Things I learnt today while researching the Cadbury Caramel Bunny and other mascots

At work today, I've been looking at popular mascots to put together some slides for our marketing presentation after the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny was ranked 4th in a poll of mascots.

Here are some of the things I found out:

1.) Wikifur exists...

Yes. It's a wiki encyclopedia for "furries".

Here's the Caramel Bunny's entry (chortle!): http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Cadbury_Caramel_Bunny

2.) This thread starter was happy to admit to the world that he masturbated over the cartoon rabbit, but finding out (mistakenly) that she was voiced by Grotbags was a step too far.

He's a "wicked child" because...

3.) The lady who actually voiced the Cadbury Caramel Bunny is Miriam Margoyles who also played Lady Whiteadder in Blackadder, Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, voiced most of the women in the English dub of Monkey, and Aunt Sponge in James and the Giant Peach!

4.) Alexandr Orlov, the Compare the Market Meercat, is voiced by Simon Greenall who plays Michael in Alan Partridge.

5.) The PG Tips Monkey, originally created for ITV Digital, became the subject of a legal battle between ITV and Mother, the ad agency that created him. It was settled when both parties agreed to donate the rights to Comic Relief.
PG Tips now use Monkey, but any profits from Monkey merchandise go to Comic Relief who still own the rights.

6.) Grotbags!

No facts.

Just remember how awesome she was!

 




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Sainsbury's Christmas ad just seems crass!

Or click here to view it on YouTube for a higher quality version.

Hi! We're Sainsburys. War can be horrible and scary and brutal as human lives are manipulated and torn apart by the political powers-that-be in the name of justice and liberty. People die violently and families and communities are devastated. But sometimes, people can retain their humanity in the midst of all this and show kindness and compassion beyond the horror they're experiencing. That's the power of the human spirit, no matter the country we're from or the language we speak. It's what makes us human. And it's beautiful.

Now, buy a turkey. Just £9.99 in aisle 5 with double Nectar points available until December 15th. Packs of mince pies - buy one get one free! Sherry - 30% off! Free footballing trench soldier plushie for every spend over £50!
Live Well for Less.

Don't get me wrong - I think this advert is beautiful. It's made beautifully and evokes real emotion. The production values are good for a movie and staggering for a commercial!

It is scarily though-provoking and more effective than more than one war film I've seen with larger budgets and hours of screen time to utilise.

I've read letters from the trenches before now that detail this event. It really happened that the British and German soldiers met between the trenches on The Western Front, exchanged gifts, and had a kickabout at Christmastime. (Not in all areas, mind. It wasn't universal. It just happened in some instances but has been inflated in the retelling to a magical outpouring of ubiquitous human solidarity.)
That this happened at all is both beautiful and devastating. That realisation that a few hours ago, they were trying to take each others' lives, that the person you're playing a game with now is potentially the very same person that put a bullet through your best mate's skull a few hours ago; That in a few more hours, you will be back to horrifically maiming each other and taking each others lives again despite having nothing against each other apart from the fact that a different political power put a gun in your hand, pointed you in opposite directions and said march that way or die must be crushing and so so confusing. It's powerful to see that realisation re-enacted on film, but to have lived it - I can't imagine how much that would mess with your mind.

I'll think about the advert. Maybe I'll come to think that actually this is appropriate, especially given the partnership with The Royal British Legion. Maybe I'll see it less as an advert, and more Sainsbury's simply pinning their colours to the wall. Maybe I'll come to realise that all ads are used to generate an emotional response in the viewer to prime them to spend and that if we draw the line with this ad, we'll have to start declaring other emotive experience No-Man's-Land for marketers.

This may be a knee-jerk initial reaction, but right now it just feels a bit grubby that Sainsbury's are using it, highlighting the gifting element of it, and using the memory of the millions of fallen soldiers to sell more Brussels sprouts and 6 packs of Carling, shore up their bottom line, and widen their profit margins.

At the end of this advert, Jim is back in the trench overwhelmed with the experience that just happened, knowing that tomorrow there's an extremely high chance that both he and Otto and all the men around them will be slaughtered. They won't be sitting round the telly tipsily watching the new Dr. Who in the new "Tu Clothing Collection - only at Sainsbury's" Christmas jumper their nan gave them for Christmas, with all the presents opened from underneath their Sainsbury's bought Christmas tree.

The short film Sainsbury's have made is beautiful. It makes it dangerously easy to forget that war itself isn't at all.

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Etsy

It's harder work than I realised running an Etsy shop, and I only have 6 items in mine at the moment: www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CapnDred .
At the moment, it's only Coggingtons stuff, but more is planned.

Things like SEO can be befuddling - knowing just how to write tags in a way to minimize redundancy but maximise exposure. Then the various ways of trying to get the shop noticed such as plugging it on Facebook (but without becoming an insufferable bore).
Then there's trying to figure out how Twitter works to plug it there, and the same with Instagram and Tumblr which I only really use because I wanted a good picture sharing social media site to plug my cards on.
Pinterest, which I had been using for myself now feels like there might be a way to use it creatively to sell some cards but I'm darned if I know what way that is!

There's Etsy's own forums, which can be fun and have a wealth of information on them. Simply being active there gets me some notice and is useful for getting views and some favourites, but doesn't seem to be translating into sales yet.

Then there's good old word of mouth, and now I'm selling at craft fairs too! So I need to get some more business cards printed up, that actually include my Etsy shop address.

Then I need to optimise my shop itself, making sure my banner and logos are good, making sure my prices are right, making sure my shop's policies are fair and legal, making sure my descriptions are accurate, yet enticing, and yet optimised for SEO, making sure my photos are attractive both as standalones, and displayed together on my page, or taken out of context and displayed in an Etsy treasury or frontpage.

This is not to mention the actual process of creating new items.

All of this is perpetual. It is never finished, because it is never right. Stats pages tell me what's being looked at and by how many people and how they found my shop or products and there is always something to tweak for my old products, and then more monitoring as I give figurative birth to a new product and try to mould it's development in the market. There is always something more that can be done and attending to it is addictive. I often find myself up late at night tweaking.

I've learnt masses about marketing and promotion for a small business and I find the actual learning and processes fun, but I need to make sure I don't disappear down the rabbit hole completely.

What I don't like about Christmas.

It's the middle of September. This is fine. I like this time of year. What I don't like is the countdown to Christmas. People who know me will know this.

But this is going to cause me a problem soon. I'll come to that in a moment.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Christmas. Far from it! I love Christmas! But the Christmas I like is just one day. The Christmas period I like is the short run-up to it and the continuation into New Year's Day.

The Christmas I don't like is the one that dominates a full third of a year.

Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier with each passing year. Earlier this year, I went for some food at The Harvester in Star City in Birmingham. On the entrance was a sign informing us that Christmas bookings were now being taken. I don't remember when this was but I know it was around a couple of weeks before my birthday because we decided to go somewhere else to eat for my birthday because we'd been here recently.
My birthday is 18th August!!

Someone, somewhere decided that Christmas promotion needed to start over 4 and a half months, and probably nearer or over 5 months before Christmas. Christmas is but one day.

It's a one day religious event in the UK, actually - a Christian-appropriated pagan celebration. I've no problems with it being an appropriation. Jesus' birthday is unknown so why not stick the celebration on a date where people are already celebrating. I've no problem with non-religious people getting involved. Religious celebration passes into tradition and each celebrates in their own way. Those who want to be religious about it do, those who don't don't. The tradition of gift giving is lovely. But it has become such a feeding frenzy for anyone with any product, service, or message to sell and the sheer force of consumerism that rears up like a tidal wave before December 25th is just nasty.

Can you imagine if I started getting excited about my birthday, another event that is so common as to happen every year, 4 and a half months before it happened? If halfway through March I started telling people on a daily basis what I wanted for my birthday. If I started demanding that they buy me cards 4 and a half months before my birthday. If every single day for 4 and a half months, I reminded people that my birthday was only a few weeks away.

Pretty obnoxious isn't it? Pretty obnoxious to be demanding people buy me stuff in the first place, let alone to constantly bring it up for months. Which is how I feel about Christmas. It's gotten obnoxious.

I know Christmas exists and I know it's coming. Cripes, I know it's coming! I don't need constant telling. I know that the tradition is to give gifts and celebrate. I'm hardly going to forget. So I would love for marketers and businesses everywhere to just STOP! Stop harassing me into buying things. Stop taking what should feel like a special annual occasion, and diluting its specialness by spreading it out over more than a full third of a year until it is everyday and tired come December 25th.
We are told for 4 months solid that we have to BUY ALL THE THINGS or we've ruined the magic and killed Santa and made children cry and broken family values and kicked puppies and we're mean old miserly killjoys and I don't like it.

Which puts me in an interesting predicament now. I'm on the other side. No - it's not working for Cadbury World. That their Christmas produce stocks in September, and that it makes up something like 5% of total sales in September annoys me enough already but that is as big companies do.

No, I'm talking about selling cards. I have a small greetings card business now.
Here it is: www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CapnDred . Please - go and have a look. It's only small so I'll wait here until you get back.

It's a little bit steampunk, isn't it? In theory, I'll be selling other illustration based products there but at the moment, it's greetings cards that I'm focusing on.
I started with a Valentines Card this year, and to date also have a birthday card, Father and Mothers' Day cards, a graduation card for sale. The next big greeting card day is Christmas Day (no-one buys Halloween cards, do they?) so I've got a nice long stretch to work on this one or maybe even produce a couple of designs, and not feel pressured by an imminent deadline like I have with the others.
So here I am, thinking about my Christmas produce. In September.
Also, I want to have the card available earlier rather than later because I personally know people who have started buying Christmas stuff already and as it is something I want to make a bit of money at, sense says I should catch all the early buyers I can. What's the point of me bringing the card out in time for those early-birds if I then don't advertise it to them so they know it's there? But if I do that, I become the bit of Christmas I hate.

Earlier advertising leads to people buying earlier which in turn leads to earlier advertising the following year to catch the early shoppers and so on. It self-perpetuates.

I think I'll produce the card. I'll put it in my store. But I won't shout about it throughout the end of summer and all of autumn and the start of winter.
It can be how I feel about Christmas: It's there and if you want to get involved with it in September, you can. But I'm happy with it not being waved and shouted about and pointed at for the next quarter of the year.

It hadn't occurred to me until now that I need to think about how I want to manage this one so I don't hate myself.

-Curt-


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