Slightly Askew

I hate supermarkets. But they do serve a purpose.

The purpose they serve isn’t, of course, that you can get everything in one place – you can get everything in a town centre or farmers’ market that you can get in a supermarket (nearly). And you don’t have to stroll around with the complexion of a heroin addict underneath all those fluorescent lights.

No, ladies and gentlemen. Supermarkets are brilliant because they allow us to form an opinion on the seven and a half million brands vying for our attention. Because in the throng of the supermarket (Side Issue: old people, don’t go shopping on a fucking Saturday. You’re not welcome. You’ve had all week to trundle around the aisles bemoaning the effect inflation has had on marmalade. Not in my time, please.) …

Where was I? That’s it: In the throng of the supermarket, I have neither the time nor the inclination to compare the average cost of a baked bean, sheet of toilet paper, or millilitre (there’s a word you don’t see written down often) of piss-weak lager. I pick Heinz, Andrex and Carlsberg.

Heinz because they probably invented baked beans. (And if they didn’t, I don’t give shit.) Andrex because a cute little Labrador might run in and cuddle me after a sweaty poo. Carlsberg because it’s probably the best lager in the world. (I find ‘probably’ is certain enough in most situations – except during marriage vows, I suspect.)

These opinions are etched into my minuscule, toxic brain. Every decision is a snap one when I’m in the supermarket.

So here’s an idea: Market Research Mondays. Because if the inane twerps who insist on compiling these silly brand indexes (or ‘indices’, if you’re being pedantic) really want some qualitative data, just ask opinionated twerps like me. And let’s make a night of it. I can grumble with like-minded miseries while performing this weekly dash of frustration. Bring a fucking clipboard.

Tropicana: Nice but expensive – I’ll buy it if it’s on offer. No, I don’t give a shit whether it’s ‘with bits’ or ‘no bits’; I’m not eight years old or a complete simpleton.

Kellogg’s Cornflakes: Every day of the week! Have you tried supermarket branded cornflakes? They’re revolting. I wouldn’t feed them to my cat. She’d disown me. And rightly so.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup: Of course. I never trust people with unbranded condiments. Would you feel safe getting into an unbranded car? It’s the same thing with condiments. Those unbranded viscous squirts could be anything.

And I could go on and on and on.

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Webfusion called me today, apologised for their poor service, and then did everything they could to resolve my issue.

We all make mistakes. But when you’re apologetic and genuine about them, they’re so much easier to forgive.

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This site has an ultra simple look. But, even if I do say so myself, there are a few nice touches to the design of my beloved blog that you might not be aware of.

So in an effort to demonstrate I’m not completely stupid when it comes to all this design and development malarkey, I’ll be sharing a few things with you. (Sorry if you were expecting a sweary rant about some shitty customer services department; normal service will be resumed shortly.)

So here’s the first interesting thing about my blog: it aligns to a baseline grid.

Turn the grid on and off to see what I mean.

Nifty, eh?

All thanks to this article by Wilson Miner on A List Apart.

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Rosie murdered a butterfly.
I stood and watched her do it.
She started with the wingtips.
And then she chewed right through it.

Rosie murdered a butterfly.
I was a witness to the mauling.
She’ll ask me for an alibi.
If the cat cops come a calling.

The butterfly said to Rosie:
“You’ll go to prison without pardon.”
For shitting on the lush green lawn
In the next-door-neighbour’s garden.

Rosie murdered a butterfly.
As I stood there and observed it.
But I won’t turn my poor cat in.
The butterfly deserved it.

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The butcher’s in Southwold is a regular haunt in my daily quest for lunch.

Not because I like to eat raw chunks of meat you must understand. But because the butcher’s is also home to perhaps the best value for money delicatessen in this charming but often laughably overpriced coastal town.

Proof: This footlong BLT took just £1.90 of my wages. And it didn’t taste like the transparent, processed shit you might find in an Underground Tunnel Used By Pedestrians.

When I popped in the other day, one of the butchers was on the phone. It became apparent he was battling an unsolicited sales call.

“Are we a new business? Well, we’ve been here sixty years. So I guess not.”

Sixty years!

So here’s the deal: The butcher’s doesn’t have a logo or a website or a media budget or a fucking Twitter account. They sell sausages and sirloin steaks and rather tasty baguettes with your choice of filling for £1.90. They don’t need SEO or Google Adwords or brand guidelines.

The butcher’s have won by outlasting the competition. They’ve undoubtedly had difficult periods in those sixty years, but they’ve stuck it out. Kept Calm And Carried On.

Perhaps it’s not the most flamboyant of marketing strategies, but outlasting the competition isn’t a bad one.

Just ask former employees of MFI, Zavvi and Woolworths.

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I don’t know when or why I started reading David Hepworth’s blog.

But I’m glad I did.

He writes with the tone of a man that’s very well read. To quasi-paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, you could probably learn more from David Hepworth in ten visits to the pub than you ever learned in school. Not in a Johnny Ball Reveals All kind of way. More a well-rounded and worldly type of learning.

Now, as I mentioned, I don’t know when or why I started reading David Hepworth’s blog.

And this got me thinking.

Who was that referrer? Who was the person that pointed me in the direction of this terrific little blog? And have they got any more good suggestions for me?

But I don’t know. I don’t know where or when I made the clickthrough.

I could sift through my browsing history, but I spend half my life on the internet and frankly don’t have the time or the inclination to do that much sifting.

So I suggest a Firefox extension that records which site referred me to a particular site for the first time. I’m no programmer, so wouldn’t know where to start, but I’m sure there’s some clever bod out there that could create something to fit the bill.

I spoke about this with James and he suggested going a few steps further and plotting some kind of hierarchical tree of referring sites. I guess Google would come out top (through search). But as soon as you take Google out of the loop, it’d be interesting to see which sites have come portals to lots of interesting information on the web. Let’s call it ReferTree. (An ounce of research shows there’s already a social network called this, but meh.)

Maybe you could opt to share this information, too. So lots and lots of data could be crunched and more charts plotted. That’d be interesting.

Well, I think so anyway.

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Uncle John came round for dinner tonight and brought this photo.

It made me smile.

It’s James, me, Micky the Fish and Jamie having a piss beside the A14 after a day at Newmarket races. And in a bizarre way, I think it sums the day up perfectly.

It was one of those bloke days out where the male species – without guidance from the female – do some bonding. We buy each other beer, talk about football, gawp at tabloids, and fritter money away on horses we know nothing about. Every minute brings the opportunity for a one-liner, an anecdote about sexual conquests, or another drink.

It’s not sophisticated, it’s not big, and it certainly isn’t clever. But it is fun. This photo rekindles all those hazy memories of drunken hi-jinx.

Perhaps the nice thing about this photograph is its tangibility. In a world where not having a camera on a phone seems daft, so many of our snaps remain on memory cards forever. They become easy to ignore; filed away on stamp-sized gadgetry, never to evoke feeling again.

This photograph will no doubt end up in a box in a cupboard in a room somewhere. But for the next few weeks it’ll move around the house, become a topic of conversation when people pop round, and make me smile when I don’t feel like smiling.

Wonderful things, photographs.

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A typewriter doesn’t make you technophobe.
A deerstalker doesn’t make you a hunter.
A personality doesn’t make you a personality.
A white cat doesn’t make you a Bond villain.
A stupid idea doesn’t make you stupid – it just might make you original though.

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Free samples are as old as the direct marketing hills.

When I was younger, I remember getting lots of free samples of Wash & Go delivered to our house. Maybe someone thought my hair could do with a few more washes.

Those free samples worked – big, proper bottles of Wash & Go could often be found in the Waters bathroom a few weeks later.

Free samples are still alive and well. Even in the digital world. Introducing Books offers free samples on its website, giving people the opportunity to see the unique style of their books before buying.

Free samples were even available at Latitude festival. Müller (those lick the lid of life people) had a special tent where, every morning, they gave away free yoghurts, corners, rice and those probiotic thingymajigs.

I liked this for two reasons:

1. They were kind enough to give away free food to hungry, hungover people.

2. In a world where financial departments demand hard evidence of ROI, this was a refreshing change. There’s no possible way they could measure ROI or ‘brand engagement’ or any other nauseating marketing term. But they still did it. They still thought it would bring a smile to people’s faces. And genuinely believed that us folk would repay this gesture by purchasing their products on a regular basis (otherwise why do it?).

The thing I really like about free samples is their faith in the product. I love the try-this-once-and-you-will-fucking-love-it attitude. The unwavering belief that one shot at the title is all the little fucker needs to worm its way in your life forever. Free samples cry out: we are a product, and we’re not shit.

* * *

Halfway through writing this post, the topic came up at work. Could we, an agency, give free samples to prove what a brilliant job we could do given the chance?

I’m not so sure. Yoghurts have pots and lids and are full of cream and fruit and stuff. It is a yoghurt or it isn’t. (That’s a sentence I never imagined writing.) If you like the yoghurt free sample, you buy another yoghurt full price. Creativity is subjective. And you’re only as good as your last effort. Yoghurts can rest on their laurels for years.

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