Government sponsored obesity?

Yeah, we get it, everyone is getting fatter, we are all going to die with dribbles of lard from the corner of our mouths after a fatal heart attack facilitated by clogged arteries and type II diabetes. The thing is, if the UK government is really behind tackling obesity then where are the proactive measures, where are the subsidised gym memberships for the unemployed and where can people get real access to dietary information that is based on fact? I’m not talking about ‘traffic lights’ or the extreme musings of the mad, poo-poking pretender that is Gillian McKeith.

So the government isn’t being proactive enough, but the last thing I thought would happen is for them to take a role in making it worse, let alone take money for it! But this is the exact scenario that greeted me today when I boarded a London bus near my house. The reverse of my bus ticket revealed something I had not noticed before, McDonalds vouchers for cheap fast food deals.

My bus ticket

Now, I realise that the government advertises this kind of thing all the time, just take one look at the billboards on the tube for example and you are likely to see some kind of fast food advertising but in my opinion a clear line has been crossed with my bus ticket. This is mainly due to the financial incentive offered by McDonalds due to my purchase and the general ‘in-your-face-ness’ of it all.

You wouldn’t catch a public limited company acting like this, they have to answer to various stakeholders  and any contradicting messages would be seen as a bad way to do business (it’s like Apple promoting software that only runs on PCs). My question is, as the public aren’t we stakeholders in the government’s decisions and as such entitled to a say in something like this? Ummm, yeaaahhhh riiiiiiighttt…

A call to end social network sackings

In the last 2-3 years social networking usage has grown at an exponential rate, to the point where most now consider it an accepted form of communication that sits comfortably in day to day life. At the same time there’s been a lot of publicity given to those who fall foul of the often tumultuous relationship between such sites and their users’ employers. Is there any room for organisations in the 21st century that take a hard-line stance on what is essentially becoming accepted behaviour amongst the population?

Let’s take a look at Facebook which has often caused some of the most controversy. Hardly a week goes by without news of someone losing their job over a dubious status update or in the case of one of the most recent victims, just being spotted online. Frankly, I think this is all a little unfair, so what if your status update says your work is boring, everybody gets bored at work, everybody hates Monday mornings and everybody has taken a ‘sick’ day.

There is one sure way of avoiding all this, don’t add colleagues from work to your friends list. But honestly, what is the Facebook etiquette for when your boss invites you to be friends? In my case I resisted multiple invites over the course of about 6 months before I gave in. Facebook has almost as much to answer for as Blackberry when it comes to the blurring of a person’s work like balance albeit each is rooted in opposing camps.

What it really comes down to is that technology is eroding the barriers between work life and home life. As long as this trend continues companies that are stiff, inflexible and unwilling to recognise that their employees are fully rounded human beings  (not single-minded automatons) are going to be responsible for a lot more firings of this nature. To them I say, evolve or die. And for goodness sake invest in your HR department!

What exactly is EasyGroup's business strategy?

 

Most of us have heard of or even used EasyJet, some may even have rented a car from their sister company EasyCar but how many have bought a product from EasyValue or music from, you guessed it, EasyMusic? Nowhere near as many, just take a look at the kind of traffic just a few of EasyGroup’s websites receive:

 

(Higher is better)- Many of EasyJet’s sister companies don’t even register

 

My question is, what exactly is Stelios doing? To answer this question I braved the glaring orange EasyGroup website and found my answer. The EasyGroup’s overarching strategy is to build on brand values which they list as the following:

1. great value
2. taking on the big boys
3. for the many not the few
4. relentless innovation
5. keep it simple
6. entrepreneurial
7. making a difference in people’s lives
8. honest, open, caring and fun

It seems that EasyGroup want their brand to convey the idea of being the people’s champion, offering better value than its established competitors (‘the big boys’) whilst maintaining the agility to remain both innovative and entrepreneurial. Certainly, the rate at which a number of Easy brands have appeared and subsequently disappeared indicates a degree of agility but only a few seem to get much attention.

To be fair Google does the same sort of thing, releases a new product, often with little or no fuss, but the difference is Google has built itself into an iconic brand and the transient nature of many of Google’s dalliances are very much in keeping with Google’s brand as a whole, lynch pinned by their ubiquitous search engine. EasyGroup appear to be trying to do the same thing but I’m not sure EasyJet (their first and largest brand) commands the kind of iconic status that deserves proliferation, especially when taking into account EasyGroup’s own measurement of brand value. I doubt I’m the first person here to hear someone on an EasyJet flight refer to the airline as “SleazyJet” or the even “QueazyJet”, and that can’t be good (although I give them points for having a brand popular enough that I can make jokes at their expense. Thank you.)

    

When your brand is associated with vomit you may have a problem

Virgin Group is an obvious comparison, with a finger in what seems like every pie, but am I the only one who thinks their brands have a little more cohesion than those of EasyGroup despite often appearing to be as disparate? Additionally, I think we also have to take into account the iconic figureheads of these organisations, on one hand you have Richard Branson, a well-spoken, charismatic, silver-haired fox (if I do say so myself) and on the other you have Stelios, an overweight, balding tycoon with an unpronounceable surname. Is it just me or does it all of a sudden seem a little silly to compare? 

 Who would you take your mum to meet?

I think my biggest problem is the lack of care that appears to go into some of the brands under the EasyGroup name, just scrolling down on the EasyMusic website reveals some garish Google Adsense ads and a poor integration with CDWOW (the company which EasyGroup is using it’s brand as a middleman for). Easy4Men appears to offer a single product (or deviations thereof) that exploits a gap in the market created by enhanced security at airports only allowing 100ml of liquids to be brought on to planes. And finally, EasyWatches sells, you guessed it, watches, that look like the ones you’d get from the Sunday market. Another thing you’ll notice is that some of the Easy companies are moving into a franchise business model which if not executed correctly could also damage the Easy brand.

Yeah, you guessed it, they do pizza too (I’m really not joking)

On the other hand, I can’t help but admire Stelios; EasyJet may suffer as a result of the recession but his other businesses are cash rich and may very well be the decider when it comes to long term survival of EasyGroup as we know it. I just wish he would pay just a little more attention to the strength of his brand!