It’s always refreshing when a company drop the bland corporate-speak when personally interacting with their customers. So with that in mind, it’s hats off to Paperchase.

But it’s not so cool and groovy when they’re rude and patronising to their customers, especially when said customer has raised a valid point about gender stereotyping in their advertising. So it’s hats back on (or whatever the opposite of hats off is) to Paperchase.

Blogger and Paperchase fan Nancy Smallwood took umbrage recently at the window display in their Tottenham Court Road branch in the centre of That London’s fashionable That London. Advertising ‘back to school’ stuff, Paperchase had deployed a ‘pink is for girls’ and ‘blue is for boys’ theme, with pictures of the girls doing bakery and the boys playing with sharks and similar tough stuff and that.

An email of complaint was dashed off by Nancy, including points like…

“More than ever now big companies need to be trying to advocate equality for both sexes, and break down gender stereotypes, and in this day and age I was pretty disappointed to see this ridiculous cop out.”

She ended with “I’m a big fan of your store, as I said, but I’d really hope in future you could try harder to avoid this kind of nonsense.”

Fair points, well made. Well, not according to Robert Warden, the Marketing Director of Paperchase. His reply, dispatched around twenty minutes later was this…

Thank you for your email. However you rather miss the point… we are more than aware of the gender stereotypes and were making an ironic point by using archive mail-order catalogue photos from the 1970s…

When we are trying to sell stationery (please note spelling) there are images that appeal to boys and images that appeal to girls – and we have had a very successful season with the designs that we chose. So presumably the majority of our customers approved of the products.

Yours sincerely
Robert Warden

Presumably he also stuck out his tongue and waggled his fingers from either side of his head as he sent the email. Some nice pedantry regarding the spelling of ‘stationery’ there as well. We like a bit of pedantry round these parts.

There was more to come. Naturally, Nancy was unhappy with Warden’s response and probed him further on the inherent message in the Paperchase marketing merchandising. She sent a further email, pointing out that… “I wasn’t looking for you to argue that it sells well as a defence, rather an apology and demonstrate an awareness of the issues that I complained about (and not in the ironic 1970s – or should that be 1950s? – sense.”

A reply duly followed from Robert Warden.

Thank you for your email.

Consumerism is, first and foremost, a choice. Whether our campaign is subtle is not (… it is always reassuring to know that customers assume they can be rude to us but do not like being corrected themselves) is in the eyes of the beholder.

Our customers specifically asked for ‘boys’ stationery – and as we are trying to run a commercial enterprise (one of the reasons being to keep people in employment) – we did our best to provide something we thought 7 year old boys might appreciate either buying or being given. No-one has forced them to buy it.

If 7 year old girls are keen on sharks they can buy it too ! I leave the disagreements between us there – we shall continue to try not to offend all our customers.
Yours sincerely
Robert Warden

Since Nancy wrote about her interaction with Paperchase and Warden, the blogosphere has erupted with condemnation of the attitude the Marketing Director has taken towards a genuine complaint from a customer.

But how bad is it really? Should we be pleased that a ‘suit’ has tried to engage directly with a customer for once and explain why the merchandising looks the way it does, even if his social skills left a little to be desired?

Or is it unacceptable behaviour from Paperchase and should an effigy of Robert Warden be hoisted up on a pole and burned outside the Tottenham Court Road store for crimes against gender equality?

What do YOU LOT reckon? Eh?

Not a call for the second installment in our irregular feature, but a text message. There was excitement in the Bitterwallet bunker this morning, the sort that sees us dispatch shaved monkey Mof to the off-license to buy twenty quid’s worth of Diamond Blush:

“FREEMSG: Our records indicate you may be entitled to 3750 pounds for the accident you had. To claim for free reply with CLAIM to this msg. To opt out text STOP”

A kick in the arse off four grand, and we haven’t even had an accident! An- oh. Bollocks. It’s a scam, isn’t it? Of course it is. A quick search on the intermaweb doesn’t reveal the particular number that sent the SMS, but a search for the message reveals plenty of forum posts dating back to last year. So what happens if you respond to this or similarly vague texts that appear out of the blue? According to reports, several of these messages appear to have been sent from premium rate numbers, meaning if you reply you may be billed a small fortune. Or even a large one.

However, the act of replying has value in itself, because it validates your mobile number as one that’s currently in use; in this instance, if you were to respond by texting CLAIM, then your number becomes of enormous interest to ambulance-chasing solicitors. And so, it may be that the scammers were inspired by the marketeers who use such tactics. A trail on posts on MSE leads to a company that “buys and sells marketing ‘leads’ of personal information of people who are looking for loans or insurance. They obtain many of them from the major price comparison sites on the net.”

By reply to messages like these, you may be helping companies create lists of validated mobile numbers that can be sold on to relevant clients. Such information is incredibly valuable, because the cost of developing such leads from scratch is enormous. Delete and warn others at every opportunity.

We called shenanigans on the Groupola £99 iPhone offer yesterday and as avid Bitterwallet reader Dane told us by email, “Right again BW”.

To refresh your memory, the Guardian ran an advertorial tech story about the £99 offer – which offered Groupola newsletter subscribers the possibility to get a £99 iPhone 4 this morning starting at 9am. There was of course no mention of how many units would be available for these lucky subscribers.

This morning at 9am the Groupola site promptly went into meltdown making it nigh on impossible to get through checkout never mind load the page. Groupola claims 200 iPhones were available but the masses seem to disagree. The Groupola blog and Facebook page are in revolt with members claiming critical comments are disappearing as fast as they are posted.

Meanwhile the PR continues with the media eating up the spin. Techcrunch EU ran the official Groupola statement which claimed the site failed as “more than 5 million people have attempted to log on to the site” between 9am and 9.30am.

Put your thinking cap on for a minute folks. Despite the Apple hype there are not even 5 million iPhone owners in the UK (worldwide iPhone sales in all of 2009 were only 20m) never mind 5 million interested in one iPhone 4 model who knew about the Groupola offer and were able to login between 9am and 9.30am. As Penn & Teller say – Bullshit.

So where does that leave the consumer sucked in by the Guardian’s poor reporting and Groupola’s clever tactics? As WillOfThePeople notes in the Guardian comments about Groupola’s privacy policy: “The data we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination located out side of the European Economic Area (”EEA”). By providing information to this Site you expressly consent to such information being transferred or stored outside of the EEA.”

Disclosure: I am a founder of HUKD which could be considered a competitor to Groupola’s owner Markco Media

Have you seen those Diesel ads that extol the virtues of stupidity? They’re a post-modern reflection of an ironic take on s… a twist on the… uh… something or other. Who give a shit? They’ve been banned.

Despite the promotions winning some awards, the ASA have judged them unsuitable to be seen by children. The ones that have caused most fuss at one that includes some boobies and another on, pictured above, of a woman taking a picture of her minge.

So what level of outrage does it take to get an advert banned? Well, these received a paltry 33 complaints, basically griping about how unsuitable they are for child eyes, how offensive they were generally and that they encouraged behaviour that was anti-social.

Now, on paper, when you read that a poster featured an image of a woman standing outdoors in a bikini, opening her bikini bottoms with one hand and taking a photograph of her genitals with the other, you’d be forgiven for think that she was showing us her bat-wings… but look at it. It is far from sordid in any way, right?

The other banned poster features a woman flashing her tits at a CCTV camera on some stepladders. Of course, we’re happy to show them here, just in case any kids are reading. Or anyone who is the kind of disgruntled chump who writes in to Points Of View muttering about dirty lesbians or something.

BrandRepublic reports that Diesel reckon the poster and press activity showed the women on the ladder “in a non-exploitative way” and, furthermore, that the message tackled pre-occupation with 24/7 camera surveillance in a light and unthreatening manner.

Aye, alright.

Diesel argued there was nothing within the content of the ads that was offensive and that they did not contain any provocative nudity beyond the usual amounts shown in many swimwear, sportswear or lingerie ads. The ASA ruled that the poster ads breached codes on “decency”. I would’ve thought the one with the girl sat on a lad’s face would’ve been more inappropriate, but there you go. And with that last statement, we’ve lost all our readers to people doing Google image searches.

Did you see the squidgy, widgy, lovely wuvley tale of Cinders the Pig in the press? This heartwarming little eventual sausage was ‘the world’s only porker who is afraid of mud’.

AWW! How charming! When I read it, I was so overwhelmed with soppy cutesiness that my entire being turned into goo. LOOK! A piggy-wiggy in green wellibobs!

We were told that this lickle piggie was frightened of mud by owners Debbie and Andrew Keeble who popped tiny boots on it that they just happened to have lying around the house.

However, the whole story is bollocks.

That’s because the whole thing was a PR stunt by some people called the Ross Parry Agency. This lot were asked to raise the profile of Debbie and Andrew Keeble’s sausage manufacturing business and, in addition to that, a chance for them to talk about their lobbying work for fairer price on British Pork.

As such, 25 UK radio stations, national TV shows like GMTV, The Wright Stuff and The One Show, every national newspaper in Britain and loads of websites picked up on the story to coo at the little piggly wiggly strutting toward a man with a bolt gun (just off camera… possibly).

But I Read It In The Paper spit: “All news outlets are guilty of printing PR-created story as ‘news’ or ‘light relief’. The truth is this manufactured story is neither news or light entertainment, but a cynical ploy to secure advertising at minimal cost. It also brings into sharp focus that journalists and editors just don’t care what is news, anymore than they care about misleading headlines or the dividing line between comment and news.”

That’s hardly news is it? Also, bully for us for churning out this tawdry crap all over again!

“You’ve got to hold and give but do it at the right time, you can be slow or fast but you must get to the line; They’ll always hit you and hurt you – defend and attack; There’s only one way to beat them -get round the back; So catch me if you can ’cause I’m the England man…“.

You know the score. That rap, along with the rest of EnglandNewOrder’s ‘World In Motion’, like the opening verses and chorus of ‘Three Lions’, is now part of the DNA of any England football fan.

Now, twenty years after John Barnes rapped about having three lions on his chest (not including his ‘Anfield Rap’ stint of course) he’s going to reprise his role for Mars in an ad campaign for TV.

Barnes will feature in a re-recording of the track which will air next month and, not only that, but Mars is also launching a competition to give members of the public the chance to appear in the ad.

The campaign will see a 30-second commercial on our tellies and a longer, minute-long version appearing online at www.marsbar.co.uk.

Of course, it isn’t the first time Barnesy has flirted with the world of marketing. Let’s have a look at his stint saying, “It’s Isotonic” whilst kicking a tin can in a bin. Let’s just hope that this new version of the  track doesn’t have awful reworked lyrics (not that New Order would allow that… not at all… if you click here, you’ll see just how not prone they are)

[Guardian]

In the attempt to get noticed over other ear-tag vendors, fast-food shops like to do online campaigns which are a bit quirky. There was that dancing chicken bloke who you could make… well… do stuff.

Now, Burger King are at it, with some lass in a shower with what they’re imaginatively dubbing ‘Burger King Presents Singing In The Shower‘.

So, if you’re in the business of getting a lob-on over some no-mark in a shower, scrubbing her arse while she sings a pop hit every morning, this showercam should be the best thing you’ve seen since Porky’s Revenge.

Of course, the marketing chumps missed a trick here. What they should have done is something far more humiliating. They should have got a girl who can’t sing for toffee and forced her to squirm in a bikini shaped like a Chicken Royale Meal whilst people abused her live. That would have been funny. It would’ve been like The Wide Awake Club’s ‘Singing In The Shower’ section which got simpletons to butcher ’80s pop hits.

Burger King are also offering the chance to win a date with our little performing monkey, which I imagine, won’t go as hoped for many of the inevitable onanists as it won’t involve a quick soapy wank, but rather, an awkward encounter involving some blokes from Burger King’s marketing department constantly saying “Having fun?” and “No touching Burger Girl!”

Unless, of course, they’re actually going to prostitute this poor wannabe starlet.

Click here to see Burger King’s ShowerCam

Rammstein are a silly, silly metal outfit who deal in schlock shock and sleaze. Oh, and occasional Nazi imagery.

So in the face of people generally not being all that interested in buying tangible music related products, they’ve decided that a good way to get noticed is to release their new album, Liebe Ist Für Alle Da, with a range of executive massage devices… or, dildos to you and me.

For your buck, you’ll get five extra tracks (which will invariably be available on torrents) and a metal flight case filled with six vibrators. One can only hope that they aren’t designed on the six members’ members of the band. Oh, and for good measure, you’ll get some handcuffs and lubricant.

The download version will no doubt come with a soundwave shaped like a fanny or something.

Anyway, as a marketing tool, you can’t knock it because, lets face it, we wouldn’t normally cover the release of a daft German metal release on these pages.

[ClassicRock]

Most adverts are irritating flecks of minutiae that do nothing but present a very clear reason why the product in question is the last thing you’d want in your life. Some, on the other hand, are very clever indeed. It’s not always a question of what the product is or what the advert says about it, but where the ad appears.

Here’s another great example. The building on the left is the renowned Haitong Securities building in Shanghai, famous for looking like it’s been caught in a draft. On the right, a giant tarpaulin for Midea fans. Brilliant:

[Copyranter]

Auctiva is a site for hardcore eBay power users; it produces management software and tools so you can sell more items and spend less time listing them – templates, listing software, image hosting and so on. But how good are Auctiva at selling themselves?

Of course it’s no surprise whatsoever that companies will try anything to force us into a sale, but most aren’t stupid enough to tell the consumer. Bitterwallet reader Guy Gibson received an email from Auctiva at the weekend:

“An hour and a half later they sent the same email again, but this time with the subject line “Time is running out”. Looks like someone dropped a bollock and sent the test out to all of their customers. Whoops.”

Anymore spectacular mailing list mistakes out there? You know what to do with them by now. You don’t? Send them to bitterwallet@gmail.com, that’s what.

Recession proof

American fast food behemoth McDonald’s is one of a handful of chains doing decently well in the recession. But for the amount of time and labour spent on planning their “recession marketing strategy“, this should be no surprise.

Speaking to the American Marketing Association’s Mplanet 2009 conference in January of this year, McDonald’s Chief Marketing Officer Mary Dillon said that the chain is in the “busy lifestyle business,” which she categorized as a growth industry as people work more hours to try and make ends meet.

Here in the UK, the “global brand promise” and localized strategy technique has involved such things as direct advertising of its Apple Dippers, as a tie-in to the movie Madagascar 2. This, Dillon said, linked entertainment with food choice.

Another campaign was aimed at developing excitement for the introduction of the McFlurry (in France) by a three-pronged digital campaign on several platforms: TV, mobile, online, and ringtones. All platforms hammered on the theme of “customising your McFlurry.”

In Japan, a tie-in with Nintendo has been successful. The combination of old school outdoor advertising with computer game characters and trial game versions in Happy Meals connects what’s hot in Japan with going to McDonald’s.

Is this combination of global and local marketing based on comprehensive research the reason for McDonald’s relatively smooth ride through the current global recession? Or is it simply one of the few things that people have not had to totally give up despite hard times?

Of course marketing and advertising doesn’t affect you. In fact you never pay attention to adverts you see on television, billboards, petrol pump caps, telephone boxes – you only buy what you like, and nobody will persuade you to do otherwise. In which case, why the hell did you buy what you’ve bought in the first place? If you’re not a mindless drone soaking up every marketing message you’re exposed to, why are you a slave to particular brands of products?

An annonymous blogger and advertising creative called Jane Sample created a day in her life, illustrated by the brands she used at home and work:

Other bloggers have since joined in to create these brand timeline portraits, that drill home exactly how habitual we are regarding particular products. We thought we’d have a go, so we pooled together our collective exposure to brands in the Bitterwallet office over the course of a routine day, and came up with this: (more…)

Anybody who works is advertising and marketing is undoubtedly a social pariah or a bunch of organs that’ll hopefully be donated sooner rather than later. But occasionally such sub-humans manage to pull off some subtle yet entirely brilliant campaign that suggests there may be more to their whore-mongering minds than simply robbing you by every legal avenue possible.

For instance, when the smartarses at Audi’s marketing HQ decided to stick it to BMW on a billboard in LA, some bigger but altogether cleverer smartarses at BMW’s agency literally beat them at their own game:

Taxi for Audi.

[BMWblog]

All those in the Bitterwallet office are partial to a little crisp rustling. It’s not uncommon for Andy to batter a man to death over the final packet of Worcester Sauce on the shelf, and there isn’t a brand of Prawn Cocktail that hasn’t gone untested by my gut. And we rarely see eye-to-eye on such world-shattering matters.

So it’s no surprise we’ve been sucked into the latest marketing ruse by Walkers to introduce a new flavour of crisp to the nation. But given that we gents are so passionate about our fried potato intake and the flavourings thereof, it’s unusual we’ve found ourselves in consistent agreement regarding the six varieties being put to a public vote; they’re all, to a bag, shit.

Onion Bhaji flavoured crisps should be the easiest to get right, since the world has adored Cheese & Onion since the dawn of time. Take out the cheese, stir in the Indian spices. Simple? Apparently not, because the result is a crisp that has had all flavour – including that of potato – removed at the molecular level.

Chilli and Chocolate are poor bedfellows; again the chilli element is proven but the chocolate is a heavy mouthful. Builders Breakfast taste of bacon and arse. Cajun Squirrel is simply spicy and gets away with it because few people can quantify the squirrelly element. Duck and Hoi Sin Sauce tastes of something as far removed from the description as it’s possible to get. And Fish and Chips – fish flavour… and potato flavour. Genius.

A disgrace, the lot of them – the most insulting participation contest the public has seen. Walkers are urging the public to pick their favourite, but we can’t wait; we want to know what you think of these six bastardisations right now. Is there any flavour that could become as iconic as Salt & Vinegar or Prawn Cocktail, or is it well executed marketing campaign that’s all mouth and no trousers?

Normally we show an ad here, but we got to thinking about how hard it could actually be to make your own ad, say if you were a small business or an exciting consumer-focussed website.

After doing a miniscule amount of research, we found this video, from the company Jump Start Video. Everything you need to know is here and you’ll be amazed to learn that this tutorial was itself produced on a tiny budget. Staggering.

[Buzz Feed]