Great work Sainsburys... Facebook spreads your good vibes

We're on a bit of a facebook roll, and on the back of yesterdays post this popped up! It's sweeping facebook. Is this fake? The child phoentic letter would probably suggest so. But in any case, judging by the comments below its facebook picture, it's serving Sainsbury's image pretty well. So Asda? Waitrose? Get on board and start circulating those letters (even if the CEO's three year old ends up doing it)

I like it...

In October 2010, millions of female facebook users updated their profiles with the suggestive phrase "I like it on the..." "table", "floor", "rug by the fire", "in the car" and so on. Despite being sexually suggestive, the phrase was about where you put your handbag, apparently stemming from a breast cancer awareness campaign. Although now proved as a scam, many of those who updated their status' (ourselves included!) thought it was real, and many were outstanded by the monumentous rate at which the word was spreading. It hit the the global press with major news organisations from the Telegraph, The Huffington Post, Forbes and CNN commenting on it generating fantastic publicity for Breast Cancer Awareness

The spoof followed another supposed Breast Cancer Campaign where status' reflected girls bra colours (think 'crimson red', 'bright purple', 'candy pink') and, like its handbag counterpart, confusion rained, curiousity was aroused and the message spread to 'get in on the game'. What's so impressive about this, is that it goes to show how social networking and grass root campaigns can really make a differance. Don't you think that it's cool that an individual voice can be magnified to create awareness for something good? We do.

Richard Branson's nine tips on strategies for success

Richard Branson's inspirational advice and business expertise has helped steer and grow many start-ups in a host of different markets and industries.

We hope you enjoy these...

Inexperience as an asset: "Present prospective partners with a fresh take on a tired industry, and you will grab their attention"

Customer Service: "Good customer service begins at the top. If your senior people don't get it, even the strongest links further down the line can become compromised. No company can train its front-end people to handle every situation, but you can strive to create an environment in which they feel at ease 'doing as they would be done by"

Branding: "you may be tempted to create a brand that's very corporate and remote. As a consequence, these brands acquire no texture, no character and no public trust. Whatever you decide your new brand will stand for, deliver on that promise. And beware: Brands always mean something. If you don't define what the brand means, your competitors will"

Leadership: "Rather than focusing on mistakes, a leader needs to catch someone doing something right every day. If this culture of fostering employee development through praise and recognition starts at the top, it will go far toward stamping out the employee fear of failure that can stunt a business, particularly in its early days. When mistakes happen -- which is inevitable -- you have to learn from them, not dwell on what went wrong. It's almost always better not to go over the obvious with the people involved. They know exactly what happened."

Handling success: "When a business does well, many start to focus solely on increasing profits, no matter what the cost -- leaving behind everything that originally made the business special. If you are mulling over an expansion, tell all your employees about your plan – include everyone from the truck driver to your senior team -- and ask for their input. If you can, it would be best to work out the details of the expansion plan together"

Delegating: "Stepping back frees the founder to focus on the bigger picture -- to dive in when there are problems or to help close a deal"

Investors: "When you are evaluating a proposed partnership, do not focus only on the capital you need to kick-start your business...Bear in mind that a dictatorial financial partner can dim the spirit and enthusiasm of a new enterprise, muffling the spark that prompted you to launch this project – the spark that is most likely to make your venture different from your competitors."

Communicating: "Take time to find out what the staff is actually doing on a day-to-day ...Then, ask yourself: What are the employees' working conditions? Do people seem energetic and creative? And ask employees: Do you have the resources you need? If you could, what problems would you fix? What ideas of yours has your manager followed up on? Ensure your staff is consistently encouraged to contact you with ideas and problems"

Taking Risks: "There is little point in entering a new market unless it provides the opportunity to really shake up an industry"

To read the full article go right here

Did you know...

Did you know that...

Net-a-porter was founded in a tiny artists studio in the back streets of Chelsea

Fortnum and Mason's is over three hundred years old. And that it was the first ever retail outlet for Heinz Tomato ketchup in 1886 (Heinz and fortnum and masons)

If the Chinese, one day, use as much oil per person as Americans, then the world will need seven more Saudi Arabias to meet their demand (business insider)

JP Morgan is the world's biggest public company (forbes)

Fast food burger chain Wimpy has brail menus in all of its restaurants. As part of the campaign they made burgers with brail by placing sesame seeds on bread buns (business insider)

John Paul Gaultier has thought it a good idea to create 5,000 bespoke bars of solid gold, sold at 10% higher than the average price of a similar bar of gold (forbes_

Google rents goats. Yes you heard it right. Google rents goats from a firm called California Grazing to help keep grass the right height at Google HQ. They're also dog friendly, however, one indiscretionate act by the dog and lassie has to stay at home (mashable)

What we're reading

Three books that are on our reading list

Blue Ocean Strategy
Think about crossing market boundaries, blending industries and being creative in order to create a concept called value innovation. Exemplified by great case studies including Casella wines, the Novo Pen (the diabetic's insulin pen) and Cirque du Soleil.

Onwards: How Starbucks fought for its life without losing its sole
Our one stop coffee shop's story. How this CEO managed to reinvent a brand and grow this caffiene hub to an epic size.

A Book about Innocent: Our story and some things we've learned
This little company with its quirky branding and healthy product revolutionised the drinks the industry. All starting with the simple question - do we leave our high paid jobs for a glass of blended fruit? Thanks goodness the answer was an unresounding 'yes'!

Jack Daniel's - an age old Tenessee Whiskey

Recent commentary in Business Insider has highlighted some p.r.e.t.t.y cool things about Jack Daniel's marketing strategy over the years….

140 years old, Jack Daniel’s is a bit of an old boy, but he didn’t solidfy his status quickly. It was in the 1950s that the Jack Daniel’s story was used in marketing. But between the 50’s and 70’s the marketers made the product scarce. “Jack Daniel’s was actually quite hard for stores to acquire – it was available on allocation only. Demand was higher than supply, yet the brand kept advertising” telling people about a product that they couldn’t get hold of, “this heighted its allure” (Business Insider)

The brand has always played on history and legend, hammering home adverts focussed on the old founder Jack Daniel by creating a character and folk lore around him. They’ve associated it with “maverick independence”. A Jack Daniel’s drinker is one of defiance and is closely fixed to pop culture – think rock stars and more recently, according to Business Insider, it has been attaching itself to the notion of an independent American sprit – a notion “that keeps the message remarkably consistent”

Favourite Jack Daniel's tipples:

Jack Daniel’s and Coke: 1 part Jack Daniel’s and 3 parts coke Coke

Dark and Stormy: 1 part Jack Daniel’s mixed with 3 parts ginger ale

Lynchburg Lemonade: 1 part Jack Daniel’s, 1 part triple sec, 1 part sour mix, 4 parts lemon-lime soda. Garnish with lemon

Reiss' results display the Kate Middleton effect

Well known for her love of the high street Kate Middleton has given publicity on a global scale to many UK brands.

This year Kate Middleton has been seen countless times in Reiss outfits – of note was the white Reiss dress that she wore for her royal engagement shoot with Mario Testino and then again in Canada. She also wore a fitted beige dress to meet the Obama’s at Buckingham palace in May; pictures of the Duchess in this dress went all round the world and caused a fashion frenzy.

Reiss has certainly been feeling the result of the Duchess’ exposure as it announced profits of £8.5 million for the UK arm of the fashion chain– a 51% increase on the previous year. Sales rose to £95 million, up from £85 million.

The Kate effect has helped Reiss climb to a platform where it has started to obtain international brand recognition having bubbled quietly under the surface for the past ten years, known only really to the UK shopper. When Kate was seen wearing the £175 Shola dress for the Obama’s, Reiss' website reportedly crashed with an over load within hours and the dress sold out across the UK within days.

Kate has had a huge effect on other brands too including the virtually unknown Issa dresses which have seen sales increase 10-fold at Harvey Nichols (Evening Standard)!

Three great articles that we're reading

CSR will matter in the future: a pretty cool article on how brands in the future will have to keep up, if not put more effort into, 'looking good'. For some this could mean a total re-shift. But the author of this Harvard Business Review number suggests brands are going to have to focus much more on cause marketing as an increasingly skeptical consumer in a world where being eco and ethical will increasingly come into play. Great news for those in PR

Confidence - its just a numbers game: HBRblog looks at how some of us tend to not have much self belief, women in particular. It's a hot topics at the momment. So do you round yourself up or down?

Generation Flux: A recent article on fastcompany.com takes an interesting perspective on the fast changing and increasingly unpredictable world that we find ourselves in. Big swings in the economy, rapid change in technology, the rise of facebook, the fall of blockbusters... The world we live in and the companies around today are in a perpetual state of change

Our favourite idea? The idea of the 'new frontier'. Change means opportunites and there are plenty of guys who are hunting that out. What we think? We think it could be about the 'lost generation'. The host of graduates who couldn't and haven't been able to get the jobs they need or deserve since the crash. But the smart ones out of this lot will be the creative ones, tapping into opportunites during a period of change and setting the bar for themselves. In five to ten years time will we see a cluster of five to ten year old companies run by ex graduates?

One love... One Difference

A small company on a big mission. That is One Difference. They’re here because they create brilliant, quality products, and every time one is bought they donate 100% of the profit to life-changing projects in developing countries. What’s cool about One Difference is that every one product funds a like-for-like equivalent, so for example, One Water bottles fund clean water projects in Africa, One hand soap funds sanitation projects, One Eggs supports chicken and egg farms.

One was founded in 2003 by a group of like minded friends. Shocked by the fact that over 1 billion people in the world didn’t have access to clean water at the time, they created a brand of bottled water which gave profits to fund drinking water wells in Africa. One Water rolled off the production line in 2005 and since then the little company has snow balled tackling huge issues on sanitation, HIV, nutrition, finance and healthcare. The One foundation has raised £6.9m and influenced the lives of over 1.5 million. 700+ water solutions have been installed, giving free, clean water to African school children. 4,000 individuals have benefited from One’s vegetable gardens and over 12,000+ people have been tested for HIV and counselled.

Products: One Water, One Eggs, One loo roll, One Vitamin Water, One Condoms, One plasters
The One Foundation: charity that provides support for projects in developing countries
Projects: http://www.youtube.com/user/1difference#p/u/3/Oe-IO4jQYh0
Money given back: £6.9million
Alqulty Africa Fund: Less than 2% of poor people have access to financial services from sources other than money lender. Alqulty hopes to change that in partnership with One Difference through micro finance programmes
Most likely to find their products: In festivals and the shelves of our major supermarkets!

Made.com

Founded in 2010 by a 28 year year old ex investment banker Ning Li, Made.com is based on the principle that “the high street and expensive brands” can “give consumers a raw deal” because the customer ends up paying for so many middlemen. Li discovered that high-end furniture typically goes through seven hands or more in transit from factory to show room, and every hand takes a cut (Time magazine). So, Made.com does things a little differently… they cut out all middlemen –Web 2.0 at its finest

The website offers original up market furniture design at affordable prices (so that means cutting costs by no warehouses, no showroom rent and absolutely no middle guys). They group orders (every 7 days orders are processed and by that we mean only orders so there’s no spare stock) and they use fresh talent and finally finish it off with top manufacturers and suppliers – many who are the same as the high end retailers such as Roche Bobois and Conran.

Unique to made.com is crowdsourcing – a way of tapping into consumers in order to generate product designs. Li’s company will really only take its designs from professional designers who send in around 50-100 designs a month according to Time magazine. For every 100 submissions, roughly ten go to a public vote and then two or three end up as opportunities to actually buy! The winning designer get a royalty back from Made.com.

The only downside? A two to three month wait for your product… Li’s concept is however working as the press seem to love his idea and the designs on offer. Initially lining up nearly $4 million in backing to launch, Made.com, according to Li, could be profitable by mid 2011! So, if you’re into design or looking to buy a new sofa, take a look at Ning’s revolutionary site – a new design on furniture and e-tailing.

Marmite

Love it or hate it....

Marmite has been around before 1680 believe it or not (is it that old? we hear you ask!). Well, the raw ingredients existed way back in the dark ages before 1680 - marmite is 'made from brewer's yeast that's been used to ferment sugars into alcohol' but Marmite itself was yet to be totally invented. People simply binned it before they knew better. Marmite as we know it was actually created in 1902 by the Marmite food company in Burton-on-Trent. A german scientist called Liebig had discovered that brewer's yeast cells could be concentrated bottled and eaten, and this little UK company thought that was a rather clever idea.

To this day the basic production of Marmite has changed very little and the recipe stayed totally the same. It has a high vitamin B content and because of this, the little jar was put into soldiers rations in World War I. In World War II it was used as a dietary supplement in prisoner of war camps (according to Marmite themselves). And in 1999 was sent over to Kosovo after requests from the British peace keeping forces at work out there.

The brand has barely changed too! The original jar and label was designed in the 1920s and since then it's essentially stuck. And whether you love or hate the stuff, you're almost sure to like the brand - after all the brand has expanded from tea towels, to recipe books to wallpaper (yes really!). Over the years the Marmite has played out various campaigns - 'The growing up spread you never grow out of' of the 70's, 'My mate Marmite' of the eighties and the more recent 'Love it or Hate it' campaign. Most recently Marmite has joined up with Paddington Bear to show that a little squeeze of marmite can make all the difference to a sandwich in order to showcase the new squeezey marmite.

A few facts

Best eaten: On toast with lots of butter

Owned by: Unilever

Vegetarian: 100% and a rich source of vitamin B12

Strange products: Marmite with Guiness

Burberry and social media

Burberry, the british luxury brand. They've hit 10 million followers on facebook. Compared to their main competitors, Burberry outstrips the lot. Chanel has nearly five million fans (half that of Burberry), Armani a teeny two million and less than half a million have shown their love of Alexander McQueen. Only H&M and Victoria's Secrets manage to get up to the heady heights that Burberry have managed - Victoria's Secrets having an outstanding 16 million!

Within six hours of releasing their spring summer campaign on facebook with Cara Delevingne and Eddie Redmayne Burberry had over 15 thousand likes, 320 comments and 916 shares on their campaign album. 5 thousand likes on their campaign video driving traffic through to YouTube. In under 48 hours 10 thousand like the personal thanks from Creative Officer Christopher Bailey for hitting the 10 million facebook fan milestone and another 1,500 like his personal video.

Social Media success? Definately

250 tonnes of brussel sprouts

Over Christmas Waitrose provided us with 250 tonnes of brussel sprouts, 85 lorry loads of potatoes and enough Christmas cards to cover 23,408 olympic sized ice rinks according to their MD! In the week leading up to Christmas online sales were up 49% and flower sales up 79% compared to 2010. Waitrose fake home cooked food rose 25% with favourites being the Plumpie Turkey, dressed lobster and seafood entrees.

In the final five weeks untill Christmas the high end supermarket took £600 million in revenues setting the bar high for the likes of Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda

A kindle Christmas

One million kindles apparently found their way under the Christmas tree this year. A recent survey by YouGov has unearthed that one in forty UK adults had a "kindle Christmas" with an estimated 1.3 million e-readers sold in the holiday period - 92% of them being the Amazon Kindle. The compact, light weight and easy to use e-reader is much more popular with women and older adults. Sales of e-books in Q1 are obvisouly expected to soar.

According to investment bank Morgan Keegan, the success of Amazon's budget Kindle Fire has led to lowered estimates of Q4 2011 ipad shipments from 16m to 13m. However in the UK 640,000 tablets were sold over Christmas, with 72% estimated to Apple's ipad. A giant 1.2 billion apps were also downloaded globally between Xmas and the New Year - roughly 2 million a day.

2011's Most Powerful Women

It's a fresh new year and today, for many of us, it's back to work! So we thought a little inspiration could go a long way today by taking a look at some of Forbe's Most Powerful Women of 2011!

1. Angela Merkel 57 Germany

Chancellor

2. Hilary Clinton 64 US

Secretary of State

3. Dilma Rousseff 64 Brazil

President

4. Indra Nooji 56 US

Chief executive Pepsico

5. Sheryl Sandberg 42 US

COO of Facebook

6. Medlinda Gates 47 US

CoFounder, CoChair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

7. Sonia Ghandi 65 India

President

8. Michelle Obama 47 US

First Lady

9. Christine Lagarde 56 France

MD of IMF

10. Irene Rosenfeld 58 US

CEO Kraft Food

11. Lady Gaga 25 US

Entertainer

12. Jill Abramson 57 US

Executive Editor NY Times

13. Kathleen Sebelius 63 US

U.S Secretary of health and human services

14. Oprah Winfrey 57 US

Media Personality

15. Janet Napolitano 54 US

U.S Secretary of homeland security

16. Susan Wojcicki 43 US

SVP Advertising, Google

17. Cristina Fenandez 58 Argentina

President

18. Beyonce Knowles 30 US

Entertainer, Designer

19. Georgina Rinehart 57 Australia

Billionaire Mining tycoon

20. Cher Wang 53 Taiwan

Cofounder, Chair HTC

http://www.forbes.com/wealth/power-women

2011's Most Interesting Women

Forbe's list in which they've picked out a handful of 2011's remarkable ladies (http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2011/12/26/the-10-most-interesting-women-of-2011/). We thought we'd share... some made us feel proud, others made us smile and some... well... we felt confused. So taking a look of some of Forbe's Most Interesting Women of 2011!

1. Leymah Gbowee - one of the 3 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Leymah was a libean peace activist who has long campaigned for the rights of women and against rape. In 2011 she helped women's voices be heard in Libya's elections

2. Kris Jenner - a women who is despised by most, yet so many of us cannot get enough of her brood's tv show The Kardashian's. Kris and her clan have dominated the world's glossy pages throughout 2011 as Kris orchestrated a very profitable marriage between her daughter Kim and Kris Humphries which lasted a whole 72 days... talk about living happily ever after

3 Pippa Middleton - K Midi's sister caught the worlds eye as she followed her sister down the isle. Rear of the year, front row at London fashion week and having just signed a £400,000 (estimated) book deal on party planning, Pippa has shot to international fame

4. Anne Sinclair - Dominque Strauss Kahn's wife. DSK resigned as the IMF's MD after being charged with suspected sexual assault and rape of a hotel maid. Despite all this, Anne flew to NY to put up a $1 million bail, a $5 million bond and stayed by his side throughout

5. Gabrielle Giffords - a US rep who was shot in the head in Tuscon. She made a miraculous recovery, shocking doctors by opening her eyes only a week after and later accompanied her husband to see the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour which he commanded

6. Adele - what can we say but WOW! Adele's Rolling in the Deep sold 5.5 million copies, her album helped drive overall album sales in the UK.

7. Rooney Mara - the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Only knowing her as Mark ZUckerberg's ex girlfriend in the Social Network, Rooney has apparently put on a breath taking performance as the novel's urban leading lady

And two more we think deserve a mention...

8. Kate Middleton - what a year K Mid's has had. From being William's girlfriend to international phenomenon. Kate not only has taken on a host of royal duties, she has thrown herself into a life of dedication to charity all under the paparazzi's watchful eye. Aside from that Kate has given the Royals an exceptionally fresh make over with her enviable wardrobe mixing up high street and designer!

9. The women of Egypt - all those ladies who have protested for freedom and equal rights in one of the worst years to have faced Egyptian people

The Curious History of the Bank Holiday

What better a way to celebrate the New Year than with a Bank Holiday - that means at least five hours more sleep, guilt free film watching and wine drinking the night before, an excuse for seeing family or running to the sales, but best of all it means A FOUR DAY WEEK! See us smile!

The bank holiday earnestly began in 1871 when it was first recognised in parliament. It was created by none other than a banker (hence the name bank holiday) called John Lubbock. Legend has it that Mr Lubbock, who was so keen on cricket, choose dates when village matches were in his home county.
In truth UK bank holidays are associated with important religious festival and agricultural holidays.

Last year the host of bank holidays we accumulated was estimated to have cost the UK £30bn! But in the grand scheme of things we dont reckon you can put a price tag on an extra mornings lie in

Happy New Year

love,

Miss Maurice x