Yes that’s right, customers in New Zealand can expect to see the WeightWatchers stamp of approval on some of the “healthy” meals that the fast food giant sells, such as chicken wraps, salads and Fillet-o-Fish.

According to the New Zealand arm of WeightWatchers, people should be able to enjoy “all food in moderation”. But the partnership has angered anti-obesity campaigners who have cynically dismissed the deal as a marketing ploy.

Personally I’m not sure the relationship will be a lasting one (I can’t see the typical connoisseur of McDonalds opting for a Mc-Salad-Sandwich-Meal). But then again, that’s what I said about peanut butter and jam….

News spread on Tuesday that a bug similar to Y2K sunk its teeth into Sony’s older ‘fat’ (or if we’re being PC, ‘horizontally challenged’) Playstation 3. As owners prepared themselves for the prospect of losing their saved games and being unable to play online, I couldn’t help but snigger.

Many couldn’t even play in offline mode, leaving frustrated gamers wondering what was causing the baffling ‘8001050F’ error.

The bug, dubbed the ApocolyPS3, occurred when the PS3’s internal clock switched to February 29, evidently causing the system much confusion as that date doesn’t exist this year.

The latest fiasco will have left the powers that be at Sony with faces redder than the gamers who couldn’t get their fix and whose hours of hard work (OK, play) might have gone to waste.

In a statement, Sony said: “If you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.”

Frustrated by the whole affair, gamers turned to social media to vent their anger. One comment on CVG said: “I cannot play any games, cannot log on to PSN. Your silence is doing nothing to help the situation. Looks like there is going to be millions of dead PS3’s all over the world with no fix in sight. Sony, you have just screwed up big time.” A video on YouTube called ‘How to fix PS3 error 8001050F’ showed an owner simply unplugging his PS3 and transferring the cables to an Xbox 360, whilst members of Facebook groups such as ‘I’m a victim of the PS3 Y2K bug’ offered more sensible advice.

Gamers were later left wondering why Sony failed to explain how they resolved the issue during an apology. It was later revealed that it fixed itself without any intervention from Sony. This sounds to me like a company that hasn’t got full control over and knowledge of its own hardware.

As the PS3 community flocked to forums for guidance in the wake of the crisis, it became apparent that saved games and ‘Trophies’ (an achievement tracking system) could be restored – no doubt accompanied by many sighs of relief.

Of course, the cynic in me wonders whether the whole episode was just an attempt by Sony to get everyone to upgrade to the newer, slimmer version of the PS3.

COTTON USA runs the programme in conjunction with the chosen designer at London Fashion Week in order to promote the use of U.S. cotton to retailers and buyers across the globe.

A bustling show with over 450 people in attendance, the crowd was treated to an amazing display of tricky fabrics, clamped into place with sparkly bulldog clips. The highlight of the collection was his use of velvet and cotton tulle, beautiful fabrics that were inspired by laid-back Parisian chic and the latter made predominantly from U.S. cotton.  His collection was an absolute crowd pleaser and we were thrilled to have previewed it.

Not only were the clothes top notch, amongst other big names, Alexandra Shulman, the Editor of Vogue UK, Jane Bruton, the brains behind Grazia and Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud all enjoyed the prestige of sitting front row.

In fact – the fun doesn’t stop there. COTTON USA’s actually going to be giving away clothes from the show! As part of the programme COTTON USA will be running five competitions. Keep checking the COTTON USA website for details for where and how to enter…

 

Richard Nicoll

Many people have reacted with dismay to the closure of 6Music, including celebrities such as Phil Jupitus who has described the potential axing of 6 Music as “an act of cultural vandalism”.

Apparently one of the reasons for the closure (spokesperson on the radio) is that 6Music never attracted a big enough user base. Digital radios though still seem to be fairly few and far between. We don’t have one in the Kaizo office, relying on the good old internet to get our daily fix.

A weekly audience of 620,000 listeners may not match the heady heights of The Today Programme or Chris Moyles, but the BBC seems to be missing the point. The beauty of a digital station is that you can cater for a specific audience. We’ve already witnessed the speed in which the iPlayer has taken off and in the next couple of years the way in which we access digital content will evolve again. Before the BBC knows it, those 620,000 weekly listeners could have doubled due to the station becoming more accessible to a wider audience via mobile devices or set top boxes. And in any case, if the BBC can churn out turgid shows like ‘Cash in the Attic’, I expect my tastes to be catered for as well!

In recent years, the BBC has come under increasing fire to justify its license fee against commercial organisations. I for one have always defended it due to the leadership the BBC has demonstrated in cultural and media innovation. Today, that argument is all that much harder to defend. There are dozens of radio stations out there with chart driven play lists. 6Music provides a strong alternative that has personality. Will we see an improvement in Radio1 away from all of the chart music, with wider appeal that integrates new and alternative music? Unfortunately I fear not. I also don’t believe Radio2 will be able to diversify its range of music and ‘audience’ to fill the big, 6Music-shaped hole that will be left.

The hashtag #save6Music is currently the top trending topic on Twitter and 6Music has been the subject of an online campaign to save it, with the Facebook group attracting over 84,000 supporters. For the moment, this seems to have all been in vain. The one ray of light is that the station will remain open until the end of 2011 and the decision still needs to be upheld by the BBC Trust. Labour MP Tom Watson has also taken up the fight, tabling a motion in the House of Commons for “the Government to encourage the BBC to continue its support for the station for many years to come.”

So the fight isn’t over just yet. Save our 6Music!

(image source: http://www.bustedtees.com/keepthedreamalive)

John was full of anecdotes and witticisms as he recalled being the BBC’s Foreign Correspondent at a time when everything was shot on film and loaded onto an aeroplane in the hope that the news got back into Britain the next day! Other insightful commentaries included how he

broke the news of Nixon’s impending resignation via the first ever BBC satellite feed from the Whitehouse.

Amongst the usual candidates responsible for the changes in media (24 hour news, the internet, social media), John mentioned the death of deference. He argued that this has had a profound effect on the way journalism is approached.

John made some interesting points about the effect of 24 hour news on the media. Although it used to take a while to get the news, this gave reporters a chance to think about what they would write. Nowadays there are vast numbers of people covering every single story that breaks, with the audience expecting that they will know about it immediately. With the advent of interactive media, more and more people can keep abreast of news events as and when they happen and talk and share opinions about that news.

Although John remains concerned at the prospect of completely unmediated news, I think it’s the result of the fast paced and driven world in which we now live. Technology has changed the goal posts and so we must adapt too. Even though content is pouring into places like the BBC, we should have enough confidence in the ability of those employed there to review it as rigorously as they can in the time they have. Even if the news is slightly vague, at least we’re now privy to the story as it happens. Often this can prove advantageous, for example, if we hadn’t immediately found out about events like the earthquake in Haiti, far more people would have perished. Treated with caution and (albeit a slightly lower standard of due process) rolling news is a step forward in the right direction.

Thankfully my spirits were lifted again this week as the status quo was restored. In a global battle of the sexes, men and women went head to head in a bid to win the title of the Trivia Pursuits champion sex. Five months and a whopping 15 million questions later, Hasbro announced the results: Women: 4,088,139,Men: 4,077,596.

The result sparked a lengthy debate at Kaizo HQ: some dismissed it as a narrow victory, others called it a fix (all the boys, I might add). But for now I’m happy, we finally have proof that girls rule. And, most satisfying of all, the boys lost…to a girl!

Whether a lover of Greggs’ baked delights or not, the news certainly managed to generate debate and raised awareness of Greggs’ upmarket plans. Who knows … perhaps we’ll soon see McDonald’s Golden arches made of real gold, or the newest Pizza Hut lined with silk. On second thoughts, I very much doubt it!

With so much buzz about the rise of social media and how important it is for brands, it’s too easy to forget the importance of offline conversations. According to stats mentioned recently by WOMMA there is a 90% to 10% split between offline and online Word of Mouth. It also shares that three quarters of this offline brand chat takes place face-to face and 15% by phone.

When you add to these stats the fact that Nielsen research shows that personal recommendations are the most trusted form of marketing, with 90% of people trusting the recommendation made by a friend, then having a plan and an integrated PR programme to actively stimulate these offline conversations is a must.

One issue raised by marketers is that it is hard to measure or track the impact of offline WOM. But is that really true?

If you have a smart plan to create positive recommendations for people to engage with your organisation or buy your products or services, then it’s completely possible to identify the way to track the impact of your programme. The consumer engagement initiative we created for Simple is a good example. By involving brand advocates with a product ahead of launch we stimulated the desire for over 8000 more people to sign up as advocate advisers – in just 5 days. The only way these new recruits would have heard about the benefits of becoming an adviser was from their friends. When you consider that these 8000 recruits were stimulated by just 4000 existing advocates, you can see the cause and effect and the power of offline WOM. Is your organisation using the 90 to 10 ratio to your advantage?

According to a survey by laundry firm Dr Beckmann, men wear their jeans 15 times before washing them. I’m not sure I really wanted to know that to be honest and it’s not really true, right boys?

Debenhams also conducted research into the varying heights of men’s trousers versus their waistlines and concluded that how high men wear their trousers depends on their age.

Teenage hormones cause waistbands to plunge below the waist once their mothers have stopped buying their clothes for them. Working life lifts this to a more ‘respectable’ height (although a quick glance around Kaizo HQ questions this theory). The height above the waistline continues to rise in line with age until finally, by 57 the trouser is a massive five inches above the waist. My dad, lovely as he may be, is a perfect example!

So come on guys, you’ve still got a few weeks left before Valentine’s Day to impress the ladies – give those jeans a wash and start wearing those trousers on your waist, where they belong!

The trends that are important are those that show how consumers are changing. So, whilst in 2009 fear played an important role in shaping consumer behaviours, 2010 is set to see the start of the return of consumer confidence. Mintel, the market research company, has suggested a new set of consumer values for 2010, with ‘balance’ and ‘resilience’ being peppered with ‘escapism’ inside and outside the home. So, a hopeful look towards the future as we encounter a more positive outlook.

So what else is set to come out on top for the year? Whilst digital has been delved into in the past, make no mistake, 2010 is the year of digital, with consumer electronics dominating trending search terms.  This month’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was hit by 3-D mania, fuelled by impressive new TVs sets and the epic film Avatar.  This year and beyond will be focused on 3-D.  E-readers are also set to revolutionise the way we all read content, particularly with a whole host of new e-readers being launched on the back of the success of the Amazon Kindle.

But, as always, the real value in tracking consumer trends is the ability to predict how today’s trends will again develop tomorrow. By always looking to the next stage of the consumer journey…or leap, and the future implications, means that brands will be able to stay one step ahead and adapt before their competitors.