Nikki Grier – Live Performances – “Incredible” and “Any Day Now”

It’s been nearly a month since my last posting – it’s been a busy few weeks for me! I wanted to pick up this month with a couple of videos from YouTube of Nikki Grier performing two of her songs live – both produced by Dr. Dre – but obviously with a live band in the videos!

I have made a number of postings on this blog about Nikki as I really think a great deal of her extreme talent. Nikki has one of the most incredible voices I’ve heard in a long time.

So…. see below the two videos of Nikki’s live performances:

“Incredible”

“Any Day Now”

Loyalty cards based on local shops?

I had a thoughon Sunday morning while having my regular Sunday Americano coffee at Caffe Nero. When you go to your local shops where the shop assistant knows you, they know what you want and they will give that to you. They know your buying behaviour and also what you might like. Therefore they are in a position to say… “would you like to try this?”. It is similar to the vouchers you receive through the post from the likes of Tesco and Boots…. they are tempting you with things based on your previous buying behaviour.  My local Caffe Nero treats me in this way – upselling based on what they think you may like, which is normally pastries.  I’m not sure that Starbucks would do this…

Investing in brand during an economic downturn

Investing in your brand during a downturn is an important tactic that organisations should consider. It means that you’ve prepared your brand through investment, public exposure and increased awareness levels, which means that when the economy becomes stronger and people are spending again, your brand is already out there and doing strong with a loyal customer base.

Brands and Twitter

How useful is twitter at promoting brands? It is a tool that companies have started to use however it is yet to be decided on whether it really is a useful tool.

My main thought is that the challenge for brands is to actually get ‘followers’ in the first place. They firstly need to be engaged with the consumer and also be relevant to online.  Perhaps an integrated online approach (which T-Mobile have done well) would be required with some sort of viral campaign to help engage.

Facebook because of groups and heavier content would be a more easily utilised in my opinion.

Coffee – Starbucks, Costa, Caffe Nero – and the economic downturn

I was enjoying a coffee at 9am this morning at Caffe Nero and had a thought about consumer spending in relation to coffee (amongst other products and services).  My thoughts relate partly to Starbucks introduction of their rewards card and the fact that Starbucks are having to find other ways to add value to the customers purchase and experience of their brand and products.

Consumer spending has dropped especially on products that are not deemed essential or do not add enough value to their lives to make it worth it.  Competitors to Starbucks such as Caffe Nero and  Costa Coffee are already in a fine position in my opinion.  I believe that their product offering is so much better than Starbucks.  The atmosphere of the Costa and Caffe Nero shops are more authentic and enjoyable, making for a much better, value added, product consumption experience.

In my opinion Starbucks have become wise to this and realised that the product is very ordinary – thus the reason for introducing the add extras as part of the rewards scheme.  Starbucks is a coffee which appealed to the masses because it is ordinary, whereas coffee lovers who are after that better experience and greater quality coffee (which is generally stronger) opt for Caffe Nero and Costa.

Neither Starbucks, Costa or Caffe Nero actually ever compete on price, but more so through talking about their products and brand heritage, in order to create that cut through and differentiation, which then leads to loyalty through experiencing the brand and product.

Starbucks seeking Loyalty through Rewards Card

This week Starbucks Coffee launched their loyalty scheme on a Starbucks Rewards Card.  Rewards will be in the form of added extras that customers can have with their coffee which include syrup or an extra shot.  Starbucks customers must register their card online which will obviously be added to the Starbucks database.  To entice customers to register, a free coffee voucher will be given to customers once registered.

So thinking about competitors, Caffe Nero have for many years had a simple loyalty card where you get your 10th coffee for free.  Caffe Nero don’t even ask for your personal details to build a database from, which is a good thing if you’re conscious of providing details.

Starbucks on the other hand could be looking at a more customer behaviour and buying habits approach by introducing this rewards card that will probably mean Starbucks will be contacting customers in a similar fashion as the likes of Tesco and Boots.

However, I personally see how the Starbucks Reward Card is more attractive than what Caffe Nero offer.  I always look forward to my 10th coffee for free.  Whereas with Starbucks, customers will almost feel as if they need to take an extra shot or a free flavoured syrup.  Time will tell how Stabucks will use the data they collect from the registrations.

The question is… does this actually add any value to customers and will this actually make customers loyal to the brand?

Bonding – Strong Brands

Millward Brown, the global research company, conducts an annual project to identify the 100 top global brands by calculating the actual brand value, as well as changes in brand category value.

For 2009 the top 10 global brands are as follows:

1. Google;  2. Microsoft;  3. Coca-Cola;  4. IBM;  5. McDonalds;  6. Apple;  7. China Mobile;  8. General Electric;  9. Vodafone;  10. Marlboro.

Out of those top 10 I am actually only somewhat loyal to probably just two of those brands!

Click here to find out more about ‘Brandz’ and also to look at the methodology.

Shirt Sponsorship in Football

Over the last decade shirt sponsorhip market value amongst the top European football leagues has increased from around 200 million Euros to just under 400 million Euros, but is now in a slight decline.  This is mainly because of the downturn in the economy and companies are now looking at alternative ways of spending marketing budgets that can be better justified and more easily and accurately measured in terms of return on investment.

Brands still looking to invest in shirt sponsorship however will go for the biggest and more successful clubs who have large supporter bases, and this leads to the smaller teams struggling to gain sponshorship.

Alternatively clubs can look to improve their perception in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), such as FC Barcelona who have Unicef on their shirt – for free.

With increasing brand awareness and customer loyalty the main objectives of a brand pursuing shirt sponsorship, it is important that the tie-up is right – and during a downturn loyalty is especially important.  Chelsea FC discovered through research that since their sponsorship deal with Samsung that Chelsea fans started to buy Samsung products over other brands.

Based on this football shirt sponsorship could be a reliable and attractive opportunity if your company is looking to increase customer loyalty.

Should Starbucks have gone instant with Via Ready Brew?

Being a coffee fan yet not actually having any coffee in my apartment, I only drink coffee out… be it at Caffe Nero, occasionally Costa Coffee or at my office.

Big coffee fans generally enjoy the taste of a fresh coffee prepared as you wait so that the consumer can benefit from that great coffee taste and caffiene kick.  It doesn’t really concern me as I don’t have coffee at home, but is Starbucks strategy of launching an instand coffee product (Starbucks Via Ready Brew) a good move?

In my opinion it can do a couple of things:
- dilute/devalue the Starbucks brand in that you can prepare a Starbucks coffee at home and the extra added value of a special coffee has gone.
- drive loyal Starbucks customers to purchase the Starbucks Via Ready Brew product and drink more at home than actually in the coffee shops – this could ultimately lead to less Starbucks outlets, and even more closings.
- however to some loyal Starbucks customers it could reinforce the brand and lead to these customers purchasing Starbucks Via Ready Brew instead of Nescafe or Kenco, for example.

It is an interesting development in brand product launches and will be interesting to see how Costa Coffee react. I don’t see Caffe Nero following suit as they are a much less commercial and more specialist brand

I certainly won’t be purchasing Starbucks Via Ready Brew and won’t be taking up home coffee drinking!

Fat Tax to be introduced by Ryanair

As previously written about on this blog, Ryanair, the low cost airline) now look as if they will follow customer feedback / research and introduce a fat tax for “really large passengers who invade the space of the passengers sitting beside them”.  Ryanair have also said that if introduced the fat tax could be an incentive for the affected passengers to lose weight.

To further make a decision on whether to roll this out Ryanair will be polling visitors of their website, Ryanair.com, on how to charge overweight / obese passengers – which could be either a) a charge per kilo for those passenger over 130kg’s (for men) and 100kg’s (for women), or b) a one off charge if Ryanair passengers waste touches the other armrests.

Instead of a fat tax being introduced, I think Ryanair could follow the lead from US airlines that charge passengers to buy an extra seat if they spill over their space.  We will wait see what Michael O’Leary does!