Masterchef returns: Did you spot the brands?

Last night was eagerly anticipated in my house for the return of Masterchef – and thank goodness they’ve ditched that awful X-Factor style audition process!

Aside from looking wide-eyed at the sheer culinary talent on show (maybe not so much in the early stages, especially the poor girl that thought her sole was plaice!), Masterchef gives me a chance to look out for some fascinating food and drink product placement.

Working in Food and Drink PR and with a genuine interest in brands and logos, I’m probably more aware than most of product placement. And although Masterchef may be less commercial than some programmes in its brand promotion, there were still some top names on show. Did you spot them?

Those who take note of packaging might have noticed the Waitrose ingredients or Colman’s Mustard – the show’s producers may have covered the name up but you still can’t fail to recognise that British classic! Even more subtle was the careful placement of Olive and Cook Vegetarian magazines in the waiting room.

On the equipment side, Pyrex jugs, Circulon pans and Salter weighing scales were all evident in the first episode, not to mention the unmistakable KitchenAid Artisan Mixer lurking mysteriously on the back shelf – as it does so often on TV cookery shows.

So how many did you get? You’ve got another chance to play tonight...

WATERSTONE’S DROPS A CLANGER

As wordsmiths, if there’s one topic that’s sure to get a PR team debating it’s the rights and wrongs of words and grammar.

So, when yesterday’s news that Waterstone’s is to drop the apostrophe in its trading name and logo, I knew the WPR office was in for a spot of banter.

Instant mumblings referred to ‘another nail in the coffin for the death of the English language’ as well as ‘the grammatically incorrectness’ of the new name. All valid points and all rather ironic really given that as a bookshop, you wouldn’t expect Waterstone’s, sorry Waterstones, to be so ‘slapdash’ with their English.

It is exciting to see words constantly been simplified and adapted. Every year the Collins dictionary gets bigger and bigger with more and more slang words making an appearance...it is all about moving with the times after all! But surely when it comes to grammar there is only a right and a wrong way?

With the new MD claiming that the apostrophe drop was to make the spelling more practical and versatile in a digital world, I did have to smile reading the catty comments being posted by the world’s twitterati, presumably for who this name change was intended.

One scathing post said: ‘Waterstone’s are acting like the middle-aged classical music fan, who pretends to like a bit of hip hop’.

I really couldn’t have put it better myself.

Tough times in retail and the rag trade is only starting to put its numbers in!

It’s been a fascinating few days for retail watchers as the high street puts out its Christmas numbers and we are assaulted by a flurry of like-for-like statistics with clear winners and losers already becoming apparent.

Various reasons have been put forward by the losers for poor performances, including savage discounting by competitors and shoppers using coupons for food purchases. The one excuse we haven’t heard much of yet is the impact of online shopping, but we got a glimpse of what could be carnage next week when a flurry of clothing retailers get their numbers out.

The Halfords numbers, which came out yesterday, include a 10.8 per cent dip in like-for-likes in its car enhancement sector. For those of us who are not fluent in ‘Halfords-speak’ this apparently means that the company has seen “satnav sales fall off a cliff”, according to the Guardian.

Well, I’m not surprised. Anecdotally, I can tell you that I went into Halfords before Christmas to buy a satnav for my better half and was quoted circa £120 for a Garmin model with no Continental European mapping (that was another £55!). I got a slightly smaller Garmin model on Amazon with full Continental European mapping for £69. Ouch!

My guess is that the retail sector is bracing itself for more clothing numbers which are due soon. Certainly, the JD Sports numbers were not great yesterday and that is a bad sign for a company who are normally very on the ball when it comes to anticipating high street trends and maintaining gross margins through the Christmas period (although I notice Ted Baker are up 15 per cent!).

It should be an interesting few days!

What Liverpool FC should have done!

Two things have concerned me about the Luis Suarez / Patrice Evra racial abuse case which has been all over the sports pages.

The first can be dealt with quickly. Liverpool’s responses have been abysmal. Both statements released by the club, one in the immediate aftermath of the verdict and the other yesterday following the decision not to appeal, have been knee-jerk, ill-thought through and bad tempered.

Either senior management at the club have no faith in their PR people and are drafting statements themselves or PR people at the club are not being listened to. My suspicion is that the club needs a communication function with the gravitas to stand up to some very big personalities and move communication beyond keeping the Liverpool Echo happy. Best advice in both cases would have been for short, carefully-worded statements, not the haranguing diatribes that were released.

I vividly remember being involved in a hostile bid situation about 10 years ago. Our client hurriedly called his team of advisers together in order to draft a response to another initiative by the activist shareholder. The CEO, totally fed up by this point, started dictating a stinging response for issue to the London Stock Exchange, egged on by his lawyers and stockbrokers. My colleague and I, increasingly uncomfortable with all of this (we were mentally writing the next day’s headlines) managed to drag out the drafting until 6.30pm by which time it was too late to issue the response that day. By the next morning, calmer heads had prevailed and a three line statement was issued.

This is what should have happened. In an ideal world, PR people, particularly those in-house, should be acting as the company’s policemen, anticipating events and pouring oil on stormy waters. It is one very good reason why PR should never come wholly under the control of marketing, but that’s another blog!

My second issue involves procedure. Everyone in this case admits it has been horrendously difficult, involving language barriers, cultural issues, race and tribal loyalties. For the Football Association to throw a Queens Counsel into this mix, in the form of Paul Goulding QC, whose every instinct is to prosecute by any means within the law, was like adding petrol onto a fire.

What this case needed was dispute resolution, in the form of arbitration and conciliation, to move two parties with entrenched positions to some sort of agreement about what happened and crucially what was, and was not meant, during the exchanges, which were in pigeon Spanish, between the two players.

The FA may well be patting itself on the back this morning, but nobody, least of all my football club, comes out of this episode well.

No hacking required - Rupert Murdoch is on Twitter

Yes, the Billionaire CEO of News Corporation has joined the twitterati, amassing more than 80,000 followers in the process! Considering the humble pie that was served to Murdoch this year during the course of hackgate and with the mogul being a much-maligned public figure in the UK as a consequence, this could be quite an interesting venture! 

So, what does a press veteran say in 140 characters? Well, the majority of tweets so far come littered with slightly awkward punctuation akin only to when your grandmother battles with predictive text, covering culture, politics and day to day antics; already Murdoch is displaying his distaste for the Brits – a feeling no doubt reinforced throughout 2011. 

 

Many will suspect an agenda behind the old timers move in to social media that is more than just a pensioner’s curiosity, however, whose idea it was I’m not sure. Perhaps the most telling comment so far comes from Murdoch himself with one of his first tweets reading - “I’m getting killed for fooling around on here and friends frightened what I may really say!” 

I’m sure they are. Wife Wendi certainly wasn’t approving! I also can’t help but think of the awkward looks James was giving his old man during the Select Committee interviews back in July – no doubt he now feels like most teenagers do when their parents add them on Facebook.

Image can be a delicate thing, especially in the realm of social media. I’d therefore hazard a guess that News Corp’s PR are also wincing at the thought of the boss tweeting – particularly if we are to see more of the above!

Furthermore, whilst my sympathy for the man could fit in a Japanese thimble, I am also cringing at the thought of the avalanche of abusive tweets that will now be directed straight at the octogenarian - just yesterday the hashtag #Murdochsdeletedtweets was trending (after deleting the above tweet at the request of Wendi). Then again, perhaps right now all concerned are more pre-occupied on the possible attempts to hack his password? Oh, the irony.  

Whilst Twitter could make a mockery of Mr Murdoch, one thing is clear - as Jack Dorsey said, “With his own voice, in his own way, Rupert Murdoch is now on Twitter.” Certainly, as Piers Morgan also commented, “This will be fascinating…”

I wonder if he’ll follow @tom_watson?