I get a little sick of businesses claiming that they are “ethical” as their selling point.

It seems to me to imply that all their other competitors are less than upfront and decent or not quite up to their Sir Bob standard.

And more dangerous for them, they have to scrupulously and comprehensively establish and maintain standards that meet their self-imposed Persil white credentials.

One company that seems to have failed the test is the self styled “ethical” fish restaurant chain Loch Fyne.  Allegedly it does not even pay the minimum wage, but makes up for the shortfall through tips.

It is actually legal but ethical, many would say not.

Such corporate self congratulation starts to work against it:

“(Loch Fyne) is an enterprise with respect for animals, people and ecology”.

“In everything we do, be it building a new restaurant, hiring staff or cooking the food we take huge pride in doing it to the best standard possible.”

If you are ethical describe your actions.  If you act ethically you do not need to say it, it  is there to see.

Let’s get “back to basics,” if you say you are morally and professionally superior you had better prove it or be prepared to head for a fall.

Anyway using the term “ethical” strikes me as a bit jaded  if nothing else.

Sepp Blatter has once again made a mess of his communications. On occasions in the past he has claimed to be “misinterpreted.”

The latest piece of brilliance came when he compared Ronaldo’s current situation trying to escape the pernicious grip of Manchester United to “modern slavery.”

Where do I begin?

Anyway apart from out of touch imbeciles destroying football there are glimmers of those that can communicate well, can charm and are in touch or at least make a good impression that they might be. Roll on Big Phil Scolari, view here.

I am starting to hear this criticism being levelled at the media, as though any financial difficulties can be attributed solely to some irresponsible journalists.

If that is true, surely any upturn can be attributed to those same guys. So if your house has trebled in value you should be thanking your friendly local business journalist. Go on treat them to an expensive meal out at the very least.

It is true that confidence is everything. And of course the media has a strong influence here. But the fickle ebbing and flow of that precious feel good factor has more to it than the media wallowing in doom ridden scenarios, if we take away some ridiculous articles: one such piece in a national today claimed that the property market will not recover for 20 years. Who are you Mystic Meg or whatever she was called before the lottery. About as reliable.

The fact is the banks over lent, credit card companies over lent, mortgage companies over lent. We want our money back: Credit Crunch. I don’t have an economics degree I know but it didn’t help the lenders, so.

The media has power, it can influence, but somewhere, at least here, it is for the most part reporting the mistakes of others.

If you want to blame someone there are much more credible targets and some of them unfortunately include ourselves.

Crain’s Business Manchester ran quite a special story this week on blogmail.

The story focussed on disatisfied customers of property Dylan Harvey recovering their money with blog mail.  The pressure exerted by leaving comments on influential property sites that it uses to gain investors that told of their trouble with Dylan Harvey proved enough.  The  unhappy customers were able to recover their money without resorting to legal means, hence the title.  The link above will give both sides’ views.

The special thing is not so much the power of PR, using blogs to influence but where the story was placed: front page of Crain’s.

How often does that happen now?

Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has decided to open up domian names to include personalised, business endings and non-latin script endings.

The .co, com, org and certainly .biz could find themselves eventually outnumbered by the .artisan and .rob noveau domani names that will appear.

It is certainly is an opportunity for cyber squatters.  I like the look of .tesco and .shell myself.

Open up the west once again so I can be rich.

I am looking for the definitive or at least an insightful book on online PR

Does anyone have any suggestions?  I have looked at Amazon and nothing has really impressed me.  I need to revisit Waterstones.

Ideally published in the last year or so and of a reasonably high level, not an introduction.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Madmusings first e-mail bulletin to me from those crazy guys at MAD, a valuable source of marketing news, certainly grabbed my attention.
So what are those wild cats on about?

Simply that Facebook, far from waning in popularity is still on an upward curve, with new sites being launched specifically for Germany, France, Spain and China.  It could be just the start.

As madmusings points out Facebook has been dismissed as a fad, among the number of critics is Rupert Murdoch who said it was “more of a directory.”  Well you would say that….especially if you had pulled off a master stroke, worthy of Monty Pansear’s batting (which is not good), of buying MySpace’s parent company for a “cool” £330 million.  Better to have invested in Coke, the drink or even the coal derivative, seeing we are using that colourful imagery.

One thing is clear MySpace was in the international market with country specific sites long before Facebook.  But who would you bet on to succeed in a couple of years?

Tom Cheesewright of IO Communications told me (I am going to be pulled up on this aren’t I?) that the Internet allows the best sites to succeed even if they are new entrants to the market.

The traditional marketing model is that the first in usually captures the biggest share, I think it is 30% or 40% if I remember all that education.  Early followers grab a lot of the remainder and the rest , the crumbs.

As for the attention grabbing headline?  It grabbed my attention, even if did not quite live up to its shock value.

David Brent would be relieved to hear that office speak is alive and well.

The BBC has a funny, perhaps frightening, top 50 supplied by workers who are suffering such torment and had to speak out.

My favourites are :

“The business-speak that I abhor is pre-prepare and forward planning. Is there any other kind of preparedness or planning?”  Edward Creswick, well done you are on my blog.

“The expression that drives me nuts is 110%, usually said to express passion/commitment/support by people who are not very good at maths. This has created something of a cliche-inflation, where people are now saying 120%, 200%, or if you are really REALLY committed, 500%. I remember once the then-chancellor Gordon Brown saying he was 101% behind Tony Blair, to which people reacted ‘What? Only 101?’”
Ricardo Molina, don’t watch The Apprentice it might be too much.

(By the way one of the “idgits” on the show wanted a simbiotic relationship with Sir Alan, that is a mutually advantageous association).

“We too used to have daily paradigm shifts, now we have stakeholders who must come to the party or be left out, or whatever.”
Barry Hicks

“Until recently I had to suffer working for a manager who used phrases such as the idiotic I’ve got you in my radar in her speech, letters and e-mails. Once, when I mentioned problems with the phone system, she screamed ‘NO! You don’t have problems, you have challenges’. At which point I almost lost the will to live.”
Stephen Gradwick

“Holistic”, “leverage” and “synergy” are my bugbears.

Still, it is not an new problem.  I would strongly recommend this piece by the great pamphleteer George Orwell who records some clumsy and turgid prose and gives suggestions how to express yourself clearly.  Is there any better teacher?

Thank G-d The Apprentice is drawing to close.

A week or perhaps two’s respite before another series appears of egotistical, back biting nutters trying to impress Sirrrrr Alan. (Not to be confused with Sir Alan lookalike Fozzie Bear and fellow Muppets pictured; could be used on spot the difference).

Why does Sirrrr Alan do it? It must be ego. His business is now mainly property, does he need an apprentice to mastermind the crumbs of what is left of his other businesses?

And where do Apprentice’s go after they win? I cannot remember the name of the last winner and I have heard nothing of him since his win. Will he reappear as the next in line to take over Sir Alan’s empire. Unlikely.

I think Charlie Brooker in The Guardian summed up its business worth as: “The notion that the series represents a genuine test of business skill is exposed as the preposterous gobbet of cockflob it is (in the interview round).” Wonderful phrasing.

It is just “good” old fashioned reality television in a setting different to a house/ musical / stage. Why not have a reality TV series set in a war zone, where the loser goes on a suicidal mission each week? Good television.

But the business techniques seem to be straight from the 80s and about as cutting edge:

Sell - regardless of whether the client wants it

Business is all about sales technique

Back biting and scheming, despite protestations to the contrary, is standing up for yourself

No relationship building needed

Repeat clients not important

More sophisticated techniques not needed as long as you bang on doors

The shame of this is that is all a charade and that Sir Alan does support charities, might all be gruff on the outside and he has more depth than this crap. Still if you have a beer it can be enjoyable to watch a bunch of egotists squirm, be made fools of, have their bubbles pricked for about 10 minutes.

Marketing Week’s reporting of advertising spend was upbeat with a 4.2% rise since last year.

Notable is Internet advertising spend up 39.5%, but direct mail spend down 6.5%.  Direct mail often prospers in tougher market conditions because it is easier to track and analyse.