SnideUK

SnidePod Nano launch! Not...

2009-01-08T22:54:48+00:00

This week is the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, and Lennie sent me here to prepare for what was going to be SnideUK's biggest techno-scoop of the year.

After months of work - scouring the web for leaked plans and pictures, sourcing cheap components, writing dodgy software, buying faulty batteries, and getting a plant in Thailand to make them, we were all set for our most audacious coup yet: the SnidePod Nano!

But (and I'm still reeling over this):

(1) Steve Jobs didn't bother turning up (apparently he'd been taking one of our "herbal supplements" and felt "a bit woozy")

(2) Apple didn't launch an iPod Nano!!!!!

Lennie's gonna kill me!

How could this happen? Even the Daily Mail last August said Apple we're launching one, and there's "leaked" pictures all over the web.

The only bright side is that the thing about gadgets is that you folk like to be seen with the latest kit, and fortunately for us at SnideUK you're often they're not really fussy whether it actually works or not, are you?

So, anyone who wants a smaller-than-normal iPhone-a-like that works every second or third call, do get in touch. It doesn't play Super Monkey Ball, though. But it does have some fabulous super hi-tech "Apps" - Minesweeper, MS Paint, Calculator, Address Book and Solitaire!

What a day. I don't know what's worse, thinking of how I'm going to explain all of this to the team, or having to listen to Steve Balmer's keynote...

Tudor Canibag
Head of IT
SnideUK

Snide for a New Regeneration

2009-01-07T23:29:44+00:00

So the news is out, there's to be a new tenant in the TARDIS although this time it's not a Tennant, with all the gloss he brought, but a Matt being given the chance to shine! It will be interesting to see if the tone changes from Tennant's lager than life portrayal given Smith's crisp introduction. Now the secret is out of the bag It's a shame we won't see him putting his wotsits on the line in the upcoming special set in Egypt against Russell T Grant's new foe Sultan Sheikh.

As with any change there is the chance for renewal and an opportunity to take a brand in new directions and at SnideUK we are looking to rise to the challenge. For years people have been saying that Snide Doctor Who action figures don't look anything like David Tenement and now that we have seen the new Doctor it is clear they don't look like Mart Smith either so we could of course just keep churning them out, but luckily our retail team have come up with a fantastic plan to make the most of the Doctor's regermination.

Looking beyond that we have had Tudor Canibag looking on the twitterweb for pictures of Matt Smith so that we can start on the new figures for 2010. At first I was a bit shocked at the casting, but seeing the pictures I am sure Steven Moppet has made the right choice. Of course I am surprised they were able to prise Smith away from ITV as he was certain to get the Champions League Cup gig soon, but maybe he ran out of patience.

Anyway, with a new Doctor there is sure to be new monsters for us to produce and perhaps there will be the return of more classic foes from the past, like the Iced Warriors, Silesians or my favourite the Zygotes. I can't wait to see Mark E Smith taking these guys on with his seismic screwdriver.

We have ideas in progress for all these but we are furthest along with our interpretation of the Seal Devils, uniquely accurate in a way only Snide can manage.

Bob Bunco
Marketing & Branding Director
SnideUK

A Very Snide Christmas!

2008-12-20T22:00:00+00:00

Well it's all go here as we gear up towards Christmas and with the credit crunch forcing people to think closely about how they spend their money, we were thinking this would be a bumper time for Snide merchants throughout the country. But of course, providence always comes and trips you up and nicks your wallet when you're not looking (indeed that is why it is a tradition for the Nomark family to name their eldest daughter Providence) but this year our nemesis has arrived in the shape of "Good old Woolies".

You see the problem is that many people are now rushing down to Woolies and snatching reduced cost real toys, videos and computer games rather than coming to us for Snide products. What really gets my goat is that it is all so short-sighted. Woolies is going and that of course is sad, but Christmas is supposed to be a time for retailers to make big money to see them through the quiet period in the New Year and Snide is no different.

We rely on selling people cheap crud in large volumes at Christmas and if people go out of their way to buy non-snide gear then the harsh reality is that we will see Snide Merchants disappearing from our streets. Is that what you want? It's not even like Woolies needs the money, as I said before they are on their way out. So resist temptation and support your local Snide merchant. Even if it's a bottle of Snide Eau de Toilette (with real urine for authenticity) for the office secret Santa or a slightly dangerous, looks a bit like a TV character, toy for the annoying kid next door, a little Snide can make a big difference.

Oh and here's our Christmas advert for this year, I hope you like it. It features Nobby Nomark, Mickey's brother, who has been working hard this year developing new markets for Snide and therefore deserves a chance to move into the limelight.

Bob Bunco
Marketing & Branding Director
SnideUK

Who gives you extra?

2008-12-17T16:01:00+00:00

Like the turning on of the lights in the Town Centre, the sound of carols being played by the Salvation Army band and the sight of Sandra from accounts showing passers-by her bra before collapsing in the gutter barely an hour into the office party, Doctor Who has become part of the rich tapestry of Christmas tradition in this country.

And as with any event that captures the imagination of the Great British public, Snide is there, ready and able, to weave our particular magic and create a range of absurd tat with little relation to the real thing that we can slap the logo onto and charge unsuspecting punters good money for.

Last year we got word early that the Doctor Who special would feature the Titanic and we were able to rush through a special model. It didn't look exactly like the Titanic, but it was realistic in one detail - it sank in water! On top of that we found out that Kylie Minogue was playing a maid and asked our factory to get us some dolls in the appropriate costume. We were a bit surprised that the dolls came back life-size, but they seemed popular anyway. In fact we only had one complaint, a Dad who brought his back saying it had just been a big let down.

The great thing about a concept like Doctor Who is that it really allows us to use our imagination. Anything we can think up, any products we have lying around, any old tosh that we can't shift, we can just bang on a logo, put it in a box with exterminate written somewhere on it and Granny will buy it for little Johnny, because she doesn't know that the Daleks don't move around on hovercrafts and the Slitheen don't drive bin lorries.

So this year we've got a veritable twelve days of Snide Doctor Who toys for Christmas, all packaged beautifully in a box promising a talking Tardis money box!

On the Twelfth day of Christmas my granny
gave to me;

12 Torchwood Trainsets
11 Martha Motorhomes
10 Slitheen Slippers
9 Trickster Frisbees

    8 Ood-sphere Eightballs
    7 Gelth Whoopee Cushions
    6 Master's Machine Guns
    5 Golden Donna Amulets
    4 Sarah Jane Activity Belts

3 Davros Swiming Caps
2 Sontaran Saxophones
and a Cyberman Assault Helicopter

Bob Bunco
Marketing & Branding Director
SnideUK

Copyright Violation - Who's the Pirate Now?

2008-11-23T19:23:14+00:00

If there's one thing I cannot stand it's double standards. Everyday we have the forces of commercial correctness lecturing us, harassing us, even victimising us, simply for having the nerve to be a commercial success - recycling the ideas of others to produce products people want.

But then what do we find. In the name of propaganda, our tormentors enlist their chums at the BBC in Birmingham, rip one of our internal training videos and use it out of context in a hatchet job on our business. You couldn't make it up!

Picture the scene, there was our Black Country sales operative Dave Roit-Yampy settling down for a night in front of the television when on came a programme that not only impecuned the company he worked for but also brazenly flouted the copyright we hold in the training video.

Dave explains; (I've quoted him verbatim as I'm not entirely sure what some of the words mean)

"It was last wensdy, ah remember it coz it was roit mizzly and I thought ahd just stay at wum and watch summat bostin on the telly. But there was naht on so ah wuz just blabberin wi the missis when suddenly on came Mickey Nomark. Ah cuduv spat mar tea to Smerrick. An as ah watched it, ah got more and more mardy, coz the lommock on it kept nigglin about Snide and talkin to sum wench who wuz all pisey about us, By the end ah wuz getin on a line an yawpin at the telly an Doreen told me to stop actin like a tittybabbi an siddown. "

Quite!

The point is you would think that the BBC would have gone through enough scandals without opening themselves up to another. But of course in this case they can rely on their friends to keep it all hush-hush. I guarantee you wont see a new Knock-Off-Nigel advert with the moustachioed gimp crooning to Mark Thompson about his larceny of our intellectual property.

Of course all this may have been a bit more forgivable had the conspirators at least been considerate enough to use the appropriate regional cut. Instead of using our Black Country output with the slogan 'Snide Goods! - Fit fa the Tackybonk', they used one of our Scottish videos which uses the delightful Kelvinside epithet 'a load of barry'. As Dave Roit-Yampy seemed to explain, the alien phraseology was simply confusing.

"Some morkins put on the jock video an mar mucker thought it was about Gareth Barry an wur loffin at me. Ah sez it ay but im woe listen; baggie cagmag. Anyroadup ah bost is clock frim an ah bin pail any utha clarnet as mythers me, coddin ur not!"

I think we can all agree with that.

Bob Bunco
Marketing & Branding Director
SnideUK

Because We're WellSnide

2008-11-14T12:56:47+00:00

It was only a couple of weeks ago I was writing about how Snide was under attack from people trying to put the kibosh on our online activities. The first offensive targeted our education provision under the laughable proviso that giving people academic qualifications in return for money is not how its done.

Of course the witch-hunt didn't end there, but instead has cost a good man his job when all he wanted to do was serve the public. They say it is for the good of the public that they persecute Snide, well was anybody in Iran helped by their prospective Interior Minister being branded a fraud. No, someone had paid good money for that degree and all Mr Ali Kordan did was say he had the qualification, which as he obviously had the certificate was perfectly true

You will recall I also mentioned the scurrilous attack on our direct marketing department (Codename - Sending People Apposite Mailshots) again justified on spurious grounds, this time a baseless theory that some people do not need to improve their sex life and are too lazy to delete a couple of e-mails !

Well now they've shown their true colours and have moved to an all out fight against our health care division, WellSnide.

This week the man we called 'King Viagra' got taken down and the media have been giving blanket coverage of one of the corporate correctness brigade lackeys telling people not to buy our products online because they might not get what they wanted and what they do get could be dangerous. Have they not heard of what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger? A 50/50 chance is pretty good!

All this just smacks of the nanny state! Well listen here Mr Poppins with your so called 'cracking report', this isn't Soviet Russia, people have the right to spend their own money how they want without interference from namby pamby do-gooders. If a hard-working man wants to chance his arm, or any other body part, on buying potentially lethal substances from someone they have no contact with and no comeback on, that's up to them.

Look, I'm not saying that WellSnide's pharmaceuticals are the real deal (well not here, of course I do on the e-mails) but most importantly they are cheap(ish) and you don't have the embarrassment of having to admit to a Doctor or Chemist that you are ill - surely that outweighs the chance that the drugs might kill you.

Anyway, with the possibility of the online market being affected by our opponents' propaganda, we have had to look at alternative distribution methods and we have produced a training film showing how the quality of Snide pharmaceutical provision can be maintained in the retail environment.

Tudor Canibag
Head of IT
SnideUK

They Can't Catch Me!

2008-10-28T22:07:07+00:00

If you have been looking for my twitters or updates on my facebook page, you may have noticed I have been keeping a bit of a low profile recently. Unfortunately this was due to what might be called operational difficulties - or alternatively keeping out of the way of the powers of 'corporate correctness' who have been using their bully-boy tactics to make inroads on some of our finest endeavours.

The first hit Snide took was one close to my heart and was all too close my person! It all centred on a denial-of-service attack on our online marketing capability. Obviously these things happen, and Snide has even had a hand in carrying out a few DoS raids ourselves, but in this instance the attack was a particularly blunt and unsophisticated one, namely sending in a bunch of heavies to carry off our servers and trying to 'take out' our key staff - and you know who that includes! So I took an extended holiday.

It's a bit rich when an organisation gets targeted like this for simply trying to maximise the visibility of its products and services. We have Snide drugs and organ-enhancing treatments and we want people to buy them, it's just advertising. Obviously we also want to get hold of people's bank details or to use their PC to send out further e-mails, but that's just cross-selling, Snide style. But do the so-called consumers' champions portray it like that? Of course not. Our products are denigrated on the flimsy basis of being useless or dangerous (make up your minds!) and our business practices are attacked as nefarious (change the record!)

Well I've a message for everyone as delivered to the latest Snide Strategy Conference (filed from a small private hotel somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere!). Despite the setback, Snide will continue to develop its online offer and we will even look to develop new initiatives and that means more spynets, botnets and phishing, Wham, Bam thank you Spam!.

While I am here, I just want to also mention a vicious attack on another Snide affiliate.

Snide Education offered people, who may have been denied opportunities in a mainstream system, the chance to get certificates, diplomas, degrees or whatever else we can think of to print on our mid-range laser printer. The fact that the the qualifications weren't 'approved' by a real University is somehow held against us as if that is the be-all and end-all of the matter.

In these times of economic hardship, surely we should be congratulating people on their entrepreneurial prowess in making seemingly worthless pieces of paper worth millions of pounds! But oh no, we can only gripe and complain that people have been cheated out of a bit of money, or that other people got to call themselves Doctor when they shouldn't. Honestly, what have the authorities got against people bettering themselves?

Tudor Canibag
Head of IT
SnideUK

The Wider World of Snide - No 1 Eastern Europe

2008-10-12T15:09:57+01:00

Many people are under the misconception that Snide is little local business, some realise we have operations in Asia but few have any idea about the real scale of Snide's global reach. We truly are a worldwide business!

To give a better picture of Snide's multinational operation, this is the first in an irregular series of features on our geo-regional syndicates. So today let's look at Snide's own Warsaw Pact, Snideprom.

As they have in so many business areas, the former Marxist states have managed to turn up a stream of world-class counterfeit entrepreneurs, imbued with an almost incomparable combination of zeal, creativity and cut-throat ruthlessness.

Of course every organisation needs a leader and Snideprom's Oligarch-in-chief is Lubotomir Mekyakidisich Kruschednutz. Hailing originally from the caucus backwater of Shuch, Krushednutz made a name for himself working for the Ministry of Diversions, his reputation based mainly on his invention of the steam-powered penknife and a new variety of cheese substitute made from macerated beetroot, dandruff and donkey sweat.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Kruschednutz took advantage of the wholesale privatisation of the state 'corrective realities' apparatus, buying a controlling stake and instituting a rolling five-year plan which has seen Snideprom grow exponentially into the counterfeit superpower it is today.

One of Snideprom's true successes has been in wine production in the Ukraine. The target for the year ending 2007 was to have a market share of 25%, but under the stewardship of rising star Andrei Yariba that has been more exceeded with ease. Of course there has been the occasional setback, however those episodes are behind the organisation and we move on, without those who failed us.

One of the satisfying aspects of Kruschnutz's vision is the scale of ambition it shows. For Lubotomir the conventional strategy of fake toys and sportswear does not have the drama. Instead he has continued to pursue a policy of making bold statements. Who but Snideprom would have created a chain of counterfeit filling stations?

And even when the product is small the execution is simply sublime. What's the latest must have gadget? The iPhone? Well who has a beautiful Snide iPhone on the market? Snideprom, of course and as with any project overseen by Kruschednutz the execution is simply magnificent. With a beautifully crafted body and even a flickering Apple logo, yet containing just a couple of watch batteries and a few wires and costing less to produce than a packet of value peanuts, the result is a contender for world-wide product of the year.

Keep an eye out for Snideprom, their products will be coming to a market near you.

Oh, just in case I gave the impression that our eastern partners have a monopoly on creative solutions. Here is our latest training film, highlighting the new 'flexible warranty' approach in customer service introduced by Vince.

Bob Bunco
Marketing & Branding Director
SnideUK

Snide's Canny Plan for Newcastle United

2008-10-01T08:30:00+01:00

I am proud to announce that this morning SnideUK and our consortium partners have approached Newcastle United Football Club with a view to taking over the company.

By now Mike Ashley should have received an e-mail from the desk of the figurehead of our bid team, Mrs Precious Manabatundi the widow of the former Governor of the Central Bank of Zambouti. The communication outlines how the consortium has a sum of at least $500 million in cash held at the bank in Kofinanan and that with Mr Ashley's help, the money could be paid into his account within days, no questions asked.

I am certain that Mr Ashley will be clicking on the reply address absolutelynotascam@snideuk.org any minute and as soon as he does our Technical Director, Tudor Canibag, will be making the necessary preparations for the transfer of funds to take place.

SnideUK's Chief Executive, Lenny 'Crackers' McVitie said in a statement:

"There are lots of areas in which we feel SnideUK and Newcastle United are complimentary, and not just through connections to Magpies. Like the Toon Army, many of our customers are regularly disappointed by the product they pay hard earned cash for.

"Many of our most successful lines are a complete let down despite offering a pretence that they will perform well and our proven track record of buying and selling things which seem to be the real deal and a bargain but soon turn out to be complete rubbish means we are uniquely positioned to offer Newcastle a level of continuity that its supporters crave.

"Another benefit is that supporters will be able to continue to accuse the club of being run by a 'cockney mafia', although of course this time those accusations will be closer to the mark.

"Should SnideUK's takeover of Newcastle United be successful, we have exciting plans to roll out the distribution of replica kit to all our retails units. Obviously these will be Snide products, however we will still be expecting to the 'official' supplier to give us money to have their logo emblazoned on all versions of the kit! Back of the net!"

- - - - - -

Stop press

It seems another consortium is making a take over bid for Newcastle. SnideUK deplores this new consortium entering the fray bringing as they will the distinct possibility of stabilising the club and making it a success on the pitch. This shows scant regard for the proud traditions of the club and will also deprive the football loving public of Britain of its premier comical sideshow.

If SnideUK are unsuccessful in our approach to Newcastle, we will undoubtedly consider taking over Tottenham Hotspur as they are truly a criminally pale imitation of a football team at the moment and would therefore sit very nicely in Snide's portfolio.

Cuthbert Honeydew
Chief Financial Officer
SnideUK

Helping to Beat the Credit Crunch

2008-09-30T11:57:54+01:00

People have always come up to me and said 'Your game is just a license to print money!', so its all the more surprising that when people cotton on to the fact that SnideUK have actually been printing money that they get all uppity about it. Especially given the problems in the markets today.

As it happened I did have a little bit of trouble myself in the market today; some joker getting all lippy about some washing powder destroying his best jeans. I asked him if he had followed the instructions, and he had to admit he hadn't as they were printed in Greek or Spanish. Anyway i sold him a pair of Snide502s 'cheap' so it was a win-win situation - at least for me.

Anyway I digress. The financial markets have been suffering from a lack of liquidity, or as Cuthbert explained to me, not enough wonga going round. The central banks have been doing what they can to inject new capital into the system but to date it hasn't been enough, which is where Snide has come in. We have been injecting some money of our own into the system, of course keeping it subtle, by 'releasing' some one pound coins. We are particularly proud that now one in every fifty pound coins in the UK is a Snide coin.

Now have we been thanked for this selfless gesture? Has Alistair Darling once shown his appreciation for the sterling work we have been doing in bolstering the monetary system? Did George Osbourne single us out in his speech in Birmingham? No! Instead we have had nothing but people complaining and whingeing about our coins not being well detailed on the sides, having a slightly blurry picture of the Queen or the picture on the back not being quite straight. It is this type of nit-picking that holds creative industries like ours back. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so by all rights the Bank of England should be pretty pleased about what we're doing.

What I don't understand is why everyone gets on our case about producing a bad copy, yet no-one calls for the Sugababes to get sent down for their cover version of 'Here Come the Girls" or Busted for doing 'Teenage Kicks' (and they gave it a real doing).

So let's here no more about 'counterfeit' coins, a pound is a pound alright! Mind you if anyone tries to buy something from me with a Snide pound coin they'll bleeding know about it, I've got enough worthless tat on the stall. Yeah and I don't want any of those Jock notes neither.

Mickey Nomark
Head of Sales
SnideUK