Levi’s: an easy fit in the challenger brand style.

Tags

challenger brand, Levi's

To stay number one – think and behave as if you’re number two.

This characteristic of a ‘challenger brand’ intrigued me, back in the day when I first discovered the whole challenger concept.

Apple, of iPhone and i-everything else fame, represents the highest profile challenger model – it strikes the poses of the hot new thing on the catwalk, even though it’s a venerable member of the technological establishment and has existed for almost as long as I have.

If anyone wants to write a non-Apple case study to illustrate the challenger notion, they need look no further than a recent weekend newspaper magazine interview with James Curleigh, President of jeans giant Levi’s. He never mentions ‘challenger’, but his quotes puts his business firmly in that camp.

When he joined Levi’s in summer 2012, the company has lost its edge. “We were still number one but it didn’t feel that way, you know?” Clearly, while numero uno might on the face of it seem great, it’s not so great if turnover isn’t what it was and you are continually having to look over your shoulder as your competitors gain ground.

Curleigh’s arrival has spurred some bold new marketing and an ad campaign, aimed at recapturing the spirit of a brand once (unofficially) endorsed by Marlon Brando and James Dean – based around ‘progress’ and doing your own thing.

Curleigh also said he pictures Levi’s as “a 140-year-old start-up”. A long history and past glories aren’t enough: a business has to tune into current attitudes.

Are Americans better at self-helping themselves?

Tags

Dale Carnegie, self-help

The time I’ve been devoting to watching videos on the internet this past week has less to do with publicity surrounding Youtube’s eighth birthday than with my new access to wifi and faster internet speeds.

Anyway, as well as the obligatory chortling at funny pet clips I’ve been looking at some corporate videos and, in a not unrelated field, those personal development briefings on how to get noticed at meetings or how to perform well at interviews and presentations.

I can’t vouch for how expert the ‘experts’ are, but they look pretty accomplished to me. They are invariably articulate and possess the self-confidence you would expect of people who make a living from telling others how to better themselves. They are also nearly always American.

This made me wonder what chemicals go into the American water to produce all these supercharged business professionals. Of course, America has a bigger population than Britain, and dominates the internet, so a casual search is always going to come up with high-end US practitioners. But the typical optimistic and energised delivery is so very non-British in its passion. If a capable Brit was given the same remit, the outcome would likely be flat-sounding platitudes: more David Brent than Dale Carnegie.

The self-help industry long ago made a huge splash in the USA, and I can detect its ripples throughout the marketing world (as well as other sectors) over on this side of the Pond, though on the whole we haven’t achieved the same panache.

As for why America loves self-help, I imagine the answer lies in its social history and with its veneration of ‘potential’, which is all you could rely on if you were the archetypal poor immigrant trying your luck in the New World.

Self-help is big in India too, judging by the titles of the most prominent books I saw displayed at bus station stalls. Is this down to the American influence, or does it reflect indigenous conditions in the Asian subcontinent? When a country’s economy starts going places, do the self-help gurus hitch a ride?

Youtube can’t help me answer this, but perhaps You can? Comments below, please!

Field Notes: Chartwell

Tags

Chartwell, National Trust

I recently went over the county border to Kent to have a look around Chartwell, once the home of Sir Winston Churchill.

It would be expecting too much to end one’s journey to a historic house with some gentle motoring through parkland and parking spot a few yards from the front entrance.

So I wasn’t too surprised that my first experience of Chartwell was the usual huge National Trust car park – almost not huge enough for the crowds arriving on the first sunny Sunday of a grim spring.

Still, I found a space and, walking slightly downhill towards the house, the parking area quickly disappeared from view (I checked by looking behind me), so I was able to take in the surroundings as a weekending Churchill would have done.

The house has a fairly undistinguished red brick exterior. At first glance the black framed windows look like newish additions. But then, the house is fairly modern. Much of it was redesigned when Churchill bought it in the 1920s. The arched windows I see on the terrace side are revealed, later in my tour, to be those of a low-ceilinged but bright, informal dining room, which would have come into its own on summer days. On the wall opposite the windows is a painting which a jovial Churchill worked on one Christmas – ‘Bottlescape’, a still life depicting his favourite tipples.

Entering his study, most of which is roped off, my eyes immediately search for his desk, at which I imagine much of his thinking and writing began. It’s reassuringly solid and wide, though I am not convinced the very numerous framed family photos cluttering its surface would have been there in his day. On the other hand, as I learn from the concise and well-laid out information sheet in my hand, most of his thinking was done standing up or pacing around the room. He would dictate on his feet to an assistant, the books he needed for reference laid out on a wide lecturn.

The rooms given over to museum-type displays brought me as close to the man as many of his more domestic rooms. In the glass cases are honours in the form of medals and other objects given to him by admiring foreign governments or by British cities which made him a freeman. On a more parochial level, there is a medallion commemorating his cow’s first prize in a class at Tunbridge Wells Show.

Several hats, including a straw one with a rakishly wide brim, are displayed alongside photos of Churchill in casual attire in the grounds of the house. As he wandered he would typically pick up a feather and stick it in the band of his Homburg.

At the moment there is little to excite the horticulturalist in the Chartwell gardens, though given a spell of clement weather the rose garden might prove a draw later in the year. Meanwhile, ropes and a sign keep visitors off a patch of brown lawn, recovering from a children’s Easter Egg hunt.

This week has been all about Margaret Thatcher, and rightly so. But on the evidence of Chartwell, interest in the human side of her most illustrious prime ministerial predecessor is still very strong, nearly five decades after his death.

How the West was spun

Tags

American history, Billy the Kid

Watching my box set of Western films has fired my interest in gunslingers…

The other day I watched the last film in my box set of eight Westerns, all from the mighty Warner Bros studio which marks its 90th anniversary this month, and all new to me.

Just as I would savour drams from a fine bottle of whisky and make it last, I’ve been spreading my viewings over a period of many months. The order in which I watched them was largely random, but I made an early decision to leave the most recent film, The Unforgiven, till the end.

In the meantime, I had hours of Sunday afternoon entertainment – if that’s not too flippant a word to describe The Searchers, in which John Wayne doggedly pursues the murderers of his family. Lighter in approach was Sam Peckinpah’s stylish Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, with music by Bob Dylan.

I’d long known that The Unforgiven was Clint Eastwood’s ‘revisionist’ Western, but didn’t think that description amounted to anything more than being nice to Indians. As it turned out, Indians hardly feature in the film, which is actually an attempt to lay bare any illusions we may have about the glamour of the Wild West. In one scene, a defenceless man is shot while sitting on the lavatory. The bravado of the boy who has pulled the trigger and thus registered his first kill quickly turns to sorrow, almost mid-sentence, as the enormity of taking a life dawns on him. Eastwood’s gunfighter character has a mediocre aim, needing several shots to take out the easy target presented by a hurt bad guy crawling towards the safety of a rock (even then Eastwood can’t fire a clean shot, getting him in the guts).

The myth of the west is a powerful one and it has helped shaped the American character. As far as rugged individualism and a pioneering spirit are concerned, it’s no bad thing.

But myths obscure more debatable truths. There’s no more striking embodiment of this than the real-life Billy the Kid, about whom I’ve been reading since watching the Peckinpah film.

I’ve learned that often the only difference between an outlaw and a sheriff was the badge on the latter’s lapel. I’ve learned too that there were few real heroes in the 19th century American West – just men who were greedy, recklessly violent, or both.

Inflation makes the penny pointless

Tags

pound coin

This Monday marks 30 years since the introduction of the pound coin.

The pound note was soon pushed into retirement, and I wish the 1p piece, and the 2p as well, would beat a retreat too.

I have far too many coppers filling up an assortment of bags and taking up my storage space. It’s a job to know how to spend them. You are not going to endear yourself to any shop assistant by paying for a carton of milk with 89 little coins. It’s a real bore counting them out and putting them in little bags to take to the bank and exchange for a few pound coins. In an era of online financial transactions there doesn’t seem much point in making a trip to your local branch just for this. For anyone averse to queuing, banks are joining post offices as places best avoided. The banks seem to be acknowledging this themselves by opening many branches mornings only.

Who – apart from children – buys penny sweets? Inflation has probably put paid to most of those, anyway. I recall the days when a packet of polos cost 10p, making it quite feasible to pay with ten 1p pieces, but its current price of around 45p puts paid to that idea.

So, Bank of England, cease your deliberations over quantitative easing and instead withdraw the penny. The retail price adjustment from £1.99 to £1.95 would leave us with more money (5ps this time) in our pockets and might even help stimulate spending.

Why Easter’s the sweetest break

Tags

chocolate, daffodils

Easter is possibly the new Christmas, providing us with a relaxing festive break – without the grim trawl around the shops and Slade’s greatest (or only) hit assaulting our ears.

An excess of choice makes life head-hurtingly complicated: fortunately at Easter gift options are limited (more or less) to chocolate.

And it’s so much cheaper too, even when you’re purchasing for your most-loved one. Chocolate is affordable. What, you may say, about the high-end single estate cocoa products of boutique companies, the Fabergé eggs of the confectionary world? Well, those are must-haves for some, but it’s generally accepted that you don’t need to spend a great deal on anyone’s egg, and children at any rate are perfectly happy with anything Cadbury’s has to offer.

The weather at Easter is much better (yes, I know, I’ve ventured outside too – but usually). Daffodils have sprouted, birds are chirping away, and new-born lambs are staggering to their feet (or trying to escape from snow drifts). And the Easter weekend is neatly sandwiched (with chocolate in the middle, I guess) between the two Bank Holidays Good Friday and Monday. We are spared the never ending Yuletide, and the Twixtmas limbo period in particular (it’s difficult to get much done in an office if you get an out-of-office reply to every email).

And what about religion? If Christmas is all about a special birth, Easter arguably beats that with a powerful tale of sacrifice, death and rebirth. Even for those who prefer Play Stations to the Stations of the Cross, the essential message of Easter – egg equals birth, triumph of life over death, new hope and all that – is not hard to understand, and probably more appealing than a Cadbury’s Crème Egg.

Cincinnatus – a statesman in a field of his own

Tags

Cincinnatus

So, Boris Johnson can foresee the day when he will be a modern Cincinnatus, dragging himself away from his humble farm to lead his country in a time of great need. That’s who he compared himself with when asked whether he would like to become Prime Minister.

Cincinnatus’s seminal moment conjures up an evocative scene. As the historian Livy relates, he was either digging a ditch or ploughing a field on his farm when duty called (Rome was threatened by the Aequi), whereupon he wiped his muddy hands before donning the toga of office. But while he may be an enduring model of Roman virtue, any parallels with Boris Johnson don’t stand up to much scrutiny.

If our country, and the Conservative Party, must have a strong leader to dig us out of our depressing financial rut, the time is now – not three or four years down the road, when the economy is unlikely to be any worse than it is at the moment (it may even be improving). Committed as he is to another three years as London Mayor, Boris is simply unavailable to act the saviour.

Also, Cincinnatus had no part in his elevation. He was appointed in his absence, and the first he knew of it was the surprising appearance in his field of a delegation, asking him to return to the fray. Boris, in contrast, loves the limelight and, as an ambitious type, would need no persuading to take on a key national role. Unlike Cincinnatus and his plough, Boris is busy at City Hall in London. ‘Gardening leave’, let alone farming, is far from his mind.

Neither Boris nor any other contemporary British politician, a fortnight into a new job, would copy the Roman statesman’s final act. As soon as the crisis was over (after fifteen days), Cincinnatus didn’t hang around to lap up the applause or consolidate his power. Instead he resigned and carried on digging, or ploughing, where he’d left off.

Not on school reading lists: James Herbert’s novels

Tags

James Herbert

News of the death of horror writer James Herbert this week dug up some half-buried memories of my schooldays.

Some of my classmates slouched around reading The Rats or The Fog. The English teacher would groan audibly when he saw what was engrossing them, picking up the offending items and asking their possessors to find more wholesomely literary material (ideally with no sex scenes).

These books, generally the preserve of the too-cool-for-school crowd, were passed around the cognoscenti like prized football stickers. I never read one myself, but soon after I left the school I found out from my Dad that he had worked closely with Herbert when they had been advertising agency colleagues.

If only I’d mentioned this connection with the writer to my fellow eleven year olds, my stock at the time would have risen enormously. #missedopportunity, as they say on Twitter.

Our health, and how we find the facts that fit

Tags

cyberchondriac

Sorting the good advice from the bad is never easy for the layman, but is further complicated by the ‘confirmation bias’ that is hardwired into the human brain.

Who has not surfed the health websites, typing in their symptoms to find an illness or condition to match their ailment?  There’s a neat word for these self-diagnosers, which I learnt just the other day – cyberchondriacs.  Perhaps you are one of them.

Our interest in our own wellbeing doesn’t stop when we get over whatever has been afflicting us.  It extends to all aspects of our health, especially our diet.

We would all like reassurance that a foodstuff we can’t live without isn’t too unhealthy.  So we scan the medical sites (some more DIY than NHS) and scroll down old 2009 bulletin boards, all the while thinking: “This person’s highly critical, but he’s probably too extreme to be taken seriously… that person can’t spell so I can’t be bothered with his opinions … aha – this is what I want to hear.  Chocolate hobnobs are very wholesome in moderation and good for you as part of a balanced diet.”

So we come away with confirmation of the fact we wanted and hoped to be confirmed.  Never mind whether there’s any science behind it.

Diarists and bloggers

Samuel Pepys, the celebrated diarist

I keep a diary-cum- writing journal – it’s a lined hardback notebook and I write the date at the top of the page, spill out what’s in my head, and put the book to one side until I feel like more scribbling. A formal diary printed in page-per-day format would be too stern a taskmaster, making me feel guilty about leaving entire days blank.

But the notebook’s almost used up and I am wondering whether to continue in the same style. You see, I sometimes try writing as evocatively as I can about thoughts that have occurred to me or places I have visited. It’s a way of keeping my writing muscles in shape. But once on the page these musings sit uneasily with the more mundane ‘for the record’ detailing of what I’ve done in the past few days.

True, I could make my stuff about good meals and family news more literary in tone, but I don’t always have the time or inclination. It’s sometimes more comfortable to leave my writer’s hat hanging on its peg.

I avoid abbreviated note form, because it’s unattractive to look at, but there are times I just want to record that I ate supper in the garden on an unusually warm evening, or describe what I did at work that day, adding of-the-moment context with some current affairs news.

Maybe there’s no real perfect diary solution, other than to keep the recollections of purely personal interest to a bare minimum. I am quite attached to my current mix of personal doings and global context setting. I reckon that 40 years from now the most interesting entries to read will be those that bring back memories of what I was doing while something bigger was going on (though I might also smile at how much fuss was made at the time of soon forgotten politicians).

Will my writings give me pleasure 10 or 20 years hence? That should guide what I jot down.

And that’s also how we should approach blog-writing. We need to put some space between us and the blog: not in time (we can only write in the present), but in perspective. How will my blog look to someone who has never met me?

A personal touch is good, but this has to be balanced by universally interesting content.