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X Factor Result Sparks Huge Surge In Social Media Activity
Less than an hour after the shock result in this week’s X Factor, public outrage has manifested itself in a massive surge of Twitter and Facebook activity.
But this activity was not going to be sustainable, as many users register their disgust in one or two quick acts like writing a tweet or joining a Facebook group. 45minutes later the surge in Twitter traffic has subsided but the trending topics remain. The public consciousness has flowed together in a mass of anger and frustration, and now it is dissipating (pic3).
However, we would do well to remember that 12 months ago Laura White’s exit from the show was met with fierce oposition, with 50,000 complaints sent to OFCOM - the broadcast regulatory body - demanding she be reinstated on the back of speculation votes weren’t counted correctly. Initially, it seems the public are less sceptical about the voting system and more dismayed with Simon Cowell’s decision not to save Lucie Jones but the show has never been shy of controversy and Cowell himself is no stranger to public shows of disagreement. At the last count, the ‘Boycott X Factor’ Facebook group has 5,000 members.
Cambridge University 'Tesco' Library - Underestimating The Value Of Sponsorship
Dons at Cambridge University have clashed with their campus bosses by expressing concern over potential plans to sell naming rights to the University Library in a process the Telegraph describes as, “selling to the highest bidder.”
Professor Gill Evans, a member of the university’s Regent House governing body, said: “At this rate, one might set off for the University Library one morning to find it turned into a branch of Tesco with an internet café.” Such a superficial assessment of sponsorship’s benefits can be attributed what Evans herself describes as “a lack of consultation”. Although we have recently seen with sports stadia that changing the name of established properties can be perceived as insensitive to the establishment in question, there is also much to praise in successful partnerships between brands and rights owners beyond the financials alone.The University said the move was the “ultimate commemorative naming opportunity” and said the benefaction would mark the 800th anniversary of its founding.” But this isn’t the only thing a potential sponsor should bear in mind. The extra funding could help the University to recruit more underprivileged students or assist current students in achieving their potential beyond University life. It could improve campus facilities and ultimately help the staff maintain the quality of the University’s emphatic research and teaching reputations. The right name, with the right plans, can make positive waves for the University.
It’s a little frustrating to see so much negative press for naming rights deals in the UK. With Newcastle United and Chelsea upsetting their fans with talks of renaming their historic grounds, Cambridge had a real opportunity to rubbish the ‘Tesco’ mindset that is tarnishing naming rights deals and set out a non-financial agenda.
Naming rights is not just about raising funds, but about enhansing reputation, building relationships and fostering opportunities that benefit all stakeholders. I hope that the Cambridge campus can include all faculty and students alike in their plans and start discussions not by asking, ‘how much funding do we want to achieve?’ but, ‘what sort of partnership do we want to create?’
If it’s a partnership that stretches on for another 800 years, it is well worth planning carefully.
Naming Rights - This Time It's Stamford Bridge
It seems the naming rights saga has caught fire among the English FA Premier League . On the back of Newcastle United’s announcement that St. James’ Park is to be known as the “sportsdirect.com @ St. James’ Park”, Chelsea’s Chief Executive Ron Gourlay has now revealed that Chelsea are preparing to follow the lead by selling the naming rights for Stamford Bridge. Like Ashley and Co. at Newcastle, Gourlay is insisting that the associated brand will only be able to add to the name, rather than actually change the name of the stadium altogether. ‘Stamford Bridge’ would therefore be retained in the name along with the assocation with “a suitable blue-chip company.” “Retaining the heritage of the stadium is paramount to considering such a move but we think that is achievable and on that basis we would enter into discussions over naming rights with the right partner for Chelsea”, Gourlay told Chelsea TV. “We understand that this is a sensitive issue for our fans and that is why we would keep the name Stamford Bridge in any deal”. Could it be that scenes like the below are soon to be a thing of the past within the giants of the game? Surely Abramovich doesn’t need the money as much as Chelsea need the identity of their stadium?
A sensitive issue indeed, but Gouray feels that the financial advantage of selling the rights is essential. “What we are not prepared to happen, and I am sure our fans will appreciate this, is allow our rival clubs in England and Europe to gain a competitive advantage over us in terms of the revenue they can generate through either expanding the capacity of their existing stadia or moving to a new stadium and then invest that upside in their team or the club. Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive”. In 2004, Emirates paid Arsenal £50million to acquire naming rights on their new Ashburton Grove stadium for 15 years, and Allianz is charged £4m every twelve months for Bayern Munich’s ground to bear its name. In the USA, Citigroup pay £10m so for the new New York Mets baseball arena, now called Citi Field. Check out http://chelseafc.com for more information.
"sportsdirect.com @ St James' Park Stadium" - What do you make of the change?
“With the renaming it was always going to be whatever brand it was, at St James’ Park. For the remainder of this season, we already have sportsdirect.com on the Gallowgate so we’d like to take that branding through the rest of the stadium.”Managing Director, Manging Director Tampering with brand equity is risky business, particularly when the equity is built by generations of sports fanatics. How do you think it’s going to be received by the Newcastle United faithful?
'Benefiting The Whole Football World' - East Against West, Frank Lowy and The FIFA World Cup
“We are able to show that bringing the game to Australia and having the Asian continent with us at the same time-zone will benefit not only Australia, not only Asia, but the whole football world”
Frank Lowy, Chief of Australia’s FIFA World Cup Bid and Australia’s Richest Man
Asia comprises the world’s fastest growing economies, the fastest growing television and media audiences and the fastest growing consumer markets. Intuitively, Lowy’s claim seems to be sensible. But how valid is this regional bias? The three points below try to open this up a bit.
1. The combined audiences for West and East are broadly similar
By looking at FIFA’s published TV and Out Of Home (which includes pubs and other public viewing areas) cumulative viewing figures by region we can compare the 2002 World Cup held in Asia with the 2006 World Cup held in Europe.
In terms of the number of viewers, comparing Europe with Asia is hard to swing in Europe’s favour. In 2002 there were 2.7 Asian viewers to every European viewer. In 2006 this figure was cut to 1.6 but still, this is a huge difference. However, this only takes into account numbers for Asia and Europe. ‘East’ and ‘West’ is much broader.
By grouping together figures for Europe with North America, South America and Central America (EurAm) we get a better idea of what Western audiences actually add up to. We can then compare this with an Eastern group comprised of the Asia and Oceana (APAC). When we look at East vs. West in this hollistic way we get a slightly more even result. In the 2002 World Cup, held in Asia, there were only 1.3 Eastern (APAC) viewers to Western (EurAm) viewers but in the 2006 World Cup there were 1.2 Western viewers to Eastern viewers - despite the fact that the Germany World Cup was broadcast in 11 fewer EurAm territories than the 2002 World Cup. So there wasn’t that big a difference after all. The audiences are pretty much similar from East to West. The drop off in audience attributable to changes in time-zones is nearly identical with both regions losing roughly 7% of their audience when the games were shown at more unsociable hours. Let’s not forget, though, that with China’s population alone being double that of the whole of Europe, Asia’s 7% certainly represents more people. This brings us on to our next point - although the audiences are roughly the same, and the drop off is the same, advertisers will look for efficiency over reach and this may present the West with another argument against the Lowry.
2. Rights fees are based on efficiency, not just reach
Lowry also spoke about the revenue that an Australasian World Cup would bring in. He didn’t go into specifics in the article I read but someone told me he’d quoted a difference of +$1bn. That’s a lot of money and I’m not sure where he gets it from. Despite offering huge reach, there’s going to be an awful lot of wastage in a market where the audiences are almost inconceivably large. In EurAm, penetration is much higher with a greater proportion of the total populations watching or experiencing the tournament. I don’t want to waste any money speaking to people who aren’t in the mood to listen, especially if there’s millions of them. Also, because there aren’t many national broadcasters in the regions, the scope for competition among those looking to secure broadcast rights is smaller. Coupled with the lack of efficiency, this makes for risky - and tricky - business for those formulating broadcast revenue prediction models. Although, broadcast revenue isn’t the only source of income from the tournament.
3. A successful event needs the stadia to be full Although we hate to admit it, everyone secretly loves the English. English football fans, like many of our counterparts, bring with them a fantastic enthusiasm for the game that heralds from decades of disappointment and ecstasy from following the nation’s team. World Cup tournaments need these fans. They need them to fill up the stadiums and prevent what happened at some of Beijing’s Olympic events where organisers had to give tickets away to locals for free (retail price was very high - around £90 per ticket) in order to fill the seats. In Sydney’s Olympic games, kids were actually transported to the venues by buses to fill the venues with the right kind of audience. What’s the lesson here? Big TV audiences don’t necessarily equate to a success on a national level.We have a little time to go before the decisions for 2018 and 2022 will be made (December 2010) but at the moment, it seems as though the argument isn’t as black and white as we may have originally thought. Let’s see what FIFA say.You can read more about Lowry’s argument here
Picture found here
Two Hours In Texas
It wasn’t until a few days beforehand that my business trip to Monterrey, Mexico, was finalised. I remember sitting at my desk looking at the flight time and wincing slightly at how long the journey was compared to the time I was spending there. But it wasn’t all bad.London to Mexico is a long way and apparently not a journey that can be conducted in a single flight. Most flights on this path stop over somewhere in Texas and it can be either Houston or Dallas depending on the airline. It so happened that I was to find myself spending a little over two hours at George Bush Intercontinental in Houston. Texas is one of those places that everybody has an opinion on and I have to say I was no different. I love the concept of America and Americans but it seemed to be - sitting from the other side of the pond - that Texas was somewhat backwards. When I thought of Texas I’d think of guns, George (W.) Bush and religion. However, I was keen to experience it myself and although I only spent two hours in Texas (plus another two on the way back), this is what I remember. The lady on the airport monorailI sat down at the back of the carriage awaiting transit to my gate and a lady came on board wheeling a small travel suitcase. She stood just to the left of me and began speaking with another lady. She was evangelizing about a book she’d been reading called, ‘How Starbucks Saved My Life’. My ears pricked and I listened intently. “You see, he’d gone from wearing $1,000 shoes to just being on the bus sitting next to people like you and me. I don’t know if I’d even recognise $1,000 shoes! And he realised that it didn’t matter at all - he was 50 and working in Starbucks just making coffee but that was his life and he enjoyed it. So he went from being around all that money and all that wealth to just earning $5/hour at Starbucks… and he loved it!”She looked over at me and I joined the conversation as she talked about the differences between New York and Arkansas, where she was from. About how she could leave her front door unlocked and how things in New York are too busy and too dangerous. Although I’ve never been to New York, I was inclined to agree with her that it is strange how the quality of one’s life diminishes the more one relies on material goods, like $1,000 shoes, for happiness and how difficult it is to really relax in a city like London when you’re surrounded by people who are stressed and unhappy. She agreed and we walked a little together after the rail reached its destination. I think I heard her talking to another couple just as she disappeared from sight down the long corridor. Texas steak
The queue for passport control was fairly minimal when I arrived, which gave me the chance to quiz the passport control officer about where I could get a good lunch. I was eager to sample Texas’ famous cuisine and my stomach was empty from the flight. He said, “Ahh you gona get yourself a big juicy steak or sumthing?” I said I’d love to and he smiled and informed me that a decent lunch will cost around $10, which given that we were in an airport I found very reasonable.I spent a little while looking for a steak house but was disappointed not to find one straight away. I approached a BBQ stall and asked for a big Texan lunch. He asked where I was from and we talked a little about the food that was available and what it may all taste like. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money for the full on 4-meat feast so I had to settle for beef stew in barbecue sauce and a bap. When he poured the meat over the bread, it soaked up the juice like a sponge.Just behind me in the queue was a Royal Marine dressed in his combat gear. He BBQ man asked him where he was from and they talked as well. He was from Missouri. The BBQ man thanked him for serving for his country, passed him his food and said, “God bless you, son. God bless you for serving.” I was genuinely moved by how friendly this man was and found myself compelled to tell him so. He quite naturally found it strange that anyone should find his mannerisms particularly unusual. It seems that in Texas, people like to look out for one another. I sat and ate my bap next to the Marine and wondered where he had been and what he had seen. The bun was saturated and was beginning to crumble in my hands so I found some cutlery. As I stood up, a man asked me whether the food was any good. He had been watching me eat for a couple of moments and I felt a little intruded upon. However, the marine and I both agreed that the food was really quite good and we recommended the beef stew in barbecue sauce. The man asked me where I was from and I told him, also adding that I was keen to have a Texan meal during my short two hour stay. He smiled and joined the queue. Afterwards I felt guilty for presuming that any interruption should be unwelcome and felt myself opening up a little. Doughnuts
After my lunch I noticed a doughnut store and went over to take a look. They had more types of doughnut than I think I had ever seen and I made the error of asking the lady at the counter which was the best. She asked me where I was from and I told her, saying also that I had not eaten a doughnut for a very long time and that I waned the best Texan doughnut money could buy. She handed me a jam-filled sugar-coated variety and I handed her 0.69c. I later returned to buy a very large chocolate chip cookie, not content with only one Texan treat. This was $2.50 worth of cookie but to be honest rather unsatisfying.As I walked from the doughnut store down a long corridor to the gate, I noticed a sign saying ‘defibrillator here’ and a picture of a heart. Looking further down the corridor, towards the end I noticed another such sign. Half way between the two, a very overweight man was sitting on a bench talking on his phone. I saw him eyeing me from a distance and thought nothing of it until I passed him and noticed he wasn’t staring at me, so much as he was staying at the cookie I was eating. I continued walking, past the second defibrillator sign and took a seat at a bar. I waited for the barman to come over and I ordered a diet coke. He said it was cheaper to give me a pint from the tap instead of a bottle and I thanked him for telling me, asking for the pint. Rain
I watched the planed on the runway through the large windows by the gate and wondered what the weather is like in this part of the world. From nowhere, my question was answered as the heavens seemed to open in an almighty downpour of rain that shocked me somewhat.Outside, though, it was business as usual as workers quickly put on the correct attire and continued flagging and waving at taxiing aircraft. I looked away from the window at a TV screen that was showing a football game. Football
It was Sunday, September 13th. Houston Texans were getting beaten quite heavily by the New York Jets and tempers were beginning to flare around the bar. Now wouldn’t have been a good time to ask someone to explain the rules.I tried to get into the game with the little time I had left but my viewing was constantly interrupted by advertisements, almost exclusively for SUVs. I chuckled to myself - this was the Texas I had pictured before I arrived. I gave the game a few more minutes but gave up when I realised that I was watching more advertisements than I was football. I took one last look around the bar, at the football fans watching their side lose and being told to buy SUVs, to the barman making conversation with everyone that approached him, to the overweight guys struggling for breath, to the wide open sky and the clouds that had now disappeared, to the turkey and ham sandwich I had just bought, to the neon around the bar, to the potato chip bags, to the wet tarmack outside, to the smell and the feel of Texan air, to the gate and to the transit flight to Mexico.
This is what I remember of my two hours in Texas.
The nachos at the Blue's Bar, Kingly St., London, are truly gigantic. Yes.
Mmmmmmm!! Lyndon Morant
http://lyndonmorant.posterous.com
@LyndonMorant
Sent from my iPhone, please excuse typos!
View from the Traflagar Square Hotel Rooftop Bar, London
Free entry on Monday’s and Tuesday’s, the roof is furnished with leather couches and stalls. It feels like Manhatten.
See and download the full gallery on posterous
Lyndon Morant
http://lyndonmorant.posterous.com
@LyndonMorant
Sent from my iPhone, please excuse typos!
Monterrey, Mexico.
A series of glazier valleys shelter Monterrey between mountain peaks of green and make for some pretty awesome sunrises / sunsets.
See and download the full gallery on posterous
Lyndon Morant
http://lyndonmorant.posterous.com
@LyndonMorant
Sent from my iPhone, please excuse typos!
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