Never realised I was such a fan of the common cephalopod mollusc before this week. Turns out I, like half the population and every red-top news editor in the land, love a good octopus – especially one with psychic powers. If there’s one nimble-legged genius seizing all the headlines this week, it ain’t the expected superstars (sic) we might all have predicted in the run-up to this year’s tournament. Not Wayne Rooney (currently sunning it up with Coleen in Barbados), Frank Ribery (dissolved mid-mutiny with the rest of the French team) or Gilardino (you’re only as good as your last World Cup win Alberto).

Nope, clearly our powers of prediction are not world-beating.

Unlike Paul. Paul the Psychic Octopus. The German star who has correctly predicted the outcome of all six of Germany’s World Cup matches. This morning, during a live television broadcast, Paul predicted Germany would beat Uruguay in tomorrow’s third place play-off match - his seventh prediction of the tournament. And more importantly for those who live in Spain and the Netherlands, Paul has plumped for Spain, the pre-tournament favourites, to lift the World Cup on Sunday evening. Viva España.

Eight arms. Eight predictions. Coincidence? I think not. Paul is good, damn good for a suckered seer, and given the level of attention on him right now, I imagine he’s praying to the bottom of his mussel filled tank that his powers haven’t deserted him at this crucial stage of the tournament.

Paul is definitely ‘da man’, albeit a hard beaked, blue blooded, eight-armed one (technically six arms and two legs but who really cares?), and even better news for us English folk – embarrassed by our team’s recent knock-out 4-1 defeat to Germany – is learning that Paul is not actually German at all. He was born in Weymouth, back in 2006, where he was apparently much more shy on the predicting front. Paul joins other fellow famous Weymoutharians such as painter Sir James Thornhill (big in the 1600s), Strictly Come Dancing’s Karen Hardy and…urmmmm…not all that many other people it turns out.

So that’s two genuine English stars who have emerged late in the day in South Africa’s World Cup:

1. Paul

2. And Yorkshire’s very own Howard Webb who will referee Sunday’s Final; the first Englishman to referee a World Cup Final since Jack Taylor in 1974. Interestingly Holland lost that game 2-1 to West Germany (the signs are not looking all that good for the Dutchies).

Our much-hyped Premiership players may have failed lamentably to emulate the heroes of 1966 but all is clearly not lost.

Paul now resides in Germany’s Oberhausen’s Sea Life Aquarium whom I applaud for their quite brilliant PR campaign. Paul has put the city of Oberhausen (twinned with Middlesbrough) on the map which, as well as the aquarium, also boasts Germany’s biggest shopping centre and Europe’s largest disc-type gasometer.  Yep.

Back to Paul. The Times of India reports, “He has eight legs but has never kicked a ball. That, however, hasn’t stopped Paul the octopus from becoming the world’s finest football forecaster.” Spain’s celebrity chef José Andrés has taken octopus off the menu at all of his restaurants until further notice. Brilliant, it’s not just me who loves the little fella. He has well over 70,000 fans on his official Facebook page. He has become an online phenomenon and one of the most talked about topics on the web. The phrases “Paul the Octopus” and “Pulpo”, the Spanish word for octopus, are both currently in the top 10 global trends on Twitter.

However, celebrity fame has come at a price. Paul has made enemies along the way as a result of his predictions and is now enduring death threats on an hourly basis. Most recently he has become the target of bitter Argentinian fans, angry that he predicted their footballing demise, who have been sending seafood recipes to his aquarium. The Spanish government is reportedly ready to step in with Spain’s Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez stating “I am thinking of sending him a protection team“. Too right. Spain’s World Cup success may depend on it.

Will Paul be right for the eighth time? Are his days really numbered? Roll on Sunday night’s big showdown to find out…

By Stephanie Branston on July 9th, 2010

Tags: Football , Public relations , Television , World Cup

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Having lived in London for eight years and been a keen tennis player for most of my life but never experienced Wimbledon, other than through the BBC’s coverage, I decided I should venture down to SW19 to see whether the first-hand experience lived up to the  hype.

Working in the sports marketing and sponsorship world I was looking forward to observing how brands take advantage of their multi-million pound Championship deals (what a geek).  The marathon match between Isner and Mahut provided The All England Club with some welcome publicity in amongst World Cup fever and even inspired some quick off the mark advertisers: ‘Durex Performa.  Take pleasure in coming second’. 

This wasn’t hugely surprising considering Wimbledon’s long history of brand association.  Slazenger became the first official ball supplier in 1902 and Robinsons have been official still soft drink providers since 1935. Both brands have become as synonymous with this particular Grand Slam as strawberries and cream.  This year Robinsons celebrated the 75^th anniversary of their sponsorship by committing to a further five years. Paul Moody, Chief Executive of parent company Britvic, revealed in the Telegraph just how highly he views the sponsorship when he said recently that “You don’t want to be the guy at Britvic who loses the sponsorship of Wimbledon. That would be your tumbleweed moment”. In addition, this year’s tournament has a whole host of other sponsors including HSBC, Hertz, Rolex and Blossom Hill. 

A beautiful day, Centre Court tickets and a fantastic line up, Henin (sponsored by Adidas, Belgacom, Rolex) v Petrova (Ellesse), Hewitt (eSwap, Yonex) v Monfils (KSwiss, Prince),  Federer (Credit Suisse, Gillette, Jura, Mercedes Benz, Nationale Suisse, NetJets, Nike, Rolex and Wilson) v Clement (Adidas), got the day off to a perfect start. 

On arrival at Southfields station I was expecting to be the target of various experiential marketing campaigns with brands trying to capitalise on their sponsorships but I was left a little disappointed.  Having tactically got on the tube so that my carriage would be nearest the exit, I managed to miss the strip of astroturf that Blossom Hill had used to cover part of the platform along with any mention of their £1m “Summer perfectly served” marketing campaign and eventually made it all the way to the gates of the All England Club without even a sniff of brand activity. 

Once through the gates my first impression was of the size of the place. The Beeb has done a great job of misleading me over the years and making it look much bigger than it really is. It was much more intimate and relaxed than I’d anticipated.  This could have been due to the fact that attendance has apparently dipped this year, partly attributable to the World Cup.  After the Bavaria beer girls and their orange outfits I was wondering whether any brands might push their luck with similar ambush activity inside the ground, but the only miniskirts on display were of the white variety (and having now read the ambush marketing section of the Wimbledon website know such activity wouldn’t have been allowed). After the poor performance from the England football team it will be interesting to see whether the Great British public shift their attention to the tennis and support Andy Murray (sponsored by RBS, adidas, Head, Highland Spring) the only British hope left in the competition.

Whether or not fans swap their vuvuzelas for the silence of Centre Court, brands will of course rightly continue to see Wimbledon as a key sponsorship property.  Wimbledon has spent decades building a brand which successfully treads the fine line between global recognition without overselling itself.  It is this unique position which allows Wimbledon to pick and choose sponsors to fit with its brand and long-term objectives and ultimately lead to the long-standing partnerships it has with the likes of Slazenger and Robinsons. Even the tennis players themselves rate the London leg of their world tour the tournament none of them want to miss. Did my experience (be it lacking in brand activity) live up to the hype? Absolutely.

By Lydia Crane on June 30th, 2010

Tags: Andy Murray , BBC , Experiential marketing , Sponsorship

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Last year not many national newspapers made big money – in fact some lost a lot of it set against declining circulations. One paper however, The Metro, made its seventh successive year of profit.

In fact, last year the paper, which has a circulation of 1.3 million distributed free across 16 cities, had more display advertising than any other UK generalist (114,647 single column centimetres compared to 94,875ccms at The Sun for the statisticians among you).  

So with much talk about the demise of newspapers  how is it that The Metro turns in a profit year after year without charging a cover price and are there any clues of the newspaper of the future (on and offline) in this?

Looking in from the outside, the success would seem to boil down to two simple reasons.

Firstly – content. The Metro knows its audience and it’s not trying to be anything more then what it is – a quick commute read.

No in-depth articles, no weighty columnists and little analysis – just a bite sized chunk of news meant to last as long as your tube/bus/train journey or if you like an offline version for an online audience – or what they refer to as ‘City Clickers’. This amalgamation of easy news comes with probable lower overhead costs from staf size to news gathering.  

Secondly – a closer relationship between commercial and editorial or a breakdown of the old ‘church and state’ mentality.

Few barriers exist – your brand wants to wrap the paper? Not a problem. Sponsor whole sections? Sure thing. An advertorial in the house style? Editorial will even write it for you. In addition, there is a clear link between the offline and online products with commercial links across both.

The Metro gets away with it partly because it’s free. As a consumer, I don’t mind commercial spill-over into editorial, I see it as a decent trade off for getting a free read on my tube journey in.  

But it’s this blurring of the line that gives clues to the future for the wider industry. It’s no surprise that there are increasingly numbers of ex-journalists in the commercial teams at papers helping brands to run ‘integrated’ campaigns but it’s a difficult balancing act to maintain – editorial independence and powerful journalism versus commercial reality.

While it continues to vex established national newspapers (The Times Online recent move behind a paywall is an attempt to address it), The Metro has proved it knows its audience and although it may be a dangerous sign for in-depth, quality journalism you have to admire its ability to buck the trend.

By Dominic Curran on June 28th, 2010

Tags: Brand marketing , Communications , Digital marketing , Media , Paywall

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Since FIFA announced its 2007-2014 sponsorship programme, many industry commentators have made much of FIFA’s new, so-called ‘less is more’ approach. It is a Very Good Thing, they say, that whereas the 2006 World Cup had 15 global partners and thus too much clutter, the 2010 edition has only 6 global partners and thus much less clutter.  I’ve never been persuaded by this argument, because I don’t think this is how it plays with consumers during the World Cup itself.

Consider, for example, what consumers see on the TV interview backdrops behind players and officials during the World Cup right now – illustrated in the still below (from the halcyon days before England played Germany on June 27). Call me old-fashioned, but I count 20 different brand logos.

Yes, I know that the logos of the 6 global ‘FIFA Partners’ are bigger than those of the 8 second-tier ‘World Cup Sponsors’, whose logos are in turn bigger than those of the 6 ‘National Supporters’. I know that the rights packages vary widely between tiers too. But I still count 20 logos. And that’s what the consumer sees. Not too different, then, from the 2006 World Cup, where there were 15 global partners and 6 ‘National Partners’. A difference, to be precise, of one less sponsor.

Consider too, Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in the England v Germany match, surely destined to be one of the most replayed football moments of all time around the world.  Brilliant news for the 6 FIFA global partners then. Except it wasn’t. Because the brands whose logos were on display at that moment on the perimeter ads behind the goal, and who’ll be in shot forever, were MTN and Seara – as you see below.

Contrast this with the UEFA Champions League, which in the modern era remains the examplar of ‘less is more’. Only six brands are official Champions League partners, and that’s what you see when it comes to the TV interview backdrops – again, as illustrated in the screen grab below of Sir Alex Ferguson in post-match interview mode last season – and on the main televised perimeter ad positions.

Now that’s what I call ‘less is more’.

By Tim Crow on June 28th, 2010

Tags: Default , Football , Football Sponsorship , Sponsorship , Television , UEFA Champions League , World Cup

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One of the many things I love about social media is the way it enables us to re-imagine how we use old media. This year I’ve seen Nike do this brilliantly twice – first in Vancouver during the Olympics, and now in Johannesburg for the World Cup – using the same technique of integrating social media with giant outdoor spectacular ads to create ’socialised spectaculars’.

In Vancouver, as part of its ‘Force Fate’ campaign, Nike leveraged Canadian hockey fervour and its sponsorship of the Canadian hockey team, by inviting fans through Facebook to create their own inspirational ads featuring their favourite player , and then running giant projections of them onto the Sears Building on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver throughout the Olympics. Here are a couple of pictures I took of the executions.

They became a must-show for Canadian TV and a must-see, must-photograph and a  must-share for fans – Nike took pictures of the projections and sent them to the people who created them so that they could share with their friends.  Does it get any more social than that?

Four months later and 10,000 miles away in Johannesburg, Nike has repeated the trick at the World Cup as part of their ‘Write The Future’ campaign, but made it bigger in every way.

‘Write The Headline’ has global appeal by featuring Nike’s stable of football icons from around the world. The social media element is much broader too – fans can get involved through Twitter (#writethefuture), QQ (a Chinese chat programme) and Mxit (a South African IM app) as well as Facebook. And the ad is state-of-the-art – a dynamic LED installation that dominates the Southern Life building which towers over Johannesburg and can be seen for miles. Up to 100 headlines are selected each night and transformed into player animations, and when a fan’s message is used Nike sends them the animation.

Give it a try in the Write the Headline Facebook app, and check out the promo film.

By Tim Crow on June 24th, 2010

Tags: Advertising , Default , Digital marketing , Facebook , Football , Olympics , Vancouver 2010 , Winter Olympics , World Cup

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Last week The Times…(yes, you may well think I’m going to write about the newspaper changing its domain name as it prepares to become the first English national paper to start charging for its online content; however that’s not it)…newspaper ran a week long feature on the coaches that are training the stars of tomorrow, today; with Tom Daley, Jess Ennis and Becky Adlington amongst the featured athletes (you may need a new www.TheTimes.co.uk login to access these links).

What stood out for me as I flicked through the non-World Cup related pages was the photography by Chief Sports Photographer Marc Aspland.  Phenomenal images that I think are just stunning.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did…

By Caroline Ayling on June 22nd, 2010

Tags: London 2012 , Olympics , Public relations

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About five years ago, try as I might to find an elephant in London to take part in a PR photo stunt we were organising, there was none available. Our need was great – promote the Chivas World Elephant Polo Championships due to be held that November in Nepal. Scotland were at the time, defending World Champions in the sport (true fact.) Anyway, London Zoo weren’t up for lending out their eles, we couldn’t locate any in the Yellow pages so alas, the photo was a no go. I don’t think Scotland retained the title either (I don’t hold us responsible for that mind).

Fast forward to June 2010 and everywhere you look in London, there are elephants. You can barely move without bumping into one.

So what’s occurring? Turns out the Elephant Parade London 2010 is a conservation campaign, in aid of the Elephant Family charity set up by Mark Shand, involving 258 brightly painted life-size elephants located over central London with the aim of raising over £2mn towards the conservation of the endangered Asian elephants. Tidy.

As it turns out, 258 elephant sculptures = London’s largest outdoor art exhibition on record.

They may not have been in town in 2005 when we really needed them but they are at least here now, for one more week.  And over the last 5 weeks, I have been slowly gripped by some unexplainable elephant obsession. Out of nowhere. Strange but true.

It all started innocently enough.

08.03, Tuesday 4 May 2010, stepping off the Leicester – St Pancras train, I suddenly realised that I’d walked past a giant elephant statue (‘Dandiphant’, I later found out). Unusual, elephant art. Not something you see everyday next to British Rail’s finest.

Throughout May, I continued to notice elephants around town (they’re hard to miss) and soon found myself whooping with joy on seeing a new undiscovered ele – which whilst on a scooter is a truly great feeling - although not one that is widely encouraged in the Highway Code as a means of responsible motorcycle driving. The elephant observing shifted up a gear – spending one Sunday afternoon cycling round London to see which ones we happened across. A great way to combine seeing the city in the sunshine with getting fit. All innocent fun.

I dropped into one of the 4 London pop-up Elephant Parade shops (it’s all about pop-ups these days) and found an official map which marked out where they could all be found. And things changed. The map proved a dangerous addition to my armoury. It became serious. I was soon on a mission to tick off (& photograph) all of them. Why I have no idea but joined by like-minded friends, and at times on my own, the past few weeks has involved dedication, effort and organisation, missed lunch hours, late nights and getting myself to places in London that I have never heard of, never mind visited before.

As a tourism campaign to get people experiencing the city of London, Visit London could do a whole lot worse. That has been one of the absolute pleasures in finding the elephants – I have got to know the city in which I have lived for over 10 years a whole lot better. I now know where one can find the Museum of London (the Docklands), Bow Churchyard, The Hempel and The Hoxton (both lovely hotels), BT’s Building (as opposed to its Tower), the National Geographic Store on Regent Street, the Royal Exchange and where you can park a scooter right next to Somerset House. I have seen Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park in full flow (fascinating), marvelled at the current installation on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square, walked the length of Baker Street (following Sherlock Holmes’ footsteps) and witnessed the beauty of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

I have found myself in some unexpected places at unpredictable hours. One Monday night I cycled solo to both Brixton and Elephant & Castle (an aptly named place to house one of the statues) well after 10pm, two areas I barely know and probably wouldn’t ordinarily try and navigate around in the dark, solely to find 2 elephants. And after a recent Keane gig in Camden, we employed that ‘oh so normal’ post-gig wind down technique of walking around Leicester Square, Covent Garden & Piccadilly until 1am when we ran out of elephants (20 ticked off in record time) and our feet could take no more. Dedication to the cause or just sheer madness? You decide.

It has been an adventure, albeit an exhausting mission and I have met some dedicated fellow hunters (okay, I’ll admit some have been, shall we say, a little odd but most seem fairly normal) on the way. Equally eye opening has been witnessing first hand how social media communities truly engage in real time interaction on a subject in which they are passionate. Take the Facebook group for the Elephant Family and Elephant Parade group, a hotbed of activity with over 14,000 fans. “Anyone tell me where you can find the Ella May elephant – she’s not on Baker Street and is proving elusive?” Within minutes, 6 people have already replied with the answer. Job done. Fellow elephant fans, who have never, and will never meet in real life, helping each other out in their time of need, with UGC (mainly still images) uploaded on a minute by minute basis.

As PR goes, I’m a big admirer of the campaign. A simple idea with creativity at the heart in aid of a good cause with the actual product they’re promoting (the future of the Asian Elephant) at the very core of the activity.

Add to that, a few simple PR tactics that have been very well executed:
1. Launch photocall of brightly coloured elephant herd in Trafalgar Square pre-installation – tick
2. Interviews with famous and upcoming artists & celebrities who have painted the elephants (Tommy Hilfiger, Paul Smith, Matthew Williamson, Sir Terence Conran…) – tick
3. Locate elephants at various iconic London landmarks / institutions who then add their own PR weight behind it – tick
4. Grip the public’s imagination (kids & adults alike) by introducing Cloudia (the ‘Where’s Wally?’ of the elephant world) to the herd, the elephant that is constantly on the move – tick
5. Ensure your social media ducks (sorry, eles) are all in place to enable the online community to do the rest – tick
6. Merchandise the hell out of it – produce replica elephants, books, cards etc to ensure product sales generate funds of their own – tick

Of the features in the press, one I particularly liked was the story about Gerald, the model elephant who generated a cult following after he was banned from his original home in Selfridges for being too risqué. Gerald is blue (quite literally it turns out on closer inspection), painted by controversial artist Jonathan Yeo who added his trademark collage, causing serious offense to the shoppers of W1. After a “Free Gerald” Facebook group was set up to free him from the charity’s Bloomsbury HQ, sniffing some free publicity, Chinawhite offered their nightclubbing HQ to home the pornographic beast. Bob’s your uncle, queues of people trying to get into the night spot between 1-2pm every weekday to see the elephant and tick it off their lists. Genius.

On a serious note, the joie de vivre these elephants have spread throughout London disguise the real tragedy behind the Asian Elephant’s collapse. Once ranging from China to Thailand, Indonesia, India and across Syria, these great animals are now confined to an area the size of Spain. The number of Asian elephants has dwindled even more severely than those of the African elephant, from 200,000 a century ago to a fifth of that population now.  Shocking statistics.

So my own breaking news, having confessed that I quite fancied trying to see them all before they vanished from our streets, is that I have now officially seen all 258 ‘in the wild’. Marc Quinn’s Untitled in Somerset House was my final ele. Job done, mission completed. Difficult to narrow down my favourites, there really were too many.  Special mention goes out to ‘Help!’ the fully turfed elephant, ‘Dedicated to the Wonderful Chelsea Pensioners’ elephant (too cute), ‘Union Jack ‘(Rule Britannia) and Benjamin Shine’s glossy black ‘Taxi Elephant’, ideally positioned by the Royal Exchange and powered by a solar cell so that the taxi sign lights up at night and its eyes turn into headlamps. Truly London.

Sadly the city migration is well underway and this week, the elephants can all be seen herded together at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea and Westfield Shopping Centre for general viewing before they go under the auction hammer. If you haven’t seen them yet, they are seriously worth a look. Some are absolutely stunning works of art.

As for me, I’m having a break from elephants. For a start, I don’t trust myself not to get carried away with it all and buy one of the statues at auction – and with some of the bids already exceeding £50k online, that is an experience that I’m not quite ready to blog about.

No, it’s all about lions now. Like all great ideas, copycats are out there and rife. Cue the city of Bath announcing that a giant pride of individually decorated, life-size lion sculptures are taking up residence in and around the City of Bath. With only 100 lions to find, I reckon it’s do-able in record time. Anyone who fancies a safari trip down in Bath this summer, let me know. Or if you’re a fellow (adopted) digital native, you’ll probably be able to find me on the Pride in Our City – Lions of Bath group on Facebook…

By Stephanie Branston on June 22nd, 2010

Tags: Alcohol , Digital marketing , Media , Public relations , Sponsorship , The Arts

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Hearing that Andy Ripley had died yesterday, I felt an enormous wave of sadness.

The news itself was unfortunately not a shock; the inevitable final chapter on a death sentence first imposed 5 years ago when he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. For some, it was this battle, one he fought publically and with great dignity, bravery and humour, that he will be remembered for. However, what was so impressive about Andy Ripley was his unwavering enthusiasm for life. An immense athlete, Andy’s abilities transcended way off the field of sport. With a maverick approach to both sport and life, he was one of the very last in a great English tradition of all-round amateur sportsmen that is no longer sustainable in today’s era of professional sport. More’s the pity.

First hitting the headlines for his rugby abilities (24 caps for England, a World Cup Sevens winner in 1973, a British & Irish Lion in their unbeaten tour of South Africa in 1974), Andy played first-class rugby at Rosslyn Park until the age of 41. A champion tri-athlete and exceptional 400 metres runner, he was a winner of the BBC’s Superstars competition in the 1970s and was close to securing a place in the Boat Race for Cambridge at the grand old age of 50 (that’s right, 50). In addition, he was a qualified canoe instructor, skilled at basketball, tennis and water-skiing. And there’s more. Chartered accountant, hugely successful businessman, fluent linguist, rugby commentator for French TV, charity campaigner, credible author. OBE. Husband, father, friend to many.

The obituaries that fill today’s press are a must read. I defy anyone to look at life in quite the same way after reading all that Andy achieved in his 62 years. They will almost certainly make you truly wonder the extent of human endurance.

I was lucky enough to get to know Andy, his wife Elizabeth and three children (Marcus, Claudia and Stef), having originally met them in Greece on holiday in June 2008, and having kept in contact since. I feel very privileged. To be in his presence was to feel blessed. A truly thought provoking individual, Andy combined a seriously laid back approach to life with a (charmingly disguised) drive to succeed in everything that he did. Intelligent, funny, open, enthusiastic, generous of spirit, easy to talk to, strong as an ox, I can think of few other people that I have met that I have found as inspiring. He will be much missed.

His immortal words in the foreward to his book on cancer have been widely quoted but to finish this blog, are worth repeating once again here:

“Dare we hope? We dare.
Can we hope? We can.
Should we hope? We must, because to do otherwise is to waste the most precious of gifts, given so freely by God to all of us. So when we do die, it will be with hope and it will be easy and our hearts will not be broken.”

By Stephanie Branston on June 18th, 2010

Tags: Rugby

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