Jamie Spafford...The Blog

All change please, all change...

2011-10-31T13:15:00.000+00:00

Two weeks I announced on Twitter that I am leaving Visible Technologies to explore new opportunities.

I've been at Visible for 18 months, and have had an absolutely fantastic time. I got the chance to meet and work with really great people, help amazing clients, and use real next-generation technology. All in all, the perfect job for me!

However, the opportunity I've been provided with was too good to turn down...

A couple of years ago a group of friends and I self-published a cookbook called Sorted: A Recipe for Student Survival . The idea was to get young people back in the kitchen, cooking fresh, fun food. To complement this we created some videos to reach the younger audience, and show them how to cook the recipes from the book.

Fast forward a couple of years and SORTED Food is now the largest social media cooking hub in the UK.

With a book deal, sponsorship interests and much more besides, the time is right to jump on board and see how far we can push the SORTED word.

It's the beginning of what will be an incredible journey, and I can't wait to share the fun along the way.

Thanks

Jamie

Anthony Nolan - Be a Match, Save a Life - Part 2

2011-06-06T20:00:00.004+01:00

Last week I posted about being matched for a bone marrow/stem cell donation, which you can read HERE.

This week I wanted to provide some more detail behind the donation process, as it is a lot less stressful than public opinion would have you think.

So...

The first step is signing up to become a donor... There couldn't be a simpler process, all you do is register on the Anthony Nolan website, and they send you a test tube. You spit into the test tube and send it back to them. That's it.

Anthony Nolan will then store your sample and wait to see if it matches anyone looking for a bone marrow transplant. This in itself is incredibly rare, so the more people on the register the better.

What happens if I'm a match?

There are now two methods of donating bone marrow, one is more widely known than the other:

Bone Marrow Donation
Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Donation

Bone Marrow Donation

This is the more widely known process of donating, and it involves surgery under general anaesthetic, with a 1-2 week recovery period. This is the process that has been around for decades, but there's a newer, potentially more successful method available.

Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Donation

This is the new method, which I was put forward for. This has all of the benefits of the bone marrow donation, but none of the intrusion. I'll explain how -

For the 4 days before the procedure, you get visited by a nurse (at your home or your work, when is convenient for you), and they will give you an injection of a natural substance called G-CSF. This promotes the growth of stem cells within your blood, meaning you create more than you need. On the 5th day you go to their hospital in London and sit there for 4-5 hours with a needle in one arm taking blood out, a needle in the other arm putting it back in. In between is a machine that uses centrifrugal forces to separate your newly grown excess stem cells from your blood.

The blood goes back into your arm, the stem cells get collected in a bag and transferred to the patient.

The Anthony Nolan trust suggest you have a day off work after to recover, but even that is optional!

And that's it. No anaesthetic. No pain. No lasting effects.

Potentially one saved life.

When donation is this easy, it's a wonder that the Anthony Nolan's register is so short of people.

Signing up to the register is incredibly easy, and you can do it HERE

I don't do pleading or begging, but this is the right thing to do.

But I can't help the person I was matched to right now, you might be able to.

Please sign up

Thanks

Jamie

Anthony Nolan - Be a Match, Save a Life

2011-05-31T19:30:00.001+01:00

*A couple of weeks ago I said I had some exciting news...there's now been a couple of stumbling blocks, but here's a post I wrote in anticipation of the news...*

Around 15 years ago my Dad donated bone marrow to a 10 year old boy who was suffering from Leukemia. That boy went on to beat Leukemia, grow up, go off to uni and is now living a full and normal life somewhere in the UK.

So a few years ago when the Anthony Nolan Trust (here) showed up at Bournemouth Uni looking for new people to put on their register, I didn't have to think twice.

Fast forward 3 years and I get a phone call.

"You're a potential match for a patient, would you like to go forward for more tests?"

(Speaking to the charity, it is extremely rare that two people in the same family could both be matches for patients, so it's a pretty unique thing)

And so it was, a blood test and a few week's wait later, and it's confirmed...I'm the match they've been looking for.

Wow.

I'm currently waiting for my final medical later this week to check my body is all good, and all being well I'll be donating within two weeks....

Unfortunately this is where my story comes to a close (for now). Due to a small complication (on my side), I am currently unable to donate the stem cells.

However, I still want to outline what is involved in the donation process, because there is a lot of false information out there, and it’s actually quicker, easier, and less painful than current perceptions.

So watch out over the next couple of days as I update this blog with some more details.

Thanks

Jamie

Business as usual?

2011-05-09T20:36:00.000+01:00

Neglect..."To disregard: a lack of attention and due care"

Which pretty well sums up this blog.

Fortunately, there's something quite exciting around the corner, which I want to tell you all about.

Over the next few days I'll be updating the blog with some new posts, and maybe even asking for your help with something quite important.

Catch you soon

Jamie

To unsubscribe or to not unsubscribe...do companies pay any attention?

2011-01-25T19:14:00.000+00:00

Do you keep a track of all the companies whose emails you've unsubscribed from?

I certainly tried...5 years ago...But nowadays you buy things from so many websites, sign up to so many email lists and get so much spam, that it becomes impossible to keep track of which emails are solicited and which aren’t.

Fast forward to today...

Just before 2pm, I received an email from Moonpig telling me about their new Valentine’s Day offers...

Didn’t think anything of it, deleted it, carried on with my day.

4 hours later I received another email from Moonpig, apologising for sending me the earlier one:

The question is, had I unsubscribed? I don’t think I had! I buy cards from Moonpig periodically and so I kind of expected to receive emails from them.

I only realised it was a mistake when they told me they had made a mistake, and I still don’t think it was a mistake anyway!

So what do you do when you’ve realise you may have sent emails out to people you shouldn’t have...send an email to the same dataset apologising just in case? Or actually work out who shouldn’t have received the email and apologise to them instead.

Considering Moonpig’s business is purely online, this is something Moonpig should be experts at. Handling personal data, managing CRM databases, sending useful emails etc etc...this should be their bread and butter.

But now, my impression is that they have now made a mistake...when they might not have done.

What would have been the right thing to do?

What will 2011 bring?

2011-01-05T12:18:00.000+00:00

So 2011 is now upon us. A Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you all had a fantastic break.

Since returning from the Christmas break, back into the real world, there’s been big talk about what the trends for 2011 are going to be, with lots of predictions being thrown around.

Initially lots of people have gone stark raving bonkers over Quora – “A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it”.

Or as it appears to me: Yahoo Answers mixed with Wikipedia

It appears useful, but with millions of email notifications being sent through, is it going to be a victim of its own success?

The other site catching people’s attention is about.me – basically a central page where you can link out to all of your other social media pages.

This sounds handy, and could be a positive for SEO in terms of in-bound links, good for business cards and such like where there’s not much space, but you want to link to all your sites. But do we really need another URL to link to?

It will be interesting over the course of the year to follow these sites, as well as many others that come along and try to be “the next big thing”.

Hopefully using the power of this blog I can try to document this in some small way.

I hope you have a happy and prosperous 2011.

It's been a while...

2010-12-24T09:24:00.000+00:00

It may be a little early for New Year's resolutions, but I feel like I need one now:

I will regularly update my blog.

I will regularly update my blog.

I will regularly update my blog.

I will regularly update my blog.

I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated this...but I now have my own URL (www.JamieSpafford.com), and it's time to pick it back up again.

So if you're still here and reading this, you should look forward to some regular updates from me soon.

In the meantime, have a very merry Christmas, and an extremely happy New Year!

Thanks

Jamie

When Social Media Just Isn't Enough

2010-03-15T22:00:00.001+00:00

My girlfriend has recently been having problems with Vodafone.

She upgraded her contract with them to an iPhone 3gS and has since had no end of troubles trying to get any signal/cellular network.

The obvious outlet for her frustration was via her Twitter feed, where her tweets were picked up by @VodafoneUK who replied to her straight away offering help by means of an email. The email led to a reply stating they could not help her and she would need to phone.

Fast forward to today where in total there have been 9 phone calls, 1 store visit, 2 new sim cards...and still no working phone.

But every time she or I tweet about Vodafone, we receive a reply saying "Sorry to hear you're still having problems, drop us an email or contact us via the eForum".

It must be frustrating working the Twitter account for Vodafone because they seem keen to help, but they're being let down by the Customer Service call centres...there's nothing else someone on Twitter can do, they have to rely on the one-on-one contact of a phone call or store visit.

Monitoring Twitter for mentions is a fantastic Customer Service aid and really helps customers feel they are being listened to, but make sure the rest of the Customer Service department can match it for use

Rant over.

The Smart way to Tweet

2010-02-26T20:14:00.002+00:00

This is something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, firstly because I thought it was hilarious but also because it really shows how careful companies need to be when sharing content online.

First there was Habitat, more recently there was Vodafone and now it appears that the official Twitter account for the Smart ForTwo has royally screwed up. On 25^th January, Smart posted this tweet:

How to park a #smartcar - Don't try this at home! http://ow.ly/108us

Nothing too unusual and very in keeping with their previous tweets, but I clicked through to the video to see that it was actually a viral ad that was produced prior to the launch of the Toyota iQ. If you watch the video, you will see that it shows two Toyota iQ’s handbrake turning into very small parking spaces. That’s right, Toyota iQ...the Smart ForTwo’s main competitor.

Now, for general members of the public this probably isn’t a massive issue...it’s a fun video with small cars, small parking spaces etc etc and they’re probably not going to notice the difference between the cars.

But for the official Twitter account to make such a mistake is just horrific. They are directing their customers/fans/followers to a viral video promoting their main competitor...it would have been more subtle if they came out and said the iQ was a better car than the ForTwo!

SmartfortwoUK has 469 followers, now if this video gets passed on (in the way viral ads are supposed to), who’s to say how many people could have seen it? Well looking at the Youtube video, it’s had over 5,000 views! How many impressions is that? It all adds up you know!

So how could this happen? Well the video is labelled on Youtube as a Smart ForTwo, which leads me to say that someone has lazily searched for Smart videos and come up with that one, not checked it through properly and posted it. Brilliant, they’re the kind of people you want working on your brand!

After I realised their mistake, I pointed it out to @smartfortwouk who’s reply was “@JamieSpafford - Well spotted! We love the video anyway, this is probably NOT how we recommend you park a #smartcar”

Well, no...because it’s not a Smart Car!

And another thing...The tweet is still up there. Even after they’ve admitted the mistake, they’ve left it there.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE?!?!

It’s been said before, but although social media should be quick and reactive, it should also be right. If you make a mistake, correct it...don’t leave it there for the World to see.

Or even better, don’t make the mistake in the first place. Social media is a lot more casual than official communications, but it doesn’t mean the approval process should be any less stringent, so get Smart!

Footballers Tweet No More...

2010-01-21T20:31:00.000+00:00

I know I'm making more of an effort to blog this year, but even I still can't believe Iv'e reached as low as tweeting about Football...oh well!

Companies ban their employees from using social networking sites, we all know it happens…You get into work one day and suddenly realise can’t get on Facebook, but you don’t want to ask anyone about it because you know you shouldn’t be using it in the first place, so quiet rumours go around the office until somebody confirms that Facebook has definitely been blocked.

So there’s nothing unusual about Manchester United blocking social networking site for their players either. Except that they’ve completely blocked the players from using social media in their own time (which, let’s be honest makes up most of their time!).

There is a definite logic behind this, looking back over the last year or so there’s been a couple of incidents with players venting their frustration at managers through the powers of Twitter, first there was Darren Bent prior to his move to Sunderland who went on a complete tirade, really showing his feelings. More recently, Liverpool player Ryan Babel let his frustration show when Benitez didn’t play him.

The issue I see is, where in a player’s contract does it say they are not allowed to use social media?

It is completely understandable that there should be a clause saying something along the lines of “you must not slag off the club or any of its employees”, and that’s fine, but Man U are saying that their players can’t use social media under any circumstances.

In my opinion this is a big mistake. With the correct restrictions in place (see above) Twitter can be a great way for fans to relate to their football idols, improving the relationship between player and fan. It’s not different to a company using Twitter. It’s about the relationship, the conversation, and footballers are a brand in their own rights. That’s why sponsors pump so much money into them.

If I was a sponsor, I would want the footballer to be talking about our brand through any means possible, not just in pre-arranged press conferences.

So ultimately, although Man U have good reason to restrict what players say, I really don’t think it’s right to ban them completely.

Red Card.

Who's Turning The Apple Rumour Mill?

2010-01-19T21:31:00.002+00:00

I can't believe it. It's the 19th January and I still haven't updated the blog this year. It's a disgrace, and I need to make it right. So here goes....

Apple. Probably the most respected, most blogged, tweeted and talked about company going. Everyday there is a new rumour about one of their products. Whether it's the iPhone 4.0 or the iTablet/iSlate, everywhere you look there are rumours surrounding Apple.

I just can't work out where the rumours comes from. We all know that car manufacturers leak images of upcoming vehicles or accidentally happen to tell car photographers where they might be testing the new heavily disguised bland-mobile, but is this what happens in the technology world as well?

I'm sure there is some truth to the rumours about new Apple products, but when Apple haven't even confirmed there's definitely going to be a Tablet-like product, where are the rumours coming from? Where do videos like this iTablet Video come from?!

It would be naive to think that Apple's PR department doesn't have some sort of hand on the stirring spoon, but I believe there's more to be found out by looking at the overall branding.

Apple = passionate people

That's what the brand breathes. The customers know Apple put their all into their products, so they like to give their all back. The high level of technology, classy simple design and ease of use mean that the Apple brand stands for everything that techy, classy and designer people want. Therefore the public get excited about new product launches. Obviously it's the people that want Apple products who are blogging, tweeting etc, and Apple appear to have realised this and seem to release small bits of information into the public domain, sit back and watch their customers do all their PR work for them, as it explodes into a full news story.

So Apple's success appears to balance between clever, guarded branding mixed with passionate and knowledgeable customers who want the newest technology now.

Clever, especially compared to their competition....By the way, how did your Windows 7 launch party go down? FAIL

GTi Say Bye Bye

2009-11-12T20:15:00.000+00:00

So this week, Peugeot have announced the demise of the GTi branding on their cars (Autocar Story). Coming from a company who near-enough invented the hot hatch with the 205 GTi, this is a very sad story.

However, I do not think it is as big news as people are flouting. When was the last time Peugeot made a car worthy of the GTi badge? For the last 10 years, their cars have been nothing but spongy, flabby, fish-mouthed monstrosities. Stick on bigger wheels, a spoiler and some (loosely) hugging seats and there you have a GTi. Well sorry Peugeot, but no…that does not make a true GTi.

The thing is, Volkswagen went through the same problem with the Golf. The mk1 and 2 Golf GTi’s are renowned for being excellent hot hatches, but by the time the mid-nineties came along, the GTi’s became watered down, heavy and not really newsworthy at all. Fortunately, VW have turned it all around with the latest two offerings and wear the GTi badge proudly.

The GTi badge has become a lot more than just a name, it is a brand. People aspire to own a GTi version of the Golf, it is a halo model in its own right. So I feel that Peugeot’s withdrawal from using the name will benefit the GTi brand in the long run. Until Peugeot can attach that name to a worthy vehicle, it will continue to dilute the GTi’s name.

Therefore, although sad news, I agree with Peugeot’s decision to remove themselves from the GTi battle and patiently await their triumphant return in a few years.

Business is Business, but isn't British Better?

2009-11-02T20:00:00.003+00:00

I’ve watched with amazement the drama that is surrounding the prospect of no British Grand Prix for 2010, wondering if someone is going to come to their senses anytime soon. By someone, of course, I mean Bernie Ecclestone.

Now it’s quite obvious for anyone to see that Donnington is not ready to host a Grand Prix in 2010, however good ol’ Bernie seems to think that Donnington’s failure means the British GP’s slot is now up for sale to the highest bidder. Ok, ok, this is business at the end of the day, and a very profitable business it is as well…for Bernie.

But there are some traditions, Monaco for example will never be dropped from the racing calendar…it holds too much heritage. Well excuse me for saying, but not only are the majority of F1 teams based in Britain, providing British engineering, design and marketing jobs, but we’ve also fronted the two most recent World Champion drivers!

Button has just won the WDC, Brawn have just won the Constructors Championship, Hamilton will hopefully be back on form next year in a McLaren, the Red Bull cars will be fighting up there as well…all these teams are based in the UK in case you didn't realise.

Britain is at the forefront of F1, and Bernie is prepared to give away the British Grand Prix just because another country is offering him more money. Silverstone is sitting there, patiently waiting to be given the go-ahead to run the 2010 Grand Prix, and the main question that has to be asked is, would people prefer to see, and would the drivers prefer to race around the historic Silverstone circuit or go to a circuit in a random country with no F1 involvement other than a large cheque in Bernie’s back pocket?

Business is business, but with two British World Champions driving for British teams and a whole host of other British-run teams, should some things not be sacred?

MG - Running on Fumes?

2009-10-14T20:00:00.000+01:00

This week has seen the sad, yet slightly inevitable, news that MG are halting production of the recently refreshed (even that might be an overstatement!) MG TF at Longbridge due to a lack of sales. So could this finally be the end of MG? And could, or more poignantly should, this most recent embarrassment have been avoided by letting the long running brand bail out at the same time Rover went under?

I suppose the question I’m asking is, when is enough enough? There have been a number of companies who have tried to resurrect both Rover and MG over the years, but as soon as one fails, another one ploughs in some money in a vain attempt to keep a good old British brand from drowning. From where I’m sitting there is only a finite amount of times that a brand can be relaunched and try to re-attract customers. If you’ve failed once, people are likely to give you a second chance. If you’ve failed four or five times….well, what’s different this time? Why should I buy your product?

The issue is, MG don’t produce cheap, FMCG goods that you can try to see if you like before making a regular purchase. MG produce cars. Cars are expensive, high-involvement purchases that people put a lot of thought into before buying. If you’re spending the best part of £15,000 on something, you want to be assured that if it breaks down in two months time your dealer will still be there and able to honour the warranty. If you can’t place this level of trust in a company, are you likely to buy their product?

In my mind, the trust has gone. I would be very surprised if MG sold any more cars. And I don’t think there is any point in trying. People cannot come back from the dead, why should brands be any different?

I don’t want to appear to be having a go at MG but their cars ended life as reworked Rovers…not as real MG cars, which is a shame given their rich heritage of cars throughout the years. The MGB, for example, is one of the greatest British sports cars ever made…sadly the same cannot be said of the MG TF, ZR or ZT.

Although it pains me to say it, I really do hope this is the end of the road for MG. In a time when consumers are becoming more fickle with their money, and there is more choice than ever, MG will undoubtedly get lost amongst newer, well respected brands, relying only on a history which is slipping further and further back in time.

A Slice of Pepperoni Pizza with Extra Stupidity

2009-09-20T15:03:00.001+01:00

As an avid Radio 1 listener, I really resent their choice to put Zane Lowe on at 7pm every weekday evening to play "brand new" music...most of it is not brand new, it's just noise.....oh dear, am I seriously only 22???

Anywho, driving home one evening this week faced with the choice of "noise" or a commercial station, Absolute Radio won.

As is the way with commercial radio, the second I flick over, the music stops and the adverts start. Brilliant, more "noise"...but as I prepared to zone out and concentrate on the road, one of the adverts caught my attention.

The advert was for Papa John's Pizza. The voice over artist was saying how good their Pepperoni pizza is, nothing unusual about that, until he started talking about the market research they had done to prove their pizza was better than Pizza Hut's Pepperoni offering. On the face of it, it sounds fine...but he then went on to explain that they sampled 236 people and 59% of people preferred Papa John's to Pizza Hut.

59%??? Why would you base a whole marketing and advertising campaign on 59%? That's not even a 10% preference rate?

It's not like the sample size makes up for it...236 people! Who are these people, where did they come from? The only thing Papa John's says about them is that none of them are "pepperoni pizza rejectors". It's difficult to make market research completely unbiased, but that is probably why we don't hear research being quoted in adverts where the "hero" brand wins by such a measely amount as 9%! Let's work it out...

So out of 236 repsondents, only 21 more people preferred your pizza to your main competitors...I wouldn't call that conclusive evidence, would you?

Surely the reason you say "xx% of people researched preferred our product to our competitors" is to provide potential customers with the confidence that they will enjoy your product more than if they bought a competitor's version. An advertising campaign based on a minor victory is still going to leave customers undecided as to which one's best, therefore rendering the whole exercise pointless!

Anyway it doesn't change my opinion...I prefer Hawaiian!!

Papa John's have detailed their research and methods here: Papa John's Website

A Musical Contradiction

2009-09-16T20:18:00.004+01:00

The subject of illegally downloading music has been in the news for many years now, and it looks like a story that won’t go away quickly…but does the music industry help itself at all?

This issue has been brought back to life due to the recent release of the Spotify iPhone app and how you are able to listen to almost any song for free (minus the £10 a month subscription fee). Once again, the music industry has stated that every year they are losing billions of pounds due to members of the public downloading music illegally.

Fair enough, no one likes to lose money.

What gets me is that the very same music industry allowed Radio 1 to have the “first play” of Leona Lewis’ new single “Happy” on September 6^th….when the song is not available to buy until November 9^th.

That is over two months.

So for over two months, Simon Cowell and his record label expect Leona fans (I’m sure there’s some out there) to listen to the new single only when the radio stations decide to play it. That doesn’t sound like a good plan to me.

Let’s break this down, research shows (1) that more than 60% of all people who download music illegally are aged between 14-24. Compare that to the fact that Leona Lewis, and more widely the X Factor, is targeted mainly at teenagers, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out what the likely result is.

I understand the need to build up demand of a song, or any product, before the date of release…but surely two months is pushing it? People will find a way to get their hands on the song, and it will end up in the music industry losing out.

It also means that by the time the song is available to buy, it will be overplayed, people will be bored of it and won’t buy it anyway!

Surely a much better idea is to build publicity around the artist and the upcoming release of their single, with the first play coming the week before the release?

I understand that the music industry is losing a lot of money thanks to the power of the internet, but they could also make their lives a lot easier by using the internet to their advantage to launch the product, rather than alienating their listeners and forcing them into downloading illegally just to get their hands on their new favourite song.

(1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6089126/Should-illegal-filesharers-have-their-broadband-connection-taken-away.html

Shock! Horror! I've Become A Blogger!

2009-09-16T19:15:00.001+01:00

Hello, good day and welcome to my new blog.

I'll be using this space to write all those thoughts and random ramblings that crop up during the course of a normal working week.

So, who am I? Well, my name is Jamie, I'm a 22 year old marketing graduate from Hertfordshire, and I've just started working in the big scary real world.

I work in Client Services within a Digital Marketing agency (Brandwidth) and maintain a keen interest with all that goes on within digital, branding, social and general marketing sectors.

The plan is that this blog will cover a wide variety of subjects but should (hopefully) focus in on the marketing perspective involved.

Please feel free to ask any questions, make any comments or argue any points via the blog.

I look forward to hearing your feedback!

Thanks

Jamie