect directly with their audience to make that living from writing they all crave. In the meantime, authors, wake up and smell the touchscreen. While eCoyote, indeed!

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Football marketing: are they clever or are we stupid?

2010-07-23T11:43:00.002+01:00

I’ve just checked out this year's pay-per-view offering on the official site of the Championship football club I support. You have to laugh. Talk about lack of incentive! £5 per month sub and then £5 per match or £40 sub for the year (really 9-month 'season') plus £5 per match. Work it out. Where's the real saving for signing up long-term? Then the small print says "You will also be charged an additional £5 in the first instance as payment for your first pay-per-view." Pay twice for the first one - one for the price of two! What a great offer! Then, get this: "Further pay-per-view events may incur additional charges." In other words, 'once we've got you, we'll rob you blind'. Well, marketing people for the club I love but live 100 miles away from, that’s really fantastic. Go figure, as our American friends would say. But I won’t be taking up your kind, considerate but oh so unclever offer, thanks. I think I'll take a trip to the library instead.

What is it about football and marketing? What sort of advice are marketing consultants giving clubs who do this sort of thing? Football clubs have this regular, once-a-year summer opportunity to drum up customers in the run-up to the new season. Whatever happened last season, it’s another chance for your club, a shiny new opportunity, full of hope. You can’t bottle or sell that kind of anticipation. It’s just there, ready and waiting to be cherished and nurtured. So what do football clubs do? Seize it and exploit it.

I blame all this on Sky. And, of course, I blame the FA Premier League and the demise of the England team on Sky (but that’s another story with roots in institutional failure rather than marketing). From the very first, Sky over-priced satellite football packages, selling punters every game or no game. You had to buy the lot to see the few games you really wanted. Even under competition from Virgin Media, BT Vision and Freeview today, 18 years on, Sky is still resisting and crying ‘foul’ when called upon to give people what they want instead of what it wants them to have.

This is my marketing advice to Sky and football clubs up and down the country. Wake up! People just want to buy the games they want to see. Make it easy. Keep subscriptions low and offer proper incentives. Stop marketing by fear and you’ll get the volume you need. And, above all, stop ripping us off. It’s our game, too.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Think similar

2010-07-21T10:53:00.002+01:00

The production line rush at Apple is getting faster and faster. Some punters are on their fourth or fifth version of the same bit of shiny plastic. And that’s not counting product exchanges for the models that didn’t work. But people keep buying and are happy to replace their old has-been piece of Apple technology more quickly this year than they did last year. But why? Not for the Apps - nobody can use 500,000 Apps, certainly not the ones for breathing correctly, determining nappy wetness or deciding when to change your mind. Not to ‘think different’ – if everyone is buying what you’re buying, just who is thinking differently? The only one-upmanship you can get is to get the latest model. Apple knows this. The brand used to be an alternative outsider. Now it’s a mainstream insider. The brand now represents the establishment. Customers who queue in the high street to buy the latest version of the latest Apple model are conformists who think they’re different. And they don’t even know it. Apple does. Which is why it’s running faster and faster.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

That old Emperor’s new clothes thing

2010-07-20T11:31:00.004+01:00

“I envy people who can produce things with their hands,” opined a creative agency friend of mine recently. I know what he meant. Something practical, visible, useful. Whereas we work in marketing, branding, communications, call it what we will. What do we ever have to show for our work?

Two decades old, branding is understood as something organisations have to have. But, in an austere world, people who hold the purse strings in companies are starting to pick apart the components and ask for proven value. They are asking to feel the cloth before it’s even been cut.

Perhaps they have learned not to tell us they are redeveloping their brands and so avoid attracting the full brand redevelopment package with all its trappings. Instead, they tell us they want a strapline, or a logo. And could we take a look at their style of language. If you ask for the whole caboodle, you’ll have to buy the process and all its miscellany. After all, you weren’t born yesterday and yesterday was where the good times were. If you ask for less, you are likely to get more, for less, in these tougher times. As a result, instead of the full wardrobe, you might get a nice tunic and a sparkling pair of shoes to top off the basic garments of decency.

But there will still be people in the company who stare at the model in the window and say ‘Is it just me, or are we naked?’

markgriffiths@idealconsulting.co.uk

What have you recycled this week?

2010-06-24T15:31:00.002+01:00

Recycle Week runs from 21 – 27 June, so not much time left to join in, but still not too late. This year’s theme is recycling small electrical items.

I’ve done a bit of my bit and finally recycled my old mobile phone. Have you got one lurking in your drawer? You probably have. You can pick up charity recycling envelopes all over the place nowadays – try and do it this week. Thanks to BT, my old mobile’s helping ChildLine.

Mark gave his old mobile to my stepdad who is finding out all sorts of new uses for it – he really loves taking photos. So, we’ve managed to give new life to an old boy and an old phone with one small act.

We bought new eco-friendly office phones this year and still need to recycle our old ones. They’re still working to a certain degree and great if you only want to chat for a few minutes, but not so good for client conference calls. Hopefully the local hospice charity shop will make good use of them.

Talking of charities, they are also benefiting from the clothes we recycled this week. Must admit it had nothing to do with Recycle Week, but a bit of mould! We’d got a cupboard full of unused clothes that I kept meaning to give to charity and the air hadn’t circulated in there for years.

Now one bag has been collected from the doorstep for kidney research, I’ve got a bag of posh stuff that should make a few quid for cancer research and another bag of old M&S gear that will make a few quid for Oxfam and me. Under its PlanA programme, you get M&S money off vouchers if you take your old textiles to Oxfam for recycling. Love it!

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

What gets your vote?

2010-05-05T17:57:00.004+01:00

Diversity gets mine...

I’ve already sent off my postal vote, so it’s too late for anyone to try and change my mind. Why have I got a postal vote? Because we were away last year when we had local elections and I wanted to make sure someone heard my voice this time.

We’ve only had one canvasser come to our door. Perhaps word got around that I wouldn’t shut up rather than shut the door in their face!? Basically, I am sick of protesting to the ruling Tory council and I said my next protest would be at the next election. Mind you, I’m not overly fussed on our local Lib Dem candidate – I cannot understand why anyone would be proud of campaigning against recycling bins??

The canvasser didn’t ask if he could count on my vote, but suggested I ought to go into politics myself. Having met up with my friend Sharon - who’s ten times more vocal and active in her community than I am – she says the same thing has been suggested to her. So I’m now convinced this is a tactic to shut up vocal women. As it turns out, Sharon had looked into it but was turned down. And both of us prefer business and working in CSR.

So, ballot box it is. Although Sharon idly questioned whether it was worth voting when the local ruling party had such a massive majority. Once again, I’m on my high horse: of course it is – women died to get us the vote! Every time I feel apathetic about politics, I remind myself of that. Sometimes it’s the only reason I vote. If we’d been born a hundred years earlier Sharon and I would have been suffragettes.

This election has been dubbed the Mumsnet election and politicians are desperately courting mums’ votes. Along with their website, Mumsnet reckons the TV debates have helped engage more women. So too does a new poll for Look magazine. Social networking sites are apparently reaching out to young women voters like never before. Great! As long as women use the vote others fought to get us, step one’s done.

Step two is to get women’s voices heard more in parliament and government. Will more women get elected and be given seats in the cabinet? We’ll have to wait and see. I doubt it, but hope so. Will we have a hung parliament? I believe it and hope so.

Why does it matter? It matters because diversity matters. Diversity is integral to sustainability. Just like biodiversity in nature, diversity is the best foundation for a healthy and strong society, and economy.

People seem to get the argument that it’s healthier for local economies to have farmers markets, independent traders and a vibrant town centre instead of homogenous out of town retail parks dominated by the big boys. The same is true of politics.

It’s good to have different views – no one party represents us all. It’s good to think differently, see things differently and to want to take a different approach to things. One size does not fit all. Biodiversity creates a healthy balance in nature. Let’s hope we get a bit more of it in Westminster on 7 May.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

Unfair pleasure: chocolate (and child slaves)

2010-03-25T10:12:00.001Z

Any lifelong dieter like me already knows that chocolate is an unfair pleasure. It tastes so good and sweet and gives you a wonderful high. But at what cost? Calories that turn instantly into fat and a very easy, legal addiction.

I also know that the trade in cocoa is financial extortion – unless you buy fair trade, which guarantees a fair income to the producer.

But now I also fear that the chocolate bunnies I sneaked the other night (without listing it on my food diary) may have included cocoa beans harvested by child slaves. Congrats to Panorama for exposing the issue (even though I thought the interviewer asked a lot of leading questions).

And congrats to the Fairtrade Foundation for presenting their case. My heart sank when they switched to Kuapa Kooko. I thought ‘here we go again, they’re going to dish the dirt on a fair trade project. Knock the good guys with exactly the force as the real baddies’.

Yes, they did find instances of child labour, but FF was very clear that they had swiftly imposed their sanctions and suspensions. Even with the highest standards in the world, there’s always a chance of a bad apple turning up. What the programme showed was that FF got rid as soon as they were aware. Unlike the other traders who turned a blind eye knowing the lot was rotten.

Children in developing nations often have to work out of economic necessity. The reason families hand over children to become ‘slaves’ is the most extreme poverty. It’s not a perfect world and fair trade is as good as it gets. Fair trade guarantees a fair income for the cocoa and makes sure any children employed are also attending school and not using dangerous machetes.

Yes, fair trade chocolate costs more. But it’s really positive maths – everyone wins: we spend what we spend now on fair trade choccies only. The FF guarantees a fair income, communities are less impoverished, more children go to school instead of working. We have less chocolate to eat, but that saves us calories, we don’t get so fat and save money on diet clubs! And we all feel healthier – physically and emotionally.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

It's a dog's life

2010-03-11T17:45:00.003Z

It’s a big week for dogs. I’m typing this on the early train back from Reading – I ran to make it so our little pooch wouldn’t be left alone too long today. Very unusual for both me and Mark to be out of the office at the same time.

Hope Lavender’s been a good girl, but then we are insured and so’s her dog walker, but insurance is only money. It’s good behaviour that matters – from handlers as well as animals. That’s why I find the proposals this week about compulsory insurance for dogs a joke. It’s completely missing the point and will penalise the wrong people, yet again, instead of tackling the problem itself: ie thugs who have dogs as ‘weapons’. The people who have a dangerous dog aren’t going to pay for insurance in case it bites you or me, or Lavender. These people already live outside of society, they drive without insurance, watch TV without a licence, they aren’t going to call up PetPlan because someone makes it law.

The people who can afford pet insurance already have it, those who will feel forced to buy it will be the ones who shouldn’t need to: old people with a small pet dog who’s as frail as them. Lonely people who have a pet for company, not as a deterrent for rival gangs.

Read a snippet in the Dogs Trust magazine this week about a dog attacking a guide dog on duty. The attacking dog and its owner just cleared off, leaving the victims distraught. Will insurance stop this type of behaviour? I think not. You see, it’s not just about a breed of dog, but a breed of owner.

If owners are forced to insure dogs, I think a percentage should be given to pets charities. When money is tight, as it is now, people give up their dogs as a ‘luxury’ they can’t afford. So, charities end up with more dogs to look after, including non-dangerous ones.

A DJ was laughing on the radio this morning about ‘pre-pups’– ie pre-nuptial arrangements for pets. Could tell he wasn’t a dog owner. It’s a serious social problem. Some women stay in abusive relationships because of the dog – if they leave, the dog will get it in the neck. If they leave and take the dog with them, many shelters or temporary housing won’t accept pets. Take the beating, or sleep on the streets with your best friend. Saw it in Cardiff on a recent trip.

Then, of course, there’s Crufts. Just up the road from us at the NEC. Good on the BBC for taking a stance, and the RSPCA and the former sponsors who realised enough was enough and called a day to their support. Dogs with in-bred deficiencies last year, canine cosmetics in the news now – please, give us all a break.

What on earth are DFS doing sponsoring the event? Perhaps these pampered pooches are allowed on new sofas. Mind you, they probably don’t run around much and get as muddy as Lavender. But I can’t see Kennel Club members shopping at DFS. Brands have to be so careful with sponsorship. Interesting to see how long it lasts.

Final fido news I saw this week in the Observer. Apparently the doggy bag may be the next best eco-trend since the ‘I am not a bag’ reusable bag. Sustainable restaurants are encouraging them. Owners take home leftovers for the dog they’ve left at home and the restaurant reduces its food waste. I’ll leave you with that food for thought.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

ideal's new CSR review - why the different approach?

2010-01-28T12:28:00.004Z

If you’ve read ideal’s new CSR review you’ll know I’m committed to writing 10 CSR blogs by August. Here’s to number two!

Regular followers of our CSR reports may wonder why we’ve taken a different approach this year. The answer lies in our values: idealism, honesty, trust and collaboration.

Idealism for us means earning an honest living doing work we believe in, for clients we trust, while making a positive contribution to social and environmental change. We’ll forever be idealists.

Last year, we did stacks of work. We felt creative. We gave valuable insights. And used our strategic grey cells. We collaborated with the Team to help Becta get across socially useful messages about technology for education. We enjoyed working with Forster and Studio North on health, education and environmental projects. We penned an environmental publication for Coca-Cola in collaboration with Ellipsis. We got creative with Smarts on strategic consultancy for Yell’s environmental educational campaign. And we were very happy to give charitable discounts on work for Advocacy in Somerset, SeeAbility and Aspire Foundation. To name drop but a few!

Now enter ‘honesty’ stage left. We took on a few jobs when our gut instinct said ‘no’. We were worried about the recession – weren’t you? And yes, we got stung a couple of times and started to question our ‘trust’ value. But we now trust our gut instinct even more!

While last year was economically very sound (an essential foundation for CSR), our social and environmental performance didn’t come up to scratch. We missed our community targets. I did next to no volunteering. Legitimately, I needed time out after an op. But then I took on more and more work and soon gave up on going back into school. We aimed to keep our GAYE gold award, but screwed up on that too. I was waiting for CAF to contact me – when I should have been proactive and contacted them.

Similarly, I was waiting for Scottish Power to update me. They didn’t for six months and I hadn’t monitored energy usage. Too late, the damage was done! Not to mention the increased car miles...

So, we felt uncharacteristically gloomy about our CSR results when we totted everything up. I was prepared to send out a black and white, matter-of-fact, this-is-how-it-is report in December. But Mark’s gut instinct was that people needed cheering up – the whole country had had a depressing year. Couldn’t we review the last five years and start the new decade on a positive note? I was concerned that this would be greenwashing and against our ethics.

After a bit, I became more open to his ideas. We’d been motivated enough to join 10:10 and I’d started proactively monitoring fuel again, so we started setting some more targets. Not just on carbon reduction, but on other social and environmental activity.

So, we compromised. Our CSR review starts with our 2010 targets, tells you how crap we felt we were last year, but then puts it in context of the last five years. And we’re very proud of it.

I’ve stopped beating myself up about things in the past am focused positively on the months ahead. How about you?

Debbie Griffiths www.idealCSR.co.uk

The short, the quick and the dirty

2010-01-21T10:04:00.001Z

If you get the chance, try setting down your thoughts on what you actually like about your work – who you work with, the way you do it, what you get out of it professionally and personally. In our business, I find that January is usually very generous with this opportunity. None more so than this year – a lengthy, melancholic interlude in which I’ve come to know my music collection even better while slowly building up an appetite for work.

I’ve always found that writing, or working with ideas and words, draws on deep reserves of emotional energy. Early in the new year, my aquifer is empty. It can take much of January to replenish. I find myself wondering how I was able to find the energy only a few weeks earlier to do what I thought I was good at and have now clearly forgotten. Time for a meeting with memory.

When I trod the risky path of setting myself up as self-employed some 7 years ago, I realised the first year or two would be difficult. Clients would be hard won, the work might be uncongenial. With a very small redundancy and no clients whatsoever to start me off, it could all seem like stepping back into contingency as I strove to bring home the lentils. Generally speaking, the big commercials I’d been working with don’t give work to freelancers or small writing agencies. Unless you’ve made a name for yourself, they give it to large design or full communications consultancies. If you wanted the lucrative, long-term contracts available in the public sector, you had to spend half your life hopelessly tendering, filling in forms, jumping through hoops that only encouraged resentment. I tried for a while. I resented it. Unless I was prepared to focus on very small charity contracts, I’d have to sell my vinyl collection on EBay. As I had wasted time in the corporate world buying half of it on EBay in the first place, that would have felt like filling in a hole I had dug for no reason at all.

New thinking was needed. I’d worked in creative agencies. I knew that, even with them, wordsmiths were few and far between. After a year and a half struggling as a freelancer, Debbie and I set up Ideal Word. One of the first things we did was to set about making lasting relationships with as many other creative agencies as possible.

What began with clearly defined writing jobs, like annual reports and brochures, soon developed in the area where I’d cut my teeth in London creative agencies – brand messaging. Most brand and communications agencies are good at brand messaging. After all, they have to walk it and talk it. But writing it is something else. Very few are good at capturing it on paper or screen – clearly, succinctly, powerfully. Even fewer are able to employ an in-house writer with the strategic and creative experience necessary for brand positioning and repositioning (in my view, a rare combination that takes the mind of a Twitterer grounded in Proust and Joyce).

What tends to happen is that creative design directors and strategic brand managers find they could do with a little help with language. That’s where Debbie and I come in. The right words, with the double-edge of creativity and strategic thinking. Our skills help them win new business pitches and develop the communications concepts when the business is won. When creative directors and brand managers come to recognise this ‘outside’ ability, they often entrust us with their own brand development. We’ve done this with design, branding, internal communications and change management agencies. In Belfast, Dublin, Guildford, London, Manchester and Stratford upon Avon. We think we can do a lot more.

My part in this? I enjoy it most when I can spend two hours here, three hours there, then move on to the next brand. When it comes to brand, I’m a three or four a day man. The shorter, the quicker, the dirtier, the better. In this Ideal partnership, I am the butterfly. There – I’ve re-remembered my role in life. Roll on February!

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Jimmy’s Global Harvest Horror

2010-01-08T10:56:00.006Z

It’s the first Friday of the new decade – hope you’re enjoying the winter wonderland. My New Year’s resolution is to take a different approach to Fridays. Health and volunteering are both on the agenda. I volunteered to walk the dog, in the snow, but that doesn’t really count, does it? That was leisure and pleasure combined.

Today, I am going to start penning our latest CSR report. But before I do, I wanted to do that other activity on my wishlist: blogging. Been a long time. Had lots to say, but no time to do it. Let’s see how long the resolution lasts...

I was glad to do a Google search this morning and find other viewers who disliked what they saw on Jimmy’s Global Harvest on the BBC last night. Emma Rink and Sam Wollaston share our concerns about the way he presented scary super-scale food production in Brazil.

It was like watching something from the 1970s, when chemicals and big machines ruled the world. And here was Jimmy Doherty, who I thought was in favour of organic farming, standing in awe of rich, powerful men. In fact, acting like a little boy. Not once challenging them on their approach to chemical use. Saying to camera that he had environmental concerns, but never saying so to the food magnates, or the biofuel masters.

We support the BBC, while many others knock it, but only if it produces balanced programmes. This programme saw only the economic side of Brazilian farming. The environmental issues were shrugged off and the social issues ignored completely.

Yes, the ranchers may be re-foresting the rainforest, but the methane from their cows is 25x more potent than the CO2 the trees will absorb. The biofuels were not viewed environmentally, but economically. What of all the CO2 produced in burning the sugar cane plantations? What of all the other animals, not just the snakes that Jimmy barbequed?

And I don’t know what was worst: 15,000 cayman in a tank or their eggs being stolen whilst Jimmy poked the mother with a stick? All this for meat and handbags? What a world! This may be the future of farming, but for how long? It’s completely unsustainable.

What can we do, apart from blog? Buy ethically. Simples! Meat and leather bags are not my bag, but soy and fruit are. I’ve looked out for GM-free soy for years. But I was most appalled by what I saw on the mango farm. Jimmy said the chemicals were all to satisfy demand. Rubbish. The market demand is false. That’s it, now – organic or fair trade mangoes only for us from now on. At least you opened my eyes to that industry – thanks for that, Jimmy.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Brand news: we’re no longer brands

2009-07-21T12:22:00.000+01:00

Now you see us, now you don’t. Have you been following the Muji madness and Starbucks strangeness? Muji is not a brand and this Starbucks café is not Starbucks. The recession is producing some strange responses in the world of big brands. Muji, the pound store that isn’t, sells you everything but now wants you to decide that you can have too much and that enough is enough. And it can do that because, it says, it isn’t really a brand. Starbucks, where you pay for the seat as well as the coffee, is trialling local stores in the US which do not have any Starbucks branding, meaning to show that it is returning the idea of the independent local café to people’s lives. Both Muji and Starbucks are hereby attempting to introduce marketing by stealth. It’s unwholesome, unrealistic, inauthentic, unethical, disingenuous and utterly, completely and unequivocally cynical. Both give brands and branding a bad name.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Paying to volunteer

2009-07-16T15:05:00.005+01:00

Admittedly I've had a year off volunteering as a reading partner locally, but on the day I decide to go and get everything set up again for next term, I learn about the new vetting and barring scheme that's coming in. Basically, spend more than one day a month in school and you'll have to pay £64 for proof that you're safe to do so.

Children's authors are up in arms and refusing to go to schools any more on principle. Like the authors, I sometimes address assemblies with many adults present, so can emphathise with their view. But as a reading partner, I'm on my own with children.

I was happy to get my CRB certificate as (a) I know I'm safe (b) it provides a guarantee for the school that I have been cleared for spending time with children and (c) it didn't cost me anything.

What I have an issue with is paying £64. Volunteers are already giving up our time unpaid and making a massive contribution to education at no cost to the taxpayer. I know my employer, ideal, will foot the charge for the checks if necessary, but what about all the non-working mums or retired helpers - who's going to pay for their checks?

As it is, schools and children look set to lose out (yet again) as many people will follow in the authors' footsteps and just stay away. By all means have the checks and the proof, but I'd like to keep the checks free of charge in recognition of the important role we volunteers play in education. Or sweeten the pill by donating back to schools half of the sum paid to the database agency.

Debbie Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Sugar was never so sour

2009-07-08T13:33:00.000+01:00

Here’s one for ya – is there more to the detachment of Sir Alan Sugar from his role as NS&I ambassador than meets the eye? In 2004, National Savings & Investments made Sugar their brand ambassador, the frontman for their advertising campaign. Is it a good idea to have Sir Alan Sugar attached to your brand? NS&I seemed to think so. In my book about the branding of Premium Bonds, Nice little ERNIE, I discussed how NS&I agonised over their choice. But Sugar seemed, to them, to be the perfect fit. It seems that amassing millions and millions of pounds over years and years of business sent a message to canny savers. However, NS&I can hardly have anticipated Sugar’s real, mainstream fame as centrepiece of The Apprentice from 2005 onwards. Here, without a TV ad script, even with careful editing, the man reveals a clear personality trait that we can all name. Some people have called it bullying. Others have described his approach as a model of bad management. Many wonder why anybody would want to work for him, particularly if you’re a woman. But Gordon Brown has had the benefit of the NS&I and Apprentice TV coverage. Yet he still saw fit to create Sugar as Enterprise Tsar. What message, I wonder, does he think this is sending to women? Or to anyone wanting to set up in business today? Put all this aside for a moment – for, today, Sugar’s relationship with NS&I is over, thanks to Sugar’s ‘promotion’ into the political elite of the House of Lords - Cabinet Office rules prohibit the use of political figures in government advertising. Now, although government directs its policy, NS&I is hardly a political vehicle. So, NS&I has to lose the brand equity it’s gained with Sugar and begin it again with someone else. This is an outcome of the recent expenses scandal. The Tories tried to tear Sugar away from The Apprentice when he became Enterprise Tsar. They failed. Sugar has agreed not to discuss government policy on the TV programme!! They’ve succeeded with NS&I. In opposition, separating politics from business is seen as the greatest priority for them (and their mates at The Telegraph). But how are we to influence policy on business if we do not bring people from business into politics? Even Gordon Brown understands this. He believes Sugar can reverse the relentless tendency to see his own brand as the dead duck it is. And the Tories are desperate for this not to happen. So, David Cameron, is it best for the country that the person most associated with successful business practice and apprenticeship does not have any influence on government policy? Or is it best for the Conservative Party? Or, are you politicians all so completely out of touch that you think Alan Sugar, the man who famously predicted that the iPod would be kaput by Christmas 2005, will make any difference to the business start-ups we really need in this country? It’s a sweet logic that leaves a very sour taste.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Carbon pensions – cost vs. value

2009-07-02T17:59:00.002+01:00

Which of Jonathan Porritt’s 19 sustainability breakthrough ideas for the 21st century captured your imagination? I couldn’t get my head around the algae carbon capture one and some of the others look like they’ve been recycled and given a fresh look, but I really like some of the energy ideas put forward. I wish I’d had an input into the report – I’d have got people talking about ‘carbon pensions’.
We know the majority of the UK population isn’t saving for a pension – either because they don’t care or can’t afford to - but those that can, do so we can look forward to a more comfortable retirement. Well, it’s the same with renewable energy – if you’re able, it’s time to consider paying a premium now for a long-term investment that will make our climate more comfortable for our retirement and for future generations.
While the green lobby keeps shouting about the need for us, as a nation, to invest more in renewables – including the Carbon Trust’s report today - this important message gets all too easily drowned out by the media who focus on the increase in prices this will result in.
Of course there’ll be a cost, but there’s also a cost of not investing in renewables. Staying dependent on overseas oil and gas is not only unsustainable environmentally, it’s risky politically, economically and therefore socially. Fall out with someone and they could cut off the supply or hold us to ransom over whatever prices they want to charge. Nuclear is not the answer. What you gain on the green swings, through carbon neutrality, you lose on the radioactive roundabout.
We’re an island with great potential for generating our own clean energy from wind and waves. Let’s invest in it. The money will have to come from somewhere, preferably government, but they’re unlikely to foot the whole bill. Energy companies rightly need to be made to invest in renewables, but they should also be made to look after those unable to pay. Rewnewable energy can only be truly ‘sustainable’ if the environmental benefits are in harmony with the economic and social impact.
That’s why I liked Porritt’s ideas on combating fuel poverty while improving energy efficiency. I haven’t fully got my head around the carbon credit card idea, but in principle I’m warm to it (pun intended). As long as those unable to pay get everything they need, those who are able to pay can choose whether to stick to a low carbon lifestyle or pay for the extra they use.
At Ideal we’re happy to pay a bit extra for our energy, which contributes to Scottish Power’s Green Energy Fund. Yes, I’d like our bills to come down, but until the Sustainable Development Commission’s breakthroughs become reality, that means we’ll have to reduce our own consumption, which isn’t such a bad thing, is it?

Debbie Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Misplaced brand loyalty

2009-06-26T11:16:00.005+01:00

The politico-religious brand draws some confused reactions. British Muslims are divided over the role of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some are prepared to state, on camera, that Taliban law is the best kind of law. Others, particularly women, see the Taliban for what they are. Before we get too outraged at the BBC's platform for those who would uphold such repression, supposedly in the name of that man-made and man-managed construct called religion (again – does humankind ever learn?), we might look at some of our own youthful reflections on politics and the way to live our lives. Some of us thought communism, or the socialist idea, was the way to go. Notwithstanding the fact that there isn’t a culture in the world where it has worked any better than its capitalist counterparts (I've visited Cuba twice - everyone has good teeth and is over-educated for a life they are not permitted to live). Then we grew out of such Romantic notions, being prepared to grapple with the uncertainties of life by recognising the eternal imperfection of humanity. The Taliban brand is very much like the Nazi brand. It attracts considerable popularity for its no-nonsene, cut-through characteristics and seems to have a sense of direction. But it is ultimately doomed to failure because the sense of humanity always prevails...eventually. If British Muslims living a life of freedom in our society flirt with it when asked, we shouldn't be so surprised (though the BBC's determination to promote the values of some minorities can be counter-productive and give more fuel to the Daily Mail/BNP brigade). Loyalty to such a brand, for whatever reasons, is always misplaced.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Racism at Wimbledon

2009-06-24T09:15:00.002+01:00

It’s open season on East Europeans at the BBC. That must mean it’s Wimbledon again! Is it just me, or is BBC TV tennis link-man, John Inverdale, sounding more and more like Rigsby or Alf Garnett? Two days in and every broadcast seems to home in on how the Eastern Europeans are dominating the women’s game. There’s Nockemova, not to be confused with Nackemova. Here’s Ichalova struggling to distinguish herself from Scratchelova, even though they come from different countries and cultures a thousand miles apart. The Russians are coming! What is it with re-enacting the Cold War? Do people not realise that Russia in particular has the economic clout, population size and political will to create such success? Even if they do realise, why is this success begrudged? What’s wrong with Eastern Europeans being good at tennis? Nobody complained when the Americans dominated. So, now it’s the poor Williams sisters versus the Russian hordes. It’s fortunate that some of the Eastern Europeans are so good looking. Did you witness the Serena Williams post-match interview on Monday evening? The BBC actively encouraged her to see herself oppressed by East Europeans. ‘Yes,’ said Serena. ‘I think I’ll need to change my name to Williams-ova.’ This, in itself, sounds fairly harmless. Set it in the context of the sneering and mocking barrage of anti-Eastern European commentary, however, it acquires another meaning. You can’t imagine the tables being turned, with Russians being encouraged to complain – jokingly, of course – about the amount of blacks dominating the game. And this is where the hypocrisy lies. Racism is not just about skin colour. It doesn’t have an exclusively ethnic focus. It is also about discrimination on national and cultural grounds. Eastern Europeans are like vermin. There are so many of them. They’re fair game. We’ve just seen 100 Romanians kicked out of Northern Ireland with a few polite words thrown their way by our politicians. Imagine the furore if they’d been black or Muslim. Have the recent elections not taught us anything? Are we to allow the repugnant views of UKIP and BNP to take centre stage? Is it OK to return to the 70s and call foreigners what we like (not the black ones, of course). Racism for any reason is essentially a sign of ignorance, stupidity and fear. And now it’s alive and kicking in one of our nation’s beloved annual institutions, as the BBC celebrates Wimbledon. Well, the BBC coverage is discriminatory, biased and unfair. They’re trying too hard to entertain us and what they’re saying is fundamentally wrong. Watch and see.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

The politics brand never learns

2009-06-23T09:46:00.001+01:00

So, the scandal of politics continues.Those responsible for the brand of politics do not appear to be learning their lessons. The way that John Bercow has been elected Speaker of the House of Commons shows that politicians believe they are operating in a vacuum, unobserved by the populace they are elected to serve. Once again, somebody gets elected on a majority vote (it took three votes to get to that). And that person is elected, not necessarily because most electors thought he was the best man for the job, but because many Labour MPs thought that electing him would be the best way to rile the Tories. Already, before the man has even started the job, Tories are talking about unseating him when they assume power next year. Why can’t we have a system of rotating speakers, so that all sides are satisfied? Why can’t we have fixed Parliaments? Why can’t we have politicians who remember why they became politicians in the first place? And they wonder why people are turned off politics and do not vote at election time. How can we engage with a brand in which such behaviour takes place? I cannot and will not.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Bringing values to life

2009-06-18T10:10:00.001+01:00

At Ideal, we’ve been thinking and talking about exactly how we help our clients bring their values to life. It isn’t just that we occasionally match some of their fee to relevant causes in the developing world (though it helps). It isn’t just that we provide charitable discounts (though they help). It isn’t just that we’re good writers (though that’s essential). It’s just that, through all our work with clients on positive social and environmental change, we’re trying to live up to our name. We started out by saying that we help organisations shape and communicate their image, ideas and ideals, in words. Now we say, we help organisations express their values and ideals in their brand and through their communications and programmes. There’s clearly more to it than words. It takes longer to say it and it’s not as cute. But that’s exactly what we do, ideally speaking. We’re not magicians waving a magical branding wand. It’s great when people get this. When they’re prepared to see and be open to the understanding that the more they involve themselves and their staff in their branding development, the better it will be. We’re happy to say it’s happened twice this week with two very different but small charitable organisations. One, working in advocacy for young people with mental health difficulties; the other specialising in supporting social enterprises tackling homelessness and disadvantage. There are some exquisite moments like this when we are so clearly doing what we have told ourselves we are here to do that we’re tempted to wrap them up in brightly coloured Japanese paper and store them away under soft light in a glass cabinet. Except that what we’re offering is such a living, breathing, learning and yearning entity that such incarceration would be a crime against the spirit of Ideal. And those people in organisations who come to us for help in bringing their values to life.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

There is a light...

2009-06-10T10:28:00.002+01:00

I have an apology to make. Emerging on the other side of 50 in a whirl of social celebration, I see that I have not been myself. Two dirges on something as banal as politics tell me that I have rushed to the surface too quickly, some time before I had intended to take the air. It was a case of the bends. Too many people, too much activity, too little time for contemplation. So, I’m sorry. I shall henceforth return to the depths to resume a colourful relationship with the denizens of my imagination, my true world. There you will again recognise me. Then, what I have to offer the world - through words and branding and general advice about how to get to the heart of things and communicate this essence – will once more make sense. For this reminder to return to a state of grace, I have the following to thank: Alain De Botton for The Architecture of Happiness; a painting by Marc Brown that I wish I’d bought on a visit to Southwold; Sean Lock for making me laugh in his narration for The Great British Sunday, on BBC 4 last night; and a brilliant photograph I took of light fading over the 21st Century Museum of Modern Art in Kanazawa a couple of months ago. I write this as a constant reflection on identity. And to keep a record of what matters to me. For, in these blogs, and only in these blogs, even after millions of words written over decades of life, have I found it possible to say what I need to say, from the place that I need to say it. And, sometimes, this is only possible in the middle of the night.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Why we can’t have the democracy we need…

2009-06-09T08:47:00.003+01:00

While we’re on the subject of political brands, or until we refuse to get off, let’s take this democracy thing a step further. Into dark corridors where not even the most venal of our system politicians dares enter. What does democracy really entail? And should we really try to create it? Who would benefit, rise, fall? If you are part of a certain generation that went to university as an elite, you might be wary of a definition of democracy that gives the vote to all of the people all the time. You might criticise but ultimately embrace a voting system, like first-past-the-post, which elects the least unpopular but keeps the lunatic fringe at arm’s length. As your evidence, you might point to daily newspapers which, if part of the political policy-making process to which they seem to aspire, would advocate the return of hanging, the immediate repatriation of anyone seeking political asylum (case unheard), the reduction of all taxes, and a general return to the days when Britain was Great and Europeans began at Calais. As your evidence, you might point to the continuing, froth-flecked success of so-called political parties like UKRAP, BNQ, Chavitas and their ilk. But, as intellectual colleagues of the cohort of society which forms the polity, the system of government and civil administration, you wouldn’t want to live in a system where every decision was voted on with such venom and bile. You really wouldn’t want everyone to be exercising their democratic rights. You wouldn’t want Telegraph toffs to make common cause with thick bricks in a kind of tattooed totalitarianism .You would want society to carry on dazzling and distracting with its beer and circuses and Britain’s Got Talent. In this, you’d be absolutely right and absolutely wrong. And you would have entered the territory of the unsayable, the unarguable, the undiscussable. For any society which enabled total democracy in such a way would have to be sure that every one of its members was invested with a clear understanding of all important issues and a balanced sense of the collective as well as the personal. It would have to be a society based on trust and respect, clear egalitarianism and a common purpose. As I know of no such human society, it is my belief that we cannot have the democracy we need. But neither can we dispense with this thing called democracy – for that way lies communism and fascism, the Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee of societies that have become so angry that they have ditched democracy altogether and insodoing lost their humanity. So, if we can’t have the democracy we need, we’ll have to endure the democracy we deserve. And make the least worst of it.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

And they call this democracy...

2009-06-08T12:41:00.006+01:00

A great victory for the Conservatives in the UK? 9.5% of the electorate voted for them in their landslide political victory in the Euro elections. Massive response from the UK population for UKIP and the BNP? 5.7% and 2.1% of the UK electorate respectively. And well done in the local council elections to my friend, Craig Dearden-Phillips, who overturned a Conservative majority to become a newly elected Lib Dem councillor in Norfolk, with 37% of the vote. And to Martin’s dad for topping his local Staffordshire poll with 43% of votes cast. Quite what the 63% who didn’t vote for Craig and the 57% who didn’t vote for Martin’s dad think is one thing. Quite what those who didn’t vote at all – the silent majority – think is another altogether. Whatever reasons people have for not voting (and there are many), there is one they all have in common: they are prepared to accept the status quo. This fact is quite incontrovertible. Otherwise, people would vote. Just as silence is a form of communication, so not voting is a signal clearly sent: “I may not like what and who I see, but my life will not change much for the better or worse if I do not vote – so, all things told, I accept the way things are.” What this means in terms of figures is quite clear: in the Euro elections 89.5% of the eligible UK population did not vote for the ‘winning’ party, the Conservatives; 94.3% and 97.9%, respectively, still see UKIP and the BNP for what they are, a bunch of foreigner haters and baiters. And my friend Craig (and Martin’s dad) will struggle forward with the fruits of their victory, knowing that the vast majority of the electorate in their constituencies did not vote for them. Meanwhile, as the country attempts to recover in a poisonous media atmosphere of finger-pointing and irrational vilification, I really wonder who can justifiably hold up their hand (let alone their head) and say ‘Isn’t this a wonderful democracy we live in?!’ Well done all for participating in our traditional English system of misrepresentation on a grand scale. The non-vote, the voice of the silent majority, should be taken into consideration - especially in local and Euro elections, where it is invariably the 'winner'. The people have spoken. But most have remained silent. The first-past-the-post voting system in this country is not democracy. It stinks to high heaven. I rest my case.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

The Re word

2009-06-02T08:22:00.005+01:00

Resurrection. No, that’s not the word. Reconstruction. No, not that either. I was only half-listening when the Dean of Coventry Cathedral mentioned the ‘re’ word while introducing the Robert Fripp/Theo Travis concert, an unlikely part of the Coventry Jazz Festival the other Saturday afternoon. Restoration. No, not that. Resolution. Again, no. Not even when the Frippertron himself interrupted his own performance, to introduce his concert himself and mentioned the same ‘re’ word, did I consider retaining it in the anteroom of my memory. Restitution. Resonance. Reconnection. No. No. No. At half-time, I wandered into this modern cathedral’s colourful corners, which reminded me less of church than the atrium of a giant theatre. Rejuvenation. Reformation. Not even close. In an annexe to the left of the entrance, my eye was caught by what appeared to be a kaleidoscopic sculpture made entirely of coloured strips of paper. Something drew me closer. Parts of my mind rushed me towards recognition. When and where had I seen this before? Nearer, I made out the shapes of paper birds. Then, it hit me. It was a smaller version of the paper crane exhibit created by the Japanese schoolgirl, Sadako Sasasi, who died from leukaemia in 1955, having been exposed to the atom bomb in Hiroshima at the age of 2. Knowing she was terminally ill, Sadako was trying to complete the folding of 1,000 paper cranes, following the belief that this goal would see her granted a wish. The story says she reached 644. I’d visited the real exhibit only a month before at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. I don’t really remember making my way back to my chair for the second half of the concert. All I know is that I enjoyed the music as if hearing Robert Fripp play for the first time. He finished the set with the beautiful and rarely played Threnody For Souls In Torment. But I found myself unable to recall the ‘re’ word. I just knew that it was a combination of all. Resurrection. Reconstruction. Restoration. Resolution. Restitution. Resonance. Reconnection. Rejuvenation. Reformation. Reggie Perrin. Later, much later, I turned to the world wide wonder and found Robert Fripp’s diary with his photo-journalistic review of the day, cathedrals old and new (www.dgmlive.com/diaries.htm?member=3). Before I went in, I’d walked the same steps, absorbed the same views. I wondered if I’d thought the same thoughts as Fripp. You see, there’s a collective view of Coventry that’s apt here. The city gets such a bad press. Concrete monstrosity. Well, people too easily forget the awful price the city and its people had to pay one night in November 1940, when Winston Churchill sacrificed it for the price of retaining the secret of breaking the cipher of the Enigma machine. Many UK cities suffered during the war, but none quite as unexpectedly as Coventry that night. Rather than the opprobrium it receives from the ignorant today, it somehow deserves a special place in our considerations. Those who know me well will also understand the significance of Coventry in my life from a personal point of view. How difficult it is for me to return or spend any significant amount of time there. I’d thought the Fripp gig would be an appropriate opportunity for some kind of catharsis. I was thinking about this when the Dean introduced the event, when Fripp re-introduced himself and his music. Now, reading his own review of the day, it was clearly a special gig, the end of his world tour, the end of something. “The new Coventry Cathedral is a remarkable space. The sound from the guitar stool was astonishing. At one point, high notes and harmonics flew upwards and kept going, as if angels in the roofspace had picked them up and were singing.” I did not find it hard to connect the man playing guitar before me with the man whose wizardry lay behind King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man back in the early 70s. A man whose diary notes continued: “The first set was introduced by the Dean, who referred to the Cathedral’s mission of reconciliation.” And there it was, my ‘re’ word. As I left the concert, still unable to recall this word, I remember thinking how it was the most magical of days. That morning, I’d woken to a blinding headache and felt too weak to complete my lawnmowing. Yet, I’d sensed this was an important day. After Fripp, I drove back along empty roads under a startling blue late afternoon sky to see Julius Caesar at Stratford – the first time I’d seen this performance, having studied it for O Level English Literature 35 years earlier. Greg Hicks was a better Caesar than he had been Leontes, King of Sicilia, in A Winter’s Tale. But it didn’t stop him dying with all the others. Something came to an end. I may spend some time yet wondering why I had to go to Hiroshima to settle my own personal conscience with what went on in Coventry, collectively before I was born, and personally, during my youth. Reconciliation surely implies some kind of acceptance. After reconciliation comes the time to get on with life. And that seems a suitably transcendent place to surrender my forty-something self, after eighteen thousand two hundred and sixty three days on this planet, and take up the mantle of quinquagenarianism. Something has ended. Something is beginning.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Charming

2009-06-01T09:40:00.003+01:00

Half way through a massage from my reflexologist, Kate, the other evening, I stopped her nimble fingers in their tracks just by mentioning that Clint Eastwood was 79 this weekend. Fifty-something Kate found this hard to digest. How could someone as young as Clint be so old? I said he is about the same age as my father. She said he is about the same age as the father of Greg Hicks, the favourite Shakespearean actor currently headlining in A Winter’s Tale and Julius Caesar at Stratford. For some, Clint will always be Dirty Harry, or the bloke with the chimp in Every Which Way But Loose. For me, he’ll always be the man with no name in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Then, I was at pains to explain to Kate that, althouth I abhor violence in films, I adore Clint’s spaghetti westerns. Yet, I cannot stand the modern, gangster-loving trash of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, and certainly not the latest two James Bond films starring Daniel Craig. And then it hit me. I knew why the Clint Eastwood brand was better than the Daniel Craig brand. I’d answered the question that had been hanging over me these last two years about why I didn’t like these new Bond films, when everyone else did. Clint’s movies have something important in common with most of the Bond movies before Craig. Charm. Whereas the two Craig films have been dark, graceless essays in violence and abuse, no better and no worse than anything else of their ilk, the staple Hollywood fare. Quite clearly, in any brand, that much pursued and hard-to-define charm is worth its weight in gold.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Whatever you want

2009-05-29T08:23:00.002+01:00

Today, when many people think of Status Quo, they think of Argos. Whatever you want. Yet, when I was growing up, they were one of the leading rock bands of their time, the first band I ever went to see. I can still hear the ringing in my ears thirty four years on. The next time I saw the band I queued up for hours outside the venue, even though I already had a ticket. It was something about the blue denim atmosphere, the flailing hair boogie and all the time in the world. If you shop at Argos you need all the time in the world. I’m at a loss to understand just how this high street brand has stayed the pace, when others, like Woolworth’s, with a longer tradition and a sense of customer loyalty, have not. Back when I was working on the rebranding of Argos earlier this century, there was much talk of moving the retailer out of its comfortable status quo, away from Whatever you want, and towards something a bit more 21st century. Several agencies were forced together for a fission branding exercise that would find this new place to be, this new slogan. We all made our suggestions. I remember one particularly hairy advertising designer flying into a carpet-chewing rage when presented with alternatives to his latest TV ads for Whatever you want. The thing is, as much as they wanted to, nobody could get the rhythm out of their heads. In the end, all that changed was the swoosh of the tail of the S of Argos. It gave the impression of a smile. All still backed up by the good-time boogie of Whatever you want. For the simple reason that Whatever you want was no longer Status Quo, it was Argos. And that was the status quo. The emotional core could not be moved. Not by any logic that said this archaic, time-consuming, Soviet-style ordering, buying and collecting procedure had had its day - a system that had once been the hook, the whole appeal of shopping for everyday items in a different way. But Argos also went online early, whereas Woolworth’s did not. The logistical complexities for both retailers must have been similar. Thousands of hungry suppliers. One coped. The other didn’t. Woolworth’s - a shop where, seemingly, you could also get whatever you wanted. Both brands had this in common. It seemed that you could get whatever you wanted, even though you couldn’t. But Argos reminded consumers that they thought that they could. Whereas Woolworth’s didn’t. So, increasingly, you’d go into Woolworth’s and find all sorts of stuff but nothing you ever wanted; and you wondered what it is they were actually there for…whatever you didn’t want. There is resurrection. But I’m waiting to see what the new online Woolworth’s can offer people that they cannot already get somewhere else from people who have been doing online for years. And what will be the hook? Not the way you buy. Not the range you buy. I’m intrigued. I can’t believe that the reasons business people are resurrecting Woolworth’s online are purely down to a nostalgic belief that this brand should continue to exist. Woolworth’s, it seems to me, is a brand for whom the status quo has changed forever. Anyway, it happens that Status Quo lead guitarist, Francis Rossi, is 60 today. You may remember that, back in March this year, he finally cut off and gave away his trademark ponytail in a competition organised by The Sun. A female 30-year old, ‘long-time’ Status Quo fan won what she had always wanted and could never buy at Argos.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Miles

2009-05-26T06:03:00.001+01:00

Herbie Hancock said people always remember the first time they heard Miles Davis. For me, it was late September 1987, over a pair of headphones in Stafford Public Library. And I didn’t even know I was listening to Miles Davis. Newly back from a four-month stint in the south of France, where I’d stayed with my long-lost friend, Dean - writing a hopeless novel called She Was Only The Comedian’s Grand-Daughter - I was surprised to discover that the third album from one of my favourite bands, Scritti Politti, was sitting there, waiting for me to find it in, of all places, the library. The track in question on Provision (entitled Oh Patti) contains a haunting solo from Miles, drifting away in the background of a wistful lyric from Green Gartside. I listened to this album for years without realising that this was Miles Davis. Miles Davis would have been 83 today, but he died when he was 65. I do remember what I was doing around the time he died, but I don’t remember his passing. Why would I? Miles Davis meant nothing to me. Only in the past few years has my discovery of jazz been prefaced by his work, alongside the bossa nova rhythms of Stan Getz and A C Jobim. For me, as I sit inevitably at the centre of my own universe, Miles Davis will always be my ticket to a whole planet of music that might have passed me by. And, in the retrograde motion that has been my forties, I thank him for that. As I travel to London this morning, to run a writing workshop, I’ll be sure to play my favourite track, appropriately titled Miles.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

I cried all the way to the chip shop

2009-05-22T09:05:00.003+01:00

Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me
I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop
No hope, no harm, just another false alarm
When I came out there was Gordon standing at the bus stop

Now, like you, I reckon I can identify with both sets of lyrics. Personally, I am touched beyond reason that people as far apart and close together as Steven Morrissey and Jilted John could possibly share the same day of birth 50 years ago today. Thanks to Jilted John, I’d long thought that Graham Fellows was a one-off in our cultural milieu. Whereas the boy with the thorn in his side always knew that he had started something he couldn’t finish. Busy as I was, trying in vain to project the image of a serious funster on the world, I shouldn’t have been listening to Jilted John – such a punk parody, although John Peel was the first to champion it. Truth be told, punk was over long before Jilted John hit the airwaves in July 1978. But, very catchy it was. And, let’s face it, if you’ve ever been jilted, Gordon is a moron and it is so unfair. Yeah yeah. (Nobody has ever said this but, of course, Jilted John paved the way for The Undertones. Jimmy Jimmy. My Perfect Cousin. And we know whose favourite band they were!). After seemingly disappearing, the singer of this solitary song made things worse. You must remember Graham Fellows as Les Charlton in Coronation Street - a young biker chasing married Gail Tilsley! Gail didn’t fancy him any more than Julie had. He must have been so upset. But, Graham Fellows has tried very, very hard. More famous to most people as comedy character, John Shuttleworth, since as far back as 1986, a man who has shot TV documentaries aimed at discovering whether UK people are nicer the further north you go or softer the further south. Radio Shuttleworth. The fabled four-part TV series, 500 Bus Stops. In 2007, inspired by Jamie Oliver’s better food for schoolchildren campaign, Shuttleworth toured the UK with a stage show entitled With My Condiments. Later in the same year, he recorded 4 Rather Tasty Tracks in a wardrobe, which actually reached number 96 in the UK charts and number 29 in the indie charts. Apparently, he revived his Jilted John character in the 2008 Big Chill festival, where he joined a line-up including Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Leonard Cohen. You couldn’t make it up. It goes on. After Jilted John and John Shuttleworth comes another character, rock musicologist, Brian Appleton, one of whose claims to fame is being responsible for the gap in Steve Harley’s Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) hit. Now, you’re going to have to visit the website (www.shuttleworths.co.uk/brian/index.html).
Back in 1985, Graham Fellows released an album under his own name, Love at the Hacienda. Apparently, it has a cult following in Japan. I’m not surprised. He’s a man who sounds like a cross between Mike Yarwood and Steve Coogan singing The Buzzcocks’ Greatest Hits. And that’s a greater reality than anything virtual to be found in the gadget shops of Akihabara. As for Mozza, well, there never was a man who could coin longer song titles and still be going strong at such a tender age. There is and remains a mystery to Morrissey, that not even Arthur Conan Doyle, born 150 years ago today, could solve. As there was around the late George Best, who also belongs to this day. Have you ever thought how alike they look…George and Steven? I don’t much care for the besuited gangster persona he’s adopted for the past decade…a love of boxing, references to sporting heroes and obsessions with young skinheads that would get Gary Glitter in trouble. Most of this doesn’t work with a man who claims to have the admirable trait of preferring the company of women to men. But he is allowed to change. His official website shows a man, well-worn, at 50. Yet we remember his words. Of his generation, only Ian Curtis and David Sylvian could compare. If these icons had anything in common, perhaps it was a certain diffidence. Shyness is nice. But shyness can stop you doing all the things in life you’d like to. In my case, it was the 80s that stopped me. Yet the wreck of my 80s would have been even more unbearable without The Smiths. The Smiths appeared in the spring of 1983, exactly at the time I decided that I was too old for pop music and took up cookery instead. We became acquainted with each other because I had made the logical decision that the best way to learn to cook was to become vegetarian. Whereas The Smiths’ first album had passed me by, their second hit me between the eyes. Meat Is Murder said it all in early 1985. I fell in love with Morrissey not so much through his music but through his vegetarianism and accompanying support for animal rights. It was The Smiths’ only album to reach number one in the UK charts. I saw Morrissey live only once. 5th November, 2002. Brixton Academy. Tonight, on his 50th birthday, he’s actually playing live at the Manchester Apollo. Good for him. And him. Steven Morrissey and Graham Fellows. 50 today. These men have touched your lives. Now my heart is full. And I just can’t explain. So, I won’t even try to.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

I so want to go to Chelsea

2009-05-21T09:45:00.003+01:00

Speaking to a creative agency acquaintance yesterday I was astonished to discover that he wasn’t attending the current Chelsea Flower Show or even following its progress on TV. Aghast, I asked him how he could hold his head up as a branding consultant without any knowledge of the very best of living design that the planet has to offer – and on his own doorstep, to boot. ‘I get by with a little help from my friends', he replied. I quickly realised that he was celebrating the 65th birthday of Joe Cocker, but, all the same…come on. I note from the diary of my life that it’s five years today that I appeared on Robert Elms’ BBC London radio show, promoting my book, Guinness Is Guinness: the colourful story of a black and white brand. Now, Elms was exactly the kind of person, a self-styled image guru, for whom design, albeit in the world of clothes, was his way in, his ticket to ride. Someone with Chelsea in his back yard who never had the nous to skip off the King's Road and visit the Flower Show and attempt to understand where top design is really at. Come to think of it, I’ve worked with many ‘designers’ who thought that design is what they did at their computers. Or something in the cut of their perfectly rumpled hair. I’ve never met one who has visited Chelsea Flower Show, the foremost exhibition of contemporary design in the world today. OK, there’s outstanding design in the metallic mosaic of Kyoto railway station. And there’s appealing design in the gladdening gleam of the i-Phone. But real, living design only truly exists in the ephemeral gardens of Chelsea Flower Show for one annual week in May. It’s the Hermitage come to life. I don’t want to go to Chelsea/Oh no, it does not move me is the refrain I’ve always heard from graphic designers. Given the blandness and conformity I see in much everyday branding design, I wonder where designers actually get their inspiration from. Chelsea may well be run by a set of stuffed shirts and thronged by representatives of the society of gits, but the quest for bravery in design should pull anyone who really cares about design beyond all that. You haven’t seen a gold medal Chelsea garden, you don’t know what love is.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

It's all in the name

2009-05-20T10:48:00.003+01:00

One of the most difficult tasks in branding work is naming. Whether it’s the name of a new company, product or service, or renaming an existing organisational activity or project, it’s often the proverbial poison chalice. I’ve known naming to cause more divisiveness within an organisation than just about any other communications activity. But how come? Surely, all you have to do is pull the appropriate word or phrase out of thin air (alternatively known as the dictionary or thesaurus), go through the legalities and get on with it! Would it were so simple. Sometime it is – the right usable name just jumps out. Although this is rarely the case, this is the model that people seem to have in their heads when commissioning a new name. Perhaps it’s because people think it’s so easy (for a wordsmith) that they relegate it to an unimportant activity, something that really does not require their involvement or consideration. Only today, I received a request to carry out some pro-bono naming for a social enterprise in which the brief stated that the name ‘is secondary to it being a great service – cost-effective, reliable etc – aimed at a mixed audience of business and households’. It’s the ‘secondary’ bit that alarms me. I wonder how the Chief Exec of the organisation briefing me could suggest that something as important as the name of the service could be ‘secondary’. After all, in the minds of its target audience, the name has to carry all the mnemonic elements of a great, cost-effective and reliable service, as well as tune people in to the very nature of this service. It’s this lack of understanding of the importance of naming that contains within it a miasma of issues that can make the ensuing task so difficult. In a climate of budgetary eclipse, I find myself having to address it more and more. At Ideal, we work with our own direct clients on naming projects. We also help other creative communications agencies conduct naming projects with their clients. There is a general lack of understanding of what it takes to make a naming project successful. The central issue falls out like this: the client thinks it’s a simple activity for a wordsmith; the wordsmith knows, or should know, that there is a way to do it that is more likely to lead to success than any other and communicates this to the client/agency; the client and/or agency often responds that there isn’t the time or budget to do this. So, what happens is that the job goes ahead, under the wrong circumstances and down a more difficult path, building in all the problems at the start and greatly reducing the chances of success in the end. Whatever the circumstances, the big thing ought to be to get the client to understand and accept what success is or might be in a naming process. For example, the outcome of a successful naming process could be the decision to stick with the original name of the organisation/ project/service. That is, not to change the name at all. Specifically because the client has been through a process of understanding all the pros and cons. For a new organisation, project or service, however, a successful outcome depends on understanding what is possible in this context – which means there is a lot of preparatory work to do. The upshot of the kind of naming issues I have described, however, is that the eventual and inevitable stalemate is often blamed on the obstinacy or even lack of insight of the wordsmith. Now, nobody wants to let a client down. In our case, we don’t want to let two clients down – the communications agency and their client. But, if we work in a world in which the ill-informed and under-budgeted client is always right, the prickly issue of naming shows us that it’s better to let a client down in the beginning than at the end. So, from now on, the first and most important question we’ll be putting to anyone who wants Ideal to find a new name for anything will be: ‘Are you prepared to do what it takes to make the naming process successful?’ I expect it to be the beginning of a conversation that could very quickly go one of two ways. At Ideal, however, I know we’ll only be going down the route most likely to lead to success.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Austerlitz

2009-05-18T08:40:00.002+01:00

My friend and ex-colleague at Interbrand, John Simmons, contacted me on Friday. We’ve made plans to meet up in London following a workshop I’m running for the Media Trust next week. Although we were a close writing team for five years earlier this century, we haven’t seen each other for some time. We do have intermittent email conversations, in which Shakespeare regularly features. The latest has been about blogging. Both of us have come rather late to this world whose extremes seem to be advertising your latest product and telling people what you’ve had for tea. I enjoy Twitter and my time spent with you right here. John is bemused by Twitter and has begun to stretch his writing muscles in the blog on this new website www.26fruits.co.uk/blog/. We’re both aware that people are fascinated by writers, even those who do not read books or rarely put pen to paper or tap the keys. For us, there’s the choice of demystifying or occluding the activity. We both lean towards the former, while recognising the glamour of the latter. For we’re both writers for business (but then, wasn’t Shakespeare?). For me, writing is not my life - although it is tightly bound up with self-expression, which is. As a writer for business, I recognise that writing is not nearly as important or woven into the lives of the people I work with as it is in my own. Yet, it is my task to build a greater connection between people and language. This can and should lead to a meeting of minds. And curiosity – the questions people struggle to ask, often without uttering a word. How do you end up being a writer, crafting crystalline elements of brand strategy, producing books, helping other people to write better? What was your journey? How did you get here? The answers we provide are in our blogs, both in and between the lines. Blogging is revelatory, or it is nothing but noise. Everyone or everything I name here is meaningful in my life in the past, present or future (you know how I feel about time - it’s all grist to the millenarianism which hasn’t quite left me). So, today, for example, I find that the recently crowned world snooker champion, John Higgins, is 34 - the same age as David Beckham. Kissing the pink every day is obviously a stressful life. Toyah Wilcox is 51, which never seemed likely when Derek Jarman‘s film, Jubilee, emerged in 1977. OK, Rick Wakeman is 60 today, so Yes…Wreckless Eric is a magisterial 55, despite living up to his name in an exploration of the whole wide world these last thirty years. And I’m dubious about mentioning that Nobby Stiles turns 67, because I never intended to talk about his profession in this blog (my one taboo). No, today is ultimately significant in the course I’ve taken to become who I am because it would have been W G Sebald’s 65th birthday, had not this most modern and exquisite of writers expired in a car crash in 2001. So, my gift to you today, because I know you won’t have read it, is Sebald’s last novel, Austerlitz. John would understand.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Everything that happens will happen today

2009-05-15T07:32:00.003+01:00

So many millions of people are unaware of the significance of Brian Peter George St.John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno in their daily lives. The Microsoft Sound – the six-second start-up music of the Windows 95 operating system. Bloom – the generative music application for iPhone and iPodTouch, that plays a low drone in different tones and creates its own music. His appearance as Father Brian Eno in the very last episode of Father Ted. Some will have heard his music featured in the film adaptation of the best seller from Irvine Welsh, Ecstasy: Three Tales Of Chemical Romance. Others will know his music from the video game, Spore, in which a single player develops a species from scratch until it’s an intelligent being that explores the universe. But I feel I know Brian Eno very well without any of these interventions. He’s been part of my life since I fell in love with Virginia Plain and Pyjamarama, the first two singles from Roxy Music in 1972/3. Since which time his influence on the development of popular music and its future beyond his own lifespan has been second to none. It’s not enough to say there’d be no Aphex Twin or Röyksopp without Eno’s Apollo – Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Without Eno, David Bowie would have become Krusty the Clown, wasting away in a Las Vegas casino. Instead of which we got Low, Heroes and Lodger. OK, I never quite understood Eno’s close association with people as earthbound as U2. Though, true, he did produce their best album, Joshua Tree. I’m obviously missing something about his connection with Coldplay and Icehouse, whose frigid names are so apt. And there was nothing Eno could do to plug Devo into the mainstream consciousness – one progressive regressive idea too far! But, as founder of the concept of ambient music, Eno is the architect of mood control through music, a visitor to our world from the 22nd century. As you’re coming to understand, I’m fascinated by temporal serendipity. Coincidence is my cup of tea and the biscuits I dunk are studded with dates. So, I’m quite intrigued that three, often collaborative, musical giants of my memory banks, have birthdays following one another in close succession. Yesterday, it was Byrne, today it’s Eno, tomorrow it’s Fripp. Sometimes, with genius of this nature, the titles of their works are far better than their content. So, we have the fabulously monikered Everything That Happens Will Happen Today as the latest collaboration between Eno and Byrne in 2008. The names of most of Eno’s work suggest he knows something we don’t but should. In 1977, there was Before And After Science. Eno claimed that this was an anagram of the original title, Arcane Benefits Of Creed. This sounded then like one of his oblique strategies and still does. In 2005, there was Another Day On Earth. Who else could get away with the song, Bone Bomb, released just three weeks before 7/7? Check it out. The following year, he joined 100 major artists and writers in signing an open letter calling for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions. Despite the immense success and influence of his musical springboard, Eno is refreshingly ambivalent about the direction his life has taken. "As a result of going into a subway station and meeting saxophonist Andy Mackay, I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I'd walked ten yards farther, on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now.” In 1972, when you appeared on our planet, you seemed like a glam Davros, an ancient with minutes left to live. As time has moved forward, you have grown younger, sleeker, shinier, more attractive, just like Benjamin Button. Happy 61st birthday, Brian Eno. It will soon be time for school.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

No to negative politicians

2009-05-14T09:25:00.004+01:00

One of the first jobs I applied for on graduating was as political researcher to the Labour MEP for West Yorkshire’s Bradford and surrounding region. I didn’t get the job. I didn’t even get an interview, despite graduating in politics from the city’s university with a 2.1 (quite something in those days). Perhaps he intuited that I had voted Conservative in the recent 1979 General Election and was personally responsible for the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in our midst. Instead, I signed up for chartered accountancy, underwent a very bad 80s, unlike the party I elected. And the rest is mystory. One in which I have voted for all three major political parties and one or two smaller ones. You may have noticed it’s local election time again. Shirstleeved candidates are knocking on our doors and dropping unspeakably bad leaflets through our letterboxes. My friend, Craig Dearden-Phillips, is on the stump himself, campaigning to break the Tory stranglehold of a local council seat in Norfolk on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Chief Executive of the advocacy charity for people with learning disabilities, Speaking Up, Craig is examining his future lifelines as he approaches the tremendous age of 40 this summer. A couple of weeks back he asked me for some advice on the messages in his campaigning ‘literature’. Already an accomplished author, with a book and regular national newspaper columns to his name, Craig needn’t have worried. But others should. As I write, I’m staring with incredulity at the A4 folded leaflet from the UKIP party. In a bright dayglo pink and yellow combination (first pioneered by The Sex Pistols in 1977), I am invited to ‘Say No to the EU’. And the visual they use on their front cover is none other than Winston Churchill flicking one of his famous ‘V for Victory’ signs. Now, Churchill died in 1965, some 44 years ago, 8 years before the UK even entered the EU. The photo in question clearly dates from the last days of the Second World War. So, I question the wisdom, never mind the legality, of using the image of a politician totally unconnected to the party and its current proposition. The ongoing expenses scandal makes people wonder about the motivations of politicians, who jostle to expiate their sins by humiliating themselves in more and more irrational ways by the day. But, as far as most politicians are concerned, my wonder has always been around this point: what on earth is it about them that they think they have something to offer people in the first place? And there’s the rub. In politics, as in journalism and all the more venal professions, you just can’t get the staff these days. So, the ghosts of our distant past come to remind us how great we once were, in wartime, on rations. In the meantime, if Europe didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it. So, sorry UKIP, people have had enough of the negative message in politics. I’m following Obama when it comes to political inspiration. ‘Yes, we can!’

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

How they brought the good news from Ghent...

2009-05-13T11:44:00.005+01:00

I talk a lot about people as brands. In my time I’ve done some branding work with towns and cities as brands. Or even their surrounding regions. Plymouth. Dublin. North West England. In Stratford upon Avon, I live in a town that’s dominated by an aged mindset and is badly in need of a better reputation. As is not-too-distant Birmingham, the UK’s second (from last) city. Taking things wider still, raised in the Midlands as I was, I am only too aware of the poor standing of the entire region. What is the Midlands but the North/South divide? So, I know how hard it is to make a geographical anomaly stand out. Which is why it’s great to see the Belgian city of Ghent getting a good part of the glory across webworld today. Ghent is going to be the first city in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week. All based on a recognition of the impact of livestock on our environment. I admire this stance. If you’re going to go vegetarian, stand on the biggest platform. While this country is mired in the usual petty-minded politics of expense claims and pot-kettle-black journalism, those we often look down upon are dealing with more significant issues (personally, I’ve never understood why Belgium gets such a bad press from the UK – I’ve always enjoyed my time in Brussels, Bruges and Liege.) In this country the move would be called PC, a basket used by all lazy-minded conservatives with a small or large C. Debbie and I are peskies (pescetarians, or fish eaters). There are many arguments which tell us we should revert to being vegetarians. We need to be sure of the provenance of the fish we eat, whether it is farmed or wild, how it is caught, treated, killed. But, in pointing out the big problem with meat, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Ghent and their galloping good news. Just how many 21st century years is it going to take before the rest of the so-called civilised world acts on the realisation that meat-eating is just a throwback to our Neanderthal roots?

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

He ain't fat, but he ain't thin

2009-05-12T08:52:00.005+01:00

My long-lost friend, Martin, is 50 today. Well done, Martin, you made it. And, as with most things, except fatherhood, you made it before me (including getting married – you still haven’t paid me yet for that bet I won!). For those of you who don’t know Martin, he runs a business from Cork, Ireland which operates both here and there. The aim of Smart Tactics is to help business leaders within large companies who are united by one desire - they want more from their business. And he responds to some of these blogs with incisive insight and not a little insider knowledge. Martin and I grew up 17 Staffordshire miles from one another without meeting until we were 18, at Bradford University, on Thursday 6th October, 1977, introduced by one Daska Barnett, optometry student, now pursuing a career as an optician in Hammersmith, London. Unknowingly, we’d even attended one rock concert at Birmingham Odeon a year earlier, on 27 October, 1976. Not uncommon. But when I was waiting in the dental surgery yesterday, I heard that song by Peter Frampton that recalled the gig – Show Me The Way. I still have that concert ticket on my toilet wall. Alongside the tickets from the three consecutive nights Martin and I saw David Bowie play the cow shed of Stafford Bingley Hall on 24/25/26 June, 1978. He liked The Stooges and Marvin Gaye. I liked The Ramones and David Sylvian. We both shared an absolute love of reggae and dub. But we never had cocaine running around our brain. I had a yen for dates. He had a head for figs. Strange fruits. We were different. We were similar. Look where we both ended up – working with and advising businesses on how best to promote themselves. Those late night conversations in Room C26 of Revis Barber Hall, surrounded by the paraphernalia of punk and other new friends new to it all, were where it all started. We’ve been talking about the mechanics and messaging of brands for over 30 years. On this day 30 years ago, Martin’s 20th, we saw Iggy Pop live at Leeds University together. Now, I haven’t seen or even talked to Martin since Sunday, 12th March, 2000. But he’s often been in my thoughts. He’s tried phoning – but I have to say that, when you’re wearing the suit of armour I am, it’s very difficult to pick up a telephone receiver. He’s invited me to Cork, but that would be taking the Michael O’Leary. My long-lost friend, Dean (another exile – and the first person I met at Bradford University, on top of a wall we were both scaling), writes from France to describe Martin in the following electrically engineered words: intelligent, unsure, live, persistent, changing, family, contradictory, ‘contestateur’. Back in our careworn London days, some of us had a little rhyme which called Martin to mind: Martin Finn, he’s a grin, he ain’t fat, but he ain’t thin. And, I reckon that’s still probably the case. Me, I’m struggling to find the exact words to describe Martin. I know he shares a birthday with everyone from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Tony Hancock, Alan Ball to Ian Dury. And let’s not forget Burt Bacharach, with whom he probably wouldn’t mind linking up with. And I have a strange feeling that we’ll actually get around to having our first conversation in the best part of a decade in the week beginning 8th June 2009. Until then, Happy 50th, Martin!

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Culture shock

2009-05-08T15:31:00.004+01:00

Can't believe it's 3 weeks since we came back from Japan. I'm missing it massively. Ironic, considering I said beforehand it was 'Mark's holiday'. People keep asking me if it's changed since I lived there. Not that much. I think it's the UK that's changed more. We're faster, louder, dirtier and less caring - about each other, about the things around us and definitely about service.

Today, for example, I went into my regular photo shop, armed with a dongle and ready to upload nearly 70 photos of Japan I wanted - not just small snaps but enlargements. Thought I'd go into the shop to support them in the downturn, rather than order online. But the machines were off, with a note saying '24 hr service only'. But when I asked if I could get on I was told the computers were working but the processor wasn't, so not only were 1 hr photos off the menu, they couldn't really guarantee 24 hrs either. Fine by me, take a week. But no ... if he switched them on for me, that would encourage more people to use them and the films were stacking up and ... and ... I told him it was a big order. He told me to go to Boots. Mark told me to blog and name and shame. I told him that's not my game.

Trying to remain positive and make use of my hour in town, I popped in, on the off chance, to the opticians. They said they'd call when my glasses came in. Apparently they came in yesterday (but no-one had bothered to call). After a couple of attempts to fit them, I got sighs when I said they weren't right. I got out my old pair and she used that as a template. A lot of money exchanged hands and I was left wondering whether I should have gone you know where, but when I had a fortnight earlier, no-one even acknowledged me.

In times of recession, it's astonishing that customer service is so poor in this country. Japan is in a worse hole, but customer service is exceptional. That's what I'm missing most.

It doesn't take much. I helped out a couple of tourists in Stratford today. OK, tourism's not my job, but it was great to make someone's visit to my community more pleasurable. It was nice to be thanked, too!

That's why I use the label CSR - corporate SOCIAL responsibility - it maintains the human factor.

Debbie Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

All that glitters...

2009-05-08T09:14:00.004+01:00

Is it really my duty to announce to the world that today, May 8th 2009, Gary Glitter officially becomes an old age pensioner? I really don’t think so. But, you see, as much as I hated and hate gangs, and despite what we now know, I still love the guy’s music. Through that, he had an influence on the person I am. So, I have no choice but to admit him to the pantheon of artists whose work I admire but whose lives I deplore. (Sorry, I’ll let you know who the others are on this list when I’ve invented it.) In the meantime, Gary, you can’t have your passport, but here’s your bus pass. How else will I mark this day? A quarter of a century ago I was (barely) living in London. I couldn’t afford to travel anywhere due to the expensive public transport policy of Ken Livingstone’s good old GLC. Back in those days, the big money was not spent on Wembley, but on the construction of the Thames Barrier. Officially opened this day 25 years ago, the barrier has been raised well over 100 times against flood possibilities. It cost the current equivalent of £1.5 billion, or two Wembleys. And, unlike Wembley, it works. Now, we just need this kind of approach to be applied to the rest of the island we call home. Houses are still built on flood plains. People whose homes were flooded two years ago are still living in pre-fab huts. But not in London. As the Spring sun glints on the protective and reassuring bastions of the Thames Barrier on its quarter century birthday, much of Western England waits in eternal trepidation for the next flood warnings. While politicians haggle today over a few pennies’ worth of expenses or how many Gurkhas should be allowed to settle in this country, more time and money are lost that could be directed towards averting a regular disaster for so many people outside London. Unfortunately, I'm sounding like the ridiculous UK Independence Party and that unhinged party political broadcast they put out last night. But, while another unnoticed anniversary of significance such as that of the Thames Barrier passes most of us by, new weather patterns are forming. Are we ready? London is. May the sun shine fair this summer.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Not a lot of people know this...

2009-05-06T14:42:00.005+01:00

Manbrands. I’ve written about more than a few. Insiders. Outsiders. Upsiders. Downsiders. When a man says he wants to be judged by history, however, his pomposity will assure that he will be lynched by his contemporaries. So how come Tony Blair got away with everything that his successor, Gordon Brown, is now having to face? I liked him once. I don’t now. Teflon Tony looked about 12 years old when he took the UK helm on a wave of ethical optimism before leading us into five wars that devastated the international community and fibbing through the whitest teeth in Westminster. Today, May 6th, he turns 56 and is nowhere to be seen, except in church, smitten by religion, the problem at the heart of so much warring. Still young, by all political measurements. I bet, at heart, he feels as old as Methuselah. But this isn’t a Blair Witch Hunt. (We’ll get another model soon – David Cameron is Blair on a Bike.) I’ll leave that to the bloodthirsty fogeys of the Countryside Alliance. Because I can’t really think of Tony Blair without musing about certain good people who paved the way, then fell by the wayside, for varying reasons. Here, I’m not just thinking of other politicians, like Clare Short or Robin Cook, or Mo Mowlam – politicians we actually liked – but of comedians like Ben Elton, who reached the pinnacle of 50 last Sunday, 3rd May. As I recall it, Ben Elton almost single-handedly sent up the sleaze of John Major’s cone-crazy government. Yet, with Blair in, Elton mysteriously disappeared from our TV screens. What has he been doing these past 12 years? Writing librettos for West End musicals and more novels. Contemporary novels, about current issues, that people actually read. Unlike those about empire days that win all the awards. Some say he's been selling out, but I say he's been selling well. Not a lot of people know this, but Ben Elton has had dual citizenship with Australia since 2004. I still like Ben Elton. He, himself, says sensible things like: “Originally I was knocked for being too left-wing, and now apparently I've sold out and I'm too right-wing, but all the time I've been being me, and that certainly isn't the person I recognise in anything that's written about me." Good man! Manbrands don’t really change. They just reposition themselves.
Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Pictures on my wall

2009-05-05T10:28:00.005+01:00

Today, I’m starting big. What would life be like if women, the least emotional of the genders, had more power to change the way we live our lives? I doubt if we’d have atrocities at weddings in Turkey, or the UK’s ‘least-wanted’ list, newly published today (99% male, naturally). Or people running over police officers in cars. Or nuclear power. Wishful conjecture, I know. But, when you help organisations who work in the sphere of social and environmental change, as I do, it’s hard to avoid the certainty that the issues we are facing in this world are all caused by one sport and death-obsessed gender. Progress is slow. And we all have to get used to the likelihood that, although we can work towards it, we will not see the change we crave in our own lifetimes. When it comes to the human race, I cannot be an optimist. But I will walk stoically on, supporting the efforts of the more reasonable of the genders. Women have been trying to make a difference for centuries, largely by joining this man-made world of unforgiving, hard-line religions and unrelenting, hard-nosed business. 200 years ago today, one Mary Kies became the first US woman to be issued with a patent. In doing so, she broke a pattern whereby women could not own property independently of their husbands in the land of the free. This was a strike for womankind, but just a perpetuation of a system created by men. And so it continues. To generalise big time, in the developed world, women are becoming more like men and less like themselves. And even Margaret Thatcher (the model for this) knew that this was a pretty poor aspiration. Although I doubt she was alluding to this, human rights has to be the highest aspiration of humankind. And so, today, we celebrate the 60th birthday of the Council of Europe, an organisation that most UK citizens will not have heard of, despite having 47 member states and covering over 800 million citizens. An organisation whose best achievement was the European Convention on Human Rights, enforced by the European Court of Human Rights. While studying for my Masters degree in 1990, I was lucky enough to spend six weeks working at the Council in Strasbourg. I think this was the beginning of my own journey. A journey accompanied by lots of music – the crowning achievement of the male gender. Barely a day goes by without me referring to some musical milestone. Today, 5th May 2009, I honour the achievement of Ian McCulloch, founder of Echo and the Bunnymen, who has reached 50. One question still remains unanswered in my head: were Echo and the Bunnymen actually as good as their reputation suggests? On this day in 1977, when Ian McCulloch was celebrating his 18th birthday, he met fellow musical dreamers Julian Cope and Pete Wylie at a Clash gig in Liverpool. Together and apart, these three set the post-punk musical scene in Liverpool. I would argue that the music of Teardrop Explodes and Wah! reached higher pitches of intensity and brilliance than Echo and the Bunnymen, whose first downbeat single, Pictures On My Wall, was released 30 years ago today, too. While I’m marking the moment, I doubt if I’ll be giving it a spin. Today, I’m ending small.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Gordon The Garden Gnome

2009-05-01T11:47:00.002+01:00

Everybody knows that the whole point of the month of May is to act as host for the Chelsea Flower Show. Unlikely members of the Royal Horticultural Society, Debbie and I will be making our annual pilgrimage to Chelsea on 19th May. All gardeners are aware that one Alan Titchmarsh has been hosting Chelsea for the BBC for over a quarter of a century. Among the many achievements of this mild-mannered but extremely prolific and ambitious man is the voiceover for Gordon The Garden Gnome on the C-Beebies channel. It’s a moniker that seems to fit this insider of all insiders. Now, I’m one for outsiders, but Alan Titchmarsh has always fascinated me, not least for winning a Bad Sex in Fiction Award. And he gets a namecheck here because it’s his 60th birthday tomorrow. Nobody does bland middle-of-the-road conformity to such perfection as Alan Titchmarsh. Barely a year goes by without him getting an award for it. Yet he’s been at the centre of the love of all things green and growing that Debbie and I have developed as our passion in common over these last fifteen years. Gardening. My Damascene conversion. My third university. My relief, release and antidote. My ephemeral and eternal delight. My perennial ‘this must be it, longed-for bliss’ moment. As I look up from my computer onto our 80-metre garden of green evanescence, there is something important about life that I just know.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

The world wide web is 16

2009-04-30T11:58:00.004+01:00

Today may well be the 150th anniversary of the first serialisation of Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities, but I’m talking about a tale of two technologies. Thankfully, the child of the internet, www, is no longer jailbait. It’s legal. It can get married and die for its country. But it can’t yet drink. God help us in two years’ time! We’ll be collecting its vomit-flecked and bleary-eyed face from a gutter in the ripped backside of the other end of town. Back in 1993, April 30th was the day when CERN, where the world wide web internet application was developed, announced that it would be free for anyone to use – allowing the two technologies of the internet and world wide web to take off unimpeded by competitors. Since which time information technology has totally taken over our lives. Has it freed us up or tied us down? Or both, at once, in 3D? Can you remember when you first started using the web? The first time I went on, there were only three websites. God. Coca Cola. And one featuring fundamentalist advice on how to bomb America. Whatever, I like the comment from the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams: “The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than what it's short for.”

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

One chord wonders

2009-04-29T14:15:00.005+01:00

Now, somebody somewhere will be remembering that Marvin Gaye died 25 years ago this very day, shot by his own father. Marvin went at 45. Fewer still will be remembering David Bowie’s guitarist, Mick Ronson, who went today in 1993 at 46. Neither reached 50. As I approach my 50th, the brands and people of my life are walking out to centre-stage, demanding attention, reminding me who they are, telling me what they represent. Some I’m glad to see, others not. Alongside the heady euphoria of recollection, there’s the sadness of involuntary reconnection. It’s as if I’ve performed some rite of time, conjuring forth visions and mantras that would have stayed buried until the final film strip of my last days on Earth. One of the most welcome of these brands is punk music. First encountered at the age of 17 in November 1976, with the issue of the UK’s first punk single, New Rose, by The Damned, punk has set the tone for the rest of my life. Now that, in hindsight, all the major names are known and have their place in history, what is not recognised is just how few records had emerged by this time in 1977. In fact, thanks to a media-fuelled backlash, by 29th April 1977, most punk acts worthy of the name had been banned from performing live in towns and cities throughout the country. Ironically, it was from this point on that they began producing killer 45s. Up until this time, there had been a couple of offerings from The Ramones and Blondie, but the British bands were slow to get into vinyl. We’d had one from The Sex Pistols and The Clash and The Buzzcocks, two from The Damned. Even before its vanguard had died a death, punk was quickly metamorphosing into new wave, with already emergent bands such as The Jam and Stranglers, riding this energetic movement. But there were lots of smaller bands, many not mentioned today, who managed no more than a handful of vinyl singles. One such was The Adverts. And, on this day in 1977, as The Jam made their debut with In The City, so did The Adverts with One Chord Wonders, on Stiff Records. Now, there are many ways to cut a list. But, in my list of personally favourite punk singles, this is top.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Did yer like that?

2009-04-28T11:24:00.002+01:00

In my Mr Memory Man vision bank: a flat-capped, forty-something bloke running for all his might from the path of a falling industrial chimney, honking a clown’s horn on the end of a rope around his neck, shouting, ‘Bloody hell, it’s goin’, it’s goin!’ And narrowly getting away with his life once again. Then, when the dust has settled, grinning ‘That were good, wan’it? Did yer like that?’ Bolton’s Fred Dibnah was born middle-aged. One of those blokes who was never young. At the time Fred first began appearing on TV, I’d still have been a student at Bradford University, in a city still mourning the loss of its proud Victorian industrial power. Many a dark, drunken night we walked home past abandoned, brokendown factory hulks housing the ghosts of fob-watched philanthropists, looking down from orange-lit warehouses shrouded by coughing chimneys. All tombstone-quiet by then, just waiting for the handy work of Fred Dibnah, chimney feller fellah. He never set out in life to knock down disused chimneys. It’s just how he ended up, TV-famous, like, you know. On April 28th 1938, the day Fred was actually born, King Zog of Albania married Countess Geraldine of Hungary. Fred’s was a different world. One that had disappeared before he was born (and he knew it). A world of steam, machine tools, crankshafts, mill wheels and a windswept, working–class, sepia-tinted philosophy of a lost golden industrial age honed atop many a redundant factory chimney. A white world of empire where everyone knew their place. Well, Fred fell from his chimney of life back in 2004. He’d have been 71 today. Strangely, although I was never part of his world, he is very much part of mine.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Mary and Marco

2009-04-27T10:15:00.001+01:00

If you work in social change, you need to be aware of and open to the influence of feminine values. Peace. Tolerance. Flexibility. Communication. And more. Today, we should all be taking note of the fact that one of the founders of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft, is 250. A writer and a philosopher to boot, her most famous work was A Vindication OF The Rights Of Woman, in 1792, at the height of the French Revolution. In it, she argues, quite reasonably, that women are not naturally inferior to men. If they appear to be inferior, it’s all down to lack of education. In tune with her age, she posited that both men and women should be treated as rational beings. The social order she had in mind was very much founded on reason. I like her stance and am proud of the feminist in myself. I couldn’t do the work I do without it. But my experience on this planet has largely informed me of the unreasonability of human beings. As a result, I spend my whole life pursuing and provoking the subjectivity that rules human hearts and minds, male and female. Apart from occasional and uncapturable moments of enlightenment, we all hide from ourselves most of the time. Of necessity, we are pirates of our own imaginations. Which typically masculine point, brings me, obtusely, to the celebration of the 50th birthday of one Marco Pirroni. You remember Marco – the chubby one who made Adam Ant look good when he was standing and delivering, on the highway and in the rigging. Well, Marco is still at it. His career is as long as his belt. What began with punk band The Models, in 1977, had progressed to the constantly gigging, little known but music media-reviled Adam And The Ants in 1980. When Malcolm McClaren got hold of the Ants, Adam left. While Malcolm made the antsy rump into Bow Wow Wow, Marco helped Adam convert Adam and the Ants into the dandily successful early 80s group that sold 18 million records worldwide. OK, Marco’s post-Ants career has been wasted on the likes of Sinead O’Connor (no Mary Wollstonecraft, to be sure), but we’ve all made mistakes. Now, Marco is glamming it up with The Wolfmen. No great shakes, but plus ça change…Anyway, well done, Marco, you too made it to 50!

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

The world's first snooker and sumo fest

2009-04-24T08:34:00.003+01:00

In Japan, I was disappointed not to be able to attend a sumo competition. Not the right season. But I’ve returned to the world snooker championship. And now I can’t get me pie and gravy down without considering whether suffering Steve Davis should go for the pink or the brown or worrying exactly where the white ball is going. Let’s be honest. Snooker and sumo are the world’s two most perfect sports. The rest are so much cheating childishness. Of these, football is by far the worst. In snooker and sumo, the rules are known and never bent or broken. There seems no desire to cheat on the part of players who are mental athletes as much as physical. In fact, fat chaps do rather well in both. Forget team sports. It’s the one-on-one that qualifies as true sport in my book. Who will be first to organise the inaugural international snooker and sumo fest? I’d be the first through the (wider than usual) door. Don’t laugh. If someone called Captain Sensible can reach the age of 55 today, then I can put such a thought out into the world. To rise above the smugflation, it just takes a bit of imagining …

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Bad day, by George!

2009-04-23T09:40:00.001+01:00

This day has died. When it comes to celebrating their national day, the English are diffident, reticent, sheepish. Hardly surprising. For what are/were they celebrating? Empire? Better keep that one quiet, then. Victory? Can you picture another country in which the peace was so overwhelmingly lost? Slaying the dragon? Well, the Welsh fire was put out in the fourteenth century (and don’t my genes know it!). At present, then, April 23rd seems like a day of death. According to Isaac Newton, Christ died this very day, in 34. Of course, the day is named for George, after the beheading of the English patron saint in 303. As a day for death, April 23rd has certainly accounted for a few other English stalwarts over the centuries. From Ethelred I in 871 to William Shakespeare in 1616. From poet William Wordsworth in 1850 to first Dr Who, William Hartnell, in 1975. Racing driver, Stirling Moss, went early in 1962. Film actor, John Mills, went late, in 2005. Today is actually the 25th anniversary of the day the dreaded AIDS virus was first identified, something which knows no national boundaries. Actually, with the recent death of Ian Tomlinson, shortly after being pushed by a policeman in the recent G20 demonstrations, it’s more pertinent for this country to remember the death of New Zealander, Blair Peach, who died at the hands of the infamous Special Patrol Group of the Metropolitan Police when attending an Anti-Nazi League demo, 30 years ago today. As some people in this country quietly celebrate a mythical, sword-wielding knight in armour, it would be timely to remember that it’s best to encourage history not to repeat itself. So, it would be great if the English could find it in their withered souls to rebadge their national day as a day of life rather than death. The government professes multiculturalism and I support them in that. Why not recreate it as a day for peace? Now, given the history passed down to us, that would be very un-English – and the Eton Rifles wouldn’t wear it - but a nice surprise. And we need more nice surprises.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

What a waste

2009-04-22T09:43:00.002+01:00

I couldn’t go to Japan without visiting Hiroshima. Some people could. But I couldn’t. It was the same when I visited Poland. Cracow was beautiful, but I went to Auschwitz. I just had to know. Know by feeling. By being there. On the bullet train approaching Hiroshima my stomach was turning over and over. The morning we visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, I wanted the sky to be a perfectly clear blue. It was. I wanted to see a marker in the sky, five hundred metres above the ground, where it exploded. A small ring of circling doves seemed to be marking the spot. The A-Bomb Dome, a burnt-out shell of an exhibition hall, still stands at the point almost directly below the blast. It’s a kind of thought-leader, focusing your mind as you enter the Peace Park. You see, it stood, while everyone within it, and for hundreds of metres around, fried in the 3,000 degree heat and shock wave. There are still people who say, “Well, yes, but…” Actually, we know all the arguments, the positions, the whys and wherefores. And the nearby museum presents a fairly balanced view of it all. Personally, I’ve never been able to stomach anything nuclear. I campaigned against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific during the mid-90s. I marched against the UK government’s persistent testing in the 80s. Today marks the anniversary of a British nuclear test at an underground site in Nevada in 1983. As far as I am concerned, nuclear is no answer to anything we face as human beings. I’ll leave this in the words of Kraftwerk in their 2005 rework of Radioactivity: “Sellafield 2 will produce 7.5 tonnes of plutonium every year. 1.5 kg of plutonium makes a nuclear bomb. Sellafield 2 will release the same amount of radioactivity into the environment as Chernobyl every five and a half years. One of these radioactive substances, Krypton 85, will cause death and skin cancer.” And now, as this government posits a French farce future with nuclear at the centre of our energy policy, I am appalled again. We have a problem. And I, for one, won’t be blinded by science.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Don't let it pass you by

2009-04-21T18:47:00.001+01:00

Has anybody noticed? That today is the day Henry 8th became King of England? Exactly 500 years ago to this very day? That’s half a millennium. Sort of half time in the modern history of this nation. Do we have him to thank for our divorce rate? Our relationship with the Pope? Our determination to be good at sport but never the best? I know I’m mesmerised by time, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

No cure for originality

2009-04-21T10:24:00.001+01:00

I’ve always thought of Robert Smith, 50 today, as being somewhat Japanese. I think the kind of music he produced with The Cure would have worked very well in J-Pop. Walking the streets of Tokyo and Osaka today are many young people who look like Robert Smith did in his youth thirty years ago. A particular look that started with him is peculiarly suited to the Japanese physique. I’m talking about a time well before the ghastly Goths arrived to claim him for their own. I’m making a big thing of people turning 50 this year. Very soon it’s going to happen to me. Today it’s happening to Robert Smith. Now, despite his long, hirsute and black-clad Cure career, the best song he ever made with that band was the b-side of their very first single, 10.15 Saturday Night (the a-side was Killing An Arab). The next best thing he did was jump in as emergency guitarist for Siouxsie And The Banshees mid-tour, stopping them from splitting up early in their career. The rest is his story, but I’d rather have his prologue. My long-lost friend, Ray, is also 50 today. Unlike Robert, nobody looks like Ray. Another true original. Where Robert stooped to conquer, Ray stooped to tie his shoelaces. The view from Hotel High Up gave him a certain prescience. Japanese English might describe Ray as dancing like an octopus army admiring a spaghetti collection. Now, he too has made it to 50. Originality of any kind needs such anomaly structures.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Thunderbirds are go

2009-04-20T12:00:00.001+01:00

Japan. Back from Japan. I think I’m going to be blogging a lot about Japan. While we were away we missed Gerry Anderson’s 80th birthday. And yet, we didn’t at all. We surely lived it out in Tokyo. Was it the jet lag? I felt I was walking about in a futuristic Thunderbirds cityscape, no strings attached. At one moment I was an unfeasibly tall puppet travelling in an unimaginably fast airliner without wings called a bullet train. The next I was failing miserably to insert my frustratingly unbendable western legs beneath a shiny, lacquered table into a position I had not assumed since school assembly before consuming impossibly beautiful dishes of such still-life delicacy and exquisite taste. I knew not whether to come or go and frequently did both simultaneously. Such is the effect of modern Japan on someone who has waited two decades to get there. And now I bring back with me the memories that will make a difference: the incredible service mentality, the even more incredible high heels; the marvellous effectiveness of everything that needs to work efficiently, especially the toilets; the inimitable cherry blossom and blue sky combination, illuminated by an eye-watering brightness. Small people amid tall buildings, working temples and wizzard technology. A baffling and amusing sense of chromatic juxtaposition with the words of the English language. Do you dreams come true? Oh, the pains of being pure at heart. We will exile the monster someday. The Japanese add this type of English brand language to their Kanji on advertising hoardings. But it isn’t any kind of English we would recognise. And that’s why we love it. Attitude makes style.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Tell me Easter's on Friday

2009-03-27T07:55:00.001Z

If Billy Mackenzie were around today, he’d be ruing the fact that the new Röyksopp LP, Junior, is not very good. How can we work when Röyksopp have produced a third studio LP that just does not chill the mustard? If Billy Mackenzie were around today, he’d be 52, the day after Paul Morley, the journalist who championed him, was 52. We need new musik to work to. Nobody knew this and knows this more than Billy Mackenzie and Paul Morley. We cannot write without rhythm. We cannot think without the resampled biscuit tin drum beat that is Röyksopp’s finest contribution to our overstretched workaday imaginations. On the ninth anniversary of Ian Dury’s passing, these very important Norwegians are just not hitting us with their polychromatic, ulcragyceptamol-flavoured rhythm sticks. Where is the storm, the wonder, flashlights, nightmares, sudden explosions? What else is there? Hmmm…maybe I just better give Junior a second spin.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Truth is stronger than faction

2009-03-26T15:11:00.001Z

I’ve been on the road for seven hours in the last twenty one. Just me and Eddie Stobart. Another seven of those hours have been spent sleeping. Two hours passed in a very successful client meeting. I can’t for the life of me think of what I did with the other five. It’s all in less than a business day. Plenty of things you can do in a car that you can’t do in a business meeting. Ponder how it is at all possible that William Hague and Leigh Bowery can share the same birthday. Smile when you think that, today, in 217 years’ time, James T Kirk will be born. Chuckle when you discover that today is actually Leonard Nimoy’s birthday. But what really made me want to throw thoughts onto screen was the knowledge that today is the 20th anniversary of the first free elections in the USSR. 190 million votes were cast and Boris won. When the history of this epoch is written, I don’t think it at all likely that our Boris will figure, but theirs probably will. Somehow, the future we all live in seemed to begin around about 1988/9.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Everybody's talking, nobody's listening

2009-03-25T09:06:00.001Z

This week Nestlé announced it was following a Japanese philosophy called kansei to help the company design products which elicit certain emotional responses from customers. It begs the question: how come it hasn’t been designing products with this in mind from day one?! But then, certain Nestlé products have drawn very definite emotional responses that the company did not want at all. Even though kansei appears to be about product design rather than brand accountability, this will be a strategy worth watching. If Nestlé is actually working closely with customers, then maybe it will learn something that will encourage it to go beyond the rudiments of mere product design. The zeitgeist is that everybody’s broadcasting and nobody’s receiving. Brands are blogging and bragging, boosting their messages through multivarious mobile means. Kansei actually means ‘sense engineering’. It’s all about acquiring an understanding of customer sensitivity to certain product attributes. Yet we have an English word for the real art form that’s required here. It’s called listening. Of course, there’s listening, then there’s hearing. Take note, Nestlé.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

I can Can, can you Can?

2009-03-24T08:43:00.001Z

Holger Czukay. Holger Czukay. I was always banging on about Holger Czukay. Ask my friend, Martin. Who’s Olga Shoe Kay? Well, he was the man who put can in Can, that great, over-sampled German group from the 60s and early 70s who influenced other leaders from Brian Eno to The Human League, The Fall to David Sylvian, Aphex Twin to Röyksopp. And it’s a happy coincidence to learn that Holger Czukay is 73 in the same week that Lee Scratch Perry is 73. For what these two did for electronica and reggae in their own different worlds is nobody’s business. All of which means it’s everybody’s business. Most of the popular music we hear today has a root in something sprung by these septuagenarians. A fan of the new, I’m not always big on continuity. When it comes to drawing threads from the past through the eye of the present, however, I find that I can’t do any of my daily labour without one of them, a strong cup of coffee and a banana or two. You see, I write in rhythm. I like my words to sing to me. Admittedly, it’s a rhythm you’re not always going to pick up on. Not everyone can hear it. But they’re my words and I can Can.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Epic Soundtracks

2009-03-23T07:54:00.003Z

I’m doing a lot of naming work for clients. Naming work is positioning work. It takes imagination, patience, purpose, persistence, resilience and not a little toil and tears. In other words, it all takes time. But there has to be some humour in the mix somewhere. Not just for some light relief – it adds some flexibility to the often abstract, fibreglass rigidity of many corporate product, service and company names emerging today. I’m always happy to go back to the late 70s for my inspiration. Half the reason punk music caught on was the memorable playground names of the main players. You felt strangely familiar with Poly Styrene, Sid Vicious and Captain Sensible. You realised it had all gone too far with Ivor Biggun, Tenpole Tudor and Jilted John. Yet, when a record label was called Stiff Records or Step Forward, it somehow connected more than Atlantic or EMI. And there were lots of lesser lights and labels you were aware of. These I carry around in my time machine of a mind. There was Gaye Advert. And there was Epic Soundtracks. Sounding like a label himself, Epic was born Kevin Godfrey, he formed an eccentric band called Swell Maps with his brother, Adrian, who went out under the moniker, Nikki Sudden. Both are now no longer with us. Epic Soundtracks would have been 50 today. As I persist with my naming manoeuvres, I'll make sure his name lives on.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

He did it his way (but did you?)

2009-03-20T09:23:00.004Z

This morning, on BBC breakfast, they were celebrating the 40th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s My Way. Paul Anka, who beat David Bowie to writing the English version of an original French song, once said that Sid Vicious did the best version. I agree. So many artists have covered it. Everyone from Andy Williams, Dorothy Squires and Elvis Presley to Nina Simone, Jon Bon Jovi and John Cleese. William Shatner even performed a spoken version. It’s become cheesier than gorgonzola. Have you performed it? It’s one of the most popular karaoke songs in the world. J K Rowling wanted to play the song at Professor Dumbledore’s funeral. It’s the song most frequently played at British funerals. Ironically, My Way has become a cliché. But tell that to people in The Philippines, where it can cause violence and even suicides. Nobody told Slobodan Milosevic that he couldn’t play it over and over again in his Hague prison cell while undergoing his trial for war crimes. These days, it’s the Sid Vicious version of the song that you’re more likely to hear in popular culture, whether it’s in Goodfellas, Buffy The Vampire Slayer or The Sopranos. And that’s the version I’ll be playing today. What do I get from it? The struggle for individual identity in a collective society? Blimey, I'll be trying to relate it all to branding next! Ahh! My Way? Don’t think about it too much. Just do it anyway.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

It ain't what you do (it's the way that you do it)

2009-03-19T08:21:00.004Z

Sometimes I feel very distant from my branding work. I just can’t get close enough to it. You can’t do branding by remote control, via email, telephone, Linked In or Twitter. It has to be done face to face. There are times when you’ve just got to thrash things out, kick the litter bin into the corner of the room, disagree, bang the table, throw it all away, taste it, smell it, spit it out and start again. Shake people up. Until you see beauty and they see sense. I’ve found this to be true more and more over the years. Way back when, doing too much, too young, I had none of the answers but all of the passion. But I’m compassionate towards that raw young self. I can look back at me and still say I’ve got a safety pin stuck in my heart for you, for you. That passionate me does not seem at all remote. Yesterday can seem further away. If I concentrate, I can still feel I’m up close to Terry Hall, 50 today. And Patrik Fitzgerald, 53 this 19th March. For me, there’s a branding breakthrough to make today. I need to avail myself of some of this attitude and punk poetry. That's what gets results.
Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

The name of the pose

2009-03-18T07:33:00.002Z

Alex Hurricane Higgins is 60 today. Hurricane is a moniker he's had to live with for well over half his life, both on and off the snooker table. Is he happy with it? He used it in the title of his 'autobiography'. It's his brand and he owns it. The name has stuck, years after he stopped playing snooker professionally, or well. At Ideal, a lot of naming comes our way. Rename our business. Name our new service. Name my blogspot or book. Here's one we came up with earlier. What do you think? I usually think that very few people know anything about naming their organisations, products and services. Many assume that it's simply a question of pulling a word out of thin air, like a magician with a rabbit. You'd be surprised how much carelessness goes into choosing such a crucial element of the branding mix as a name. Professionally, you have to live with it. Personally, you have to live up to it. Even when you're 60. Ask Alex.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Harmful packaging – who needs it?

2009-03-14T10:58:00.003Z

As I approach 50, it’s a question of what’s winning – the tinnitus, arthritis or sentimentality. On days like today, I’m going for the safe middle ground – I’m finding it increasingly difficult to open things – tins of beans, bank accounts, other people’s conviviality. On the packaging front, I’m wondering whether I can find anyone to agree with me. Is it just me, or, after years of recognising packaging for the unnecessary summer overcoat it mostly is, is there a return to packaging for packaging’s sake? Yesterday, I read an article about Unilever launching a luxury version of its Magnum chocice on a stick. It will come in a cardboard box. Yes, that’s right. Apparently, the brand is trying to offer customers an ‘affordable bite of luxury’. And the only way to distinguish it from rivals (or, indeed, its own existing Magnum in a packet), is to stick it in a box. Now, instead of the three hands you will need to open it on the street, you will need four. This is the kind of packaging I don’t need. And neither does the world. This morning I spent ten minutes trying to break into my new Oral B Advance Power 900 electric toothbrush. Like a tramp standing outside McDonalds, I could see what I wanted through the beautiful, clear, indestructible plastic exterior. But my teeth had dropped out through neglect before I could hold the gleaming product in hands that were shredded from grappling with impossibly jagged plastic edges. Electric toothbrush? More like samurai sword. Another fine mess that unnecessary packaging has got me in. My view - when it has to exist, packaging should do no harm? Who agrees?

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Vulnerability

2009-03-13T09:26:00.003Z

My mind is in pieces today. Waking up from a long day interviewing staff with a mental healthcare client for some brand positioning work. I listened to directors, governors, front-line staff, carers. There were tears. It was at once enlightening and harrowing. And the working environment was oppressive, cell-like. One word chased me into sleep last night. Vulnerability. It’s still with me as, following instructions, I’m cleaning the house this morning before the monthly cleaners arrive. Then something stirs upstairs – in my mind, as opposed to the house, that is. Did I once see Dexy’s Midnight Runners play at Bradford University, or is this a figtree of my emancipation? My memory says yes, but my brain is uncertain. As the toothless Mancunian sage says, ‘There’s nothing stranger than the things you know but don’t quite realise.’ I saw a piece of paper which says that today was the day in 1980 when Dexy’s released Geno. My mind’s eye gives me the picture. Kevin Rowland ranting and gyrating, orchestrating the crowd. Almost straightaway, I’m thinking about Bradford University in another way. My long lost school and Bradford University mate, Rog, emails to announce he’s 50 tomorrow and confesses to struggling with it. What’s so great about reaching 50, he asks. ‘Is not being dead yet a cause for celebration?’ Only Rog could throw away a line as profound as that. The irony for me is that, at school, we always used to tease Rog for being one of the undead – something to do with the pale, translucent skin and tendency not to appear on photographs. So, while I think of what I’m going to be saying to Rog ('you're a long time undead?), I’ll be playing Monster Mash, by Bobby Boris Pickett, in his honour. And then, perhaps, Geno. Then maybe my mental jigsaw will begin to piece itself back together and I can get on with the two brand identity jobs that are leaning into me.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Another music in a different kitchen

2009-03-10T20:02:00.002Z

I hear voices. Saying things like, ‘You’re an idealist, yet when you want to highlight something like singlemindedness, honesty or other useful brand qualities, you choose people like Lou Reed or Bernard Bresslaw as examples. What about Martin Luther King or Gandhi or other ethical supermen? Or, why not just successful people from the world of business?’ Well, as much as I admire the world-changing luminaries, I sometimes find it difficult to relate to them. I also think it’s somewhat pretentious to be dropping Barrack Obama into every conversation. My influences are personal. They are never going to be Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or Richard Branson. I get my drive from the renegades, the real and fictional. Mark E Smith. Rab C Nesbitt. Tom Waits. Estragon and Watt from the work of Samuel Beckett. The guy selling the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford city centre, whose eyes were so deepset they seemed press-studded to the back of his head. Much of my branding work lies in social and environmental change with charitable and public sector organisations. I can respond to the ‘I have a dream’ and ‘Yes we can’ statements as much as the next man. I even write some of them myself. But I get my inspiration for my work from the way my imagination plays on certain conditions of humanity. There is a theme here. And it’s probably something to do with the taboo of mental illness. Having met and befriended my own demons, I feel a great empathy for others who are struggling with theirs. So, I can understand the Kron Man who picks up the mouldy cabbages in the final minutes of Lichfield Market more than I can understand Sir Alan Sugar. I can come to terms with the plastic intonations of the Cone Man of Carnaby Street more quickly than I can with Princess Diana. What can I learn from The Economist or The Spectator that is not better said in songs by Mark E Smith called Eat Y’Self Fitter or How I Wrote Elastic Man? The people I select to discuss in this blog are not chosen because I need to pick somebody from today’s birthday list. They are people who are meaningful to me. In my branding work, I seek to break through people’s outer crust and journey on to the centre of their earth. I’ll only stand a chance of doing that if I put myself into my writing. And the only way to do that is to put everything that has meaning to me into these words. One man and his blog.

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Who is the guy who isn't Tony Blair?

2009-03-09T10:54:00.003Z

You can tell how poor your brand image is when people define it by what it is not. As pointed as this is for Gordon Brown and his future, this approach to describing people and organisations is quite common. It may seem amusing, but it is also disappointing. Calling a spade a spade is not that easy. Especially if it’s new, obscured by what has gone before or simply contravenes majority values. Meat-free sausages. Non-governmental organisations. Childless couples. Such institutionalised language suggests that society is not very forgiving of anything outside the mainstream. Over time, I’ve moved towards the mainstream from the margins. On the way in through this asteroid field, I’ve dodged a lot of jagged acronyms. Up in the atmosphere, I’ve punctured many jargon filled barrage balloons. But then, it is my job to be precise, definite, say the unsayable, all with an imaginative flourish. So, naturally, I take great pleasure when I discover an example of precision that fuses language together to create a meaning that was always there before but never expressed. My singleminded friend, Mark E Smith, does this to great effect. In a song entitled Hip Priest, on the LP by The Fall called Hex Enduction Hour (released 27 years ago this week), the narrator nonchalantly says, ‘I got my last clean dirty shirt out of the wardrobe’. This could only have come from a working class Mancunian with a sharp wit and a pub habit. Just as the title of this piece could only have come from a blank and bemused American government policy wonk. But one has nailed the meaning in an unforgettable way.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

One man and his dog

2009-03-06T08:27:00.003Z

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

The man whose head expanded

2009-03-05T09:39:00.003Z

In the springtime of our lives there was also The Fall. Yet from desperation came renewal. You see, there’s staying power, then there’s reinvention. I’m working with brands who need British people to re-invent what Britain is all about. People talk us down. As already noted, we do a good job of it ourselves. When we talk of British spirit today, we usually mean Dunkirk or Dunroamin. In the new world we are old. We look back at the Romans. But, are the Chinese running ironic TV programmes entitled What did the British do for us? Doubt it. As we approach a General Election in benighted Blighty, there’s going to be even more talk about what’s wrong, a broken Britain, mediated by the wagging index finger of blame from the psychomafia. Live at the witch trials, indeed! Personally, I’m not interested in what’s wrong or what’s been, only what’s right and what’s coming. Optimism – it’s the new thing. So, let’s get this one out of the way, shall we – things did not start going wrong in 1997 or 1979, as some would say (nor even 1966). If you want to know, nothing’s been quite the same since the Battle of Hastings. Mark E Smith, who was born in 1066 (or 1979) is as Saxon as they come. Now here is a manbrand who combines staying power and reinvention. 52 today, a bad hip and no teeth to worry about, there's hardly a more broken Briton. And yes, his chip-flavoured lyrics came from Alf Tupper via Fred Dibnah, with all the Ts crossed by Albert Camus. But it’s his sheer hydrochloric singlemindedness I’m talking about. 60 singles, to be precise. And 55 albums on the turntable since 1979. And 47 other band members, but only one Mark E Smith. Doing anything Sunday 15th March? Hear him talking at Huddersfield Literary Festival about his life, work, writers and writing and his recently published autobiography: Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E Smith. As the man says: ‘I hope this book turns out like Mein Kampf for the Hollyoaks generation’. I recommend it. Even though, on close inspection, it’s not always easy to like the man. Ask Big A&M Herb. And last Time I saw Mark E Smith, he was arrested for being drunk on stage at Worthing Assembly Rooms on 8th October 1996. But I was the one who was breathalysed. Yet, toothless Mancunian wazzock that he is, it’s hard not to admire the spirit of persistence in this very large brain in this very big head. My heart and I agree. Matt Lucas, it’s your birthday today, too. A new face in hell. But what’s all this Little Britain stuff? We need Big Britain. So, I’m awarding Mark E Smith the Big Briton Award for March 5th. He makes me think of the task ahead for a very old country with a lot of new thinking to do. Singlemindedness.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

I've got time for Dieter Meier

2009-03-04T08:58:00.003Z

Three reasons why.
1. Yello. Well-heeled pop music conceived by Groucho Marx and Kraftwerk on a Sicilian holiday.
2. He works with ReWATCH, a Swiss company that recycles aluminium cans into watches.
3. In 1972, he installed a commemorative plaque at Kassel railway station with the message: ‘On March 23rd 1994, from 3 to 4pm, Dieter Meier will stand on this plaque.’ 22 years later he did just that. He did what he said he was going to do. He delivered his promise.
And that’s why I think I like him most of all. It’s exactly the sort of thing my long lost friend Graham Sutherland would have done, with a bottle of cider sticking out of each coat pocket.
Today is Dieter Meier’s 64th birthday. Celebrate his beautiful timing and well-delivered brand promise by playing 3rd of June from the album Flag.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Everybody's happy nowadays

2009-03-02T09:43:00.001Z

When The Buzzcocks released the single by this name 30 years ago today theirs was an oblique strategy. As far as they were concerned, everybody was far from happy at all. But they were damned if they were going to have it like that. Admittedly, back then, I just wanted a lover like any other (but what did I get?). Today, 30 years on, I’m a strong critic of doom mongers, particularly the gleeful BBC News tendency to see the cup not only as three quarters empty, but cracked and full of bacteria probably picked up in a NHS hospital stuffed full with suicidal bankers and the terminally obese. I’m glad that Mandelson had a go at the Starbucks CEO for talking down the UK marketplace last week. We don’t need Americans to do that for us. We’re pretty good at it ourselves. Well, Pete Shelley refused to be part of it 30 years ago and I refuse to be part of it now. Certainly not on the second day of March. A day when I saw my first ever gig at Trentham Gardens in Stoke. Status Quo. A day when D H Lawrence died, but Lou Reed was born and is 67 years strong. Life’s an illusion, love’s a dream? Everybody’s saying things to me, but I know it’s OK, OK.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

C'mon, you mongoose!

2009-02-27T11:19:00.001Z

First, on a day for cockney rebels, let’s give some credit to the Corsa C’Mon Talking Plush. That ten inch cross between Dennis Wise, Bob Hoskins and an oven glove we see marching across our TV screens advertising that small car. I can’t pin down what it is about this cockney character that I like. Certainly not the product. But, unlike most, it’s an ad I’m always prepared to watch. Now, the latest ad to come up and see me and make me smile is Alexandr the Meerkat. When I first saw or heard these Compare The Market ads, I thought the whole thing was such a corny calabash. Nothing but a flabby foot shoehorned into a tight boot. But I couldn’t get the voice out of my head. And now, I find myself walking around the house speaking in that Russian accent. All because some creative bright spark decided to link the sounds of meerkat and market. Simples! Never mind the human menagerie, I’m a soft touch for inanimate objects of this kind. In my imagination (and, I dare say it, in that of half the UK population), ever since the talking chimps of the 60s PG Tips ads, these things easily take on a life all their own. Here at Ideal, Debbie has worked very closely with Kirk, the woodland creature, as part of the successful, award-winning Yellow Woods Challenge since 2001 (see http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/Yell_case_study.asp) In the course of my brand naming work over the years, I’ve named ocean cruises, charity fundraising campaigns and government departmental initiatives, among others. But nobody has yet asked me to name a soft toy for the purpose of animating a whole brand. If they were to do so today, I think I’d call it Sebastian.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

There's always something there to remind me

2009-02-26T09:37:00.002Z

To the disbelief of many who observed my early development as a human being, I make my living as a writer and have done for nigh on 15 years. For me, making a living from writing means crafting a marketing brochure, shaping a website, inventing a strapline, capturing that essence rare. And those are the good days. People who don't write for a living but have to write on a daily basis (most people who work in offices) ask me how I do it day in day out. How do I focus on such things? How do I block things out and narrow things down so that what I'm describing is what it is and nothing else? Bizarrely, I tell them that, far from blocking out and narrowing down, I open up. I let the world in and work with whatever is there. It's the only way to achieve the pitch necessary for this writer to begin his work. Interference or inspiration? Both, probably. This week, I've been enthralled by Shakespeare's The Tempest and Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. And, one way or another, I will bring their influence to bear on the work I'm doing for my clients. I'm no slave to circumstance. And far from a puppet on a string. But, when it comes to the importance of remaining human when writing for brands, there's always something there to remind me.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Can I dip my bread in your gravy?

2009-02-25T10:00:00.001Z

Can anyone tell me the Carry On film in which Bernard Bresslaw says to (I think) Jim Dale, ‘Can I dip my bread in your gravy?’ Both are incarcerated in adjacent prison cells. Bresslaw removes a stone in the wall between them, pops his head through and asks the question. Dale, as acquiescent as ever, hands over his dish of gravy. Predictably, Bresslaw takes it back through the hole in the wall. Then, with true comic timing, the next thing we see is the stone being replaced and a suitably indignant Dale cursing his luck. It’s one of my favourite Carry On moments. Partly because ‘gravy’ is one of my favourite words, carrying so many meanings, yet always returning to its simple, viscous self. As a wordsmith, it’s important to have favourite words. Even if you are very unlikely to use them in your daily work. For they act as a perfect counterbalance to the payload of corporate vocabulary we all recycle every day.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Ca plane pour moi

2009-02-24T14:26:00.003Z

Recuperating from tracheitis gives me some time out to put some time in on time itself. But I actually prefer it when time intrudes upon my thoughts unexpectedly. It's very difficult to sit here and wait for time to say something spontaneous. That just wouldn't be timely. The big thing about timeliness is its spontaneity. It counts for everything. It's an acceptance of whatever is there, knocking at the door. Today, I have 51 year-old Plastic Bertrand announcing himself on my threshold. Let him in. Take a good look at him. He's not necessarily who I would've expected. After all, every day I'm writing about serious things. I'm helping all kinds of organisations to get across their marketing messages more effectively. Some need to sell a product or service. Others need to encourage a change in behaviour from hard-to-reach people. They come to me with their thoughts and priorities. They have confidence in my ability to frame their messages. They expect a certain result. They do not necessarily understand how I get it or where my inspiration comes from. Then again, in my approach to meeting their needs, I rarely set out from the same place as my clients. I listen to their needs. Then I just open the door to whatever is there and invite it in. And that's where I begin. It works for me.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Time and time again

2009-02-23T10:15:00.001Z

Today, 23rd February 2009, is 100 days to my 50th birthday. One or two people have noticed how time is appearing in these blogs in both regular yet serendipitous ways. With such an anniversary on the horizon, it’s hardly surprising that my mind enters the world every day through this horological doorway. It will be interesting for me to see how the flow of time now enters my work. But not today – I have laryngitis. Sleepless of Stratford will not be open for talking shop. Clients often ask me how I write and write again. Sitting in front of a blank piece of paper, or a screen, for something like the ten thousandth time, means you have to be confident of starting somewhere, of being able to start at all. I’ve never had this problem of starting with words. I think it’s because the door is always open to the inspiration of whatever is there and whoever is strolling past. Hello, there’s Howard Jones, asking his perennial question, What is love, anyway? And there’s David Sylvian answering it, singing The Song Which Gives The Key To Perfection. The trouble is, the backdrop to all of this is Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet. Bassist, Steve Priest, is singing that he sees a man at the back, as a matter of fact, whose eyes are as red as the sun. As the cough medicine kicks in, that’s me staring at the mirror. Good day and good night.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Futurism is 100 today

2009-02-20T09:17:00.002Z

Futurism…like it or loathe it, now there was a brand for you! Marinetti, Boccioni, Carra, Balla, Palasechi! When Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his Futurist Manifesto in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro 20th February 1909, what was he letting loose? Sure, a passionate loathing of everything old, particularly political and artistic tradition and conventions. But an art movement that glorified war?! What were they playing at? OK, it all led to castor oil cocktails for the caring comrades in the end, but there were some interesting ideas about speed, youth and energy there. But then, February 20th is an interesting day in the calendar. Tony Wilson, creator of Manchester’s Factory Records (a brand of brands) and a futurist if ever there was one, was born on this day. Then again, so was Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, not so much a futurist as a look-backwards-over-your-shoulder-ist. It’s a day for tough people and big ideas. Back in 1977, Alan Hull, singer with rock group Lindisfarne, who also shared this birthday, told me that, where he came from, punks were people who put safety pins through other people’s noses. Which is why I’ve always been scared of visiting Newcastle. February 20th is a day full of people who talk tough and do things first. So, happy birthday, too, to Sidney Poitier, Jimmy Greaves and Mike Leigh.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Gearing up for Guinness 250

2009-02-18T10:39:00.004Z

My publisher, Martin Liu (Cyan Books), contacted me today to let me know about his recent book promotional activities in Dublin. This year is the Guinness 250th anniversary and it seems my book Guinness Is Guinness could stir some interest once again. OK, I published it 5 years ago now, but what has really happened of any note since in the world of Guinness? Closure of the 70 year-old London Park Royal brewery and a reprieve for the iconic original at St James's Gate, Dublin. Oh, and the launch of Guinness Red, the beer that looks light and tastes...sshhh, don't tell everyone. Back in 2004, I did some great book launch radio interviews when people still seemed interested in Guinness as an iconic brand - with Robert Elms on BBC London and Gerry Ryan on RTE 2 in Dublin. I remember telling these luminaries that future Guinness marketing was more than likely to be a repeat of Guinness past. Here was a brand whose past was too good for its present. And, true enough, in this special 250th year they'll be re-broadcasting the best Guinness TV ads of the past five decades. Pop has been eating itself for the last 20 years. Now it seems that beer is, too. Fine, there'll always be 17th March. And now there'll be 26th September - Arthur's Day. But don't blink, or you'll miss it. Me, I'll be waiting by the phone for Ireland to call...

Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/

Everything's gonna be alright

2009-02-17T09:11:00.001Z

John Lydon advertising butter. Iggy Pop flogging insurance. Now Marley's ghost is coming our way - but how and when we do not yet know. The word is out that the estate of Bob Marley has agreed to license the singer's likeness and name to retailers and brands 28 years after the great man's death. How will they select those brands? And how will they fit in with Marley's own brand? If the cap fits, let them wear it...Should be a fascinating space to watch.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Thank Gok for compassion

2009-01-29T17:25:00.000Z

Not another TV programme about obesity and food fanaticism! But, once again, it was Gok that got me in front of the goggle box. 'Too fat, too young'. Channel 4. Tuesday evening, 27th January. A brave decision to confront his 21-stone past, but great television. You could feel the gain, the pain and the hope. Understand where he's coming from and where he's going. True compassion. As a public service broadcaster, Channel 4 does this kind of programme much better than the BBC (whose programmes have to involve plantlife, elephants or something strange called 'impartiality'). Think of 'Secret Millionaire'. And to believe that Channel 4's only likely future would be in a public service broadcasting partnership with Channel 5! Let's hope that this new Channel 45 sticks with the compassionate streak. Teach the BBC a thing or two about common humanity. Perhaps we can have Gok Wan advising Robert Peston on the importance of finding and relating good news.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk

Happy Birthday Jose Marti!

2009-01-28T15:44:00.000Z

Jose Marti would have been 156 years old today. Who is he? One of the founding fathers of the revolution that freed Cuba from Spanish colonial rule. No, not that revolution. The one before it. If you've ever visited Cuba, you'll know that it is branded by three clear icons - the Cuban flag, that picture of Che Guevara, and stone statues of Jose Marti. Soon, not this year or next, but maybe in a decade, Cuba will see a lot more branding than its people are used to. In Havana, they queue avidly outside stores selling Adidas and Italian clothing brands. Clearly, as Cuba celebrates 50 years' freedom from the capitalist yoke, its people can barely wait to welcome it back. Yet, without Jose Marti and the Castro revolution that followed half a century later, the majority of Cuba's people would still not be able to read an Adidas label never mind crave one.

As the latest revolutionary slogan goes, "Un mundo mejor es posible".