Playgroup | Helping brands build genuine brand equity

The first challenge I've encountered with using Weight Watchers Online is what do you do when you're offline?

Last week I spent 3 days attending the Communication Directors Forum aboard the Oriana – otherwise know as the booze cruise or the love boat (although I didn't witness anything that might have earned it that nickname!)

I was unplugged and all alone without the support of my other earnest WW members! Without my trusty web site to hand how am I to know if a pint of Stella has more calories than double scotch and coke? Or if I should go for the beef bourguignon or the stuffed leg of lamb? If walk up the stairs to the top deck can I have the sticky toffee pudding for desert? Does stress help you lose weight?

I had loads of questions and no answers. So I made the best choices I could at dinner and didn't go overboard (no pun intended!) with the drinking. 

The result? A loss of 3lbs. I'll settle for that all things considered.

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For years, a couple of my friends have referred to me by the rather unimaginative nickname of ‘big fella’. I can live with that. I’m six foot one, and er… big boned! However, nowadays those most familiar with me seem to have moved on to ‘fat bastard’. And it’s true. I’m a man of a certain age and a pint or a burger unfortunately go straight to the mid-drift these days. 

Well, enough is enough. Inspired by the success of my colleague Mike’s impressive weight loss, I’ve decided its time to make and effort to shed a few pounds myself.

Why am I discussing my flab in a blog that I attempt to keep business focused? Because not wishing to suffer the humiliation of weigh-in meetings with a bunch of ladies, I decided to subscribe to the Weight Watchers Online web site, which at first site looks quite impressive. Obviously, there are all the tools you’d expect to help control your diet – menus and recipes, health/fitness tips and weight tracking – but there’s also thriving community (that includes blokes!), success stories, and a host of content that gets to the heart of the psychology of it all.

As I’m often asked to review web sites to evaluate their design, usability, whether they achieve their business objectives and so on. So I propose to turn my weight loss efforts into and ongoing review of the Weight Watchers Online site. If the objective of this site is to help me lose weight, let’s see how IT does. Of course, it’ll have nothing to with my willpower – all down to the site!

(I suppose I had better confess that I weighed in at 17st 5lbs this morning – aiming to get back to the 15st 4lbs I was three years ago.)

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As I write I’m in Las Vegas. I’ve never been before and wasn’t sure it would be my cup of tea. But I guess its one of those places everyone has to see. 

We have a core value at Playgroup of ‘genuine’. It’s something we all believe in. In fact, we wrote it into our mission – helping brands build genuine brand equity.

As far as I can see there’s absolutely nothing genuine about Vegas. It is the antithesis of Playgroup.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any moral objection to the hedonistic pursuits that go on here. It just feels a bit sad.

Everything is larger than life screaming for attention. The lights on ‘The Strip’ of course, the fountains, the false statues, false boobs and false smiles – all a facade to the truths that lie beneath the surface.

Everything is temporary. Nobody in Vegas is from Vegas, relationships are transient, nothing is real. Buildings come and go like the seasons but I’ve never felt further away from nature in my life.

All in the name of 24/7 ‘entertainment’. But is this really what we want?

Well, apparently, it is. The new CityCenter www.citycenter.com development is costing in the region of $8bn. It is truly, truly enormous. The Bellagio was a snip at just $2bn. According to our cab driver CityCenter will then be dwarfed by a new development that will cost in the region of $30bn. And this is supposed to be a country in recession!

As far as I’m concerned, Las Vegas is essentially off-brand for Playgroup. Elvis sang ‘Viva Las Vegas’ and look what happened to him.

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I had nothing to do with the creation of this web site. It was conceived, designed and built by the collective talents within our company in about two weeks. I am delighted with the results.

It's an honest site. One that represents the spirit of our company - not contrived to meet favour but a genuine attempt to help interested people understand who we are.

And therein lies the problem - we are an extremely diverse bunch when being niche is in vogue. A good friend of mine, who's opinion I value greatly, said it appears that 'we do everything, and therefore nothing'. Well maybe, but to artificially constrain ourselves into a single highly specialised arena would be, well, dishonest.

Fundamentally, we are problem-solvers. We have an absolute focus on helping our clients address their brand and communication challenges. If those challenges are extremely diverse then so too are our solutions.

Raising awareness and understanding of HIV with 16-24 year olds for the BBC; communicating complex organisational change to HR professionals at Unilever; promoting the new Folklore Playstation game for Sony; encouraging sales and customer services staff at BT to change their behaviours - how do you wrap that lot into a niche?

Playgroup was created as a result of a merger - a fusion of skills, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences. Yet there is a single common thread in all our work. We are strategic in our thinking by default, but like to quickly convert strategy into tactics that drive action. And the results are always the same - genuine connections being made between our clients brands and their consumers or employees.

So here we are, naked and open to your criticism. We don’t fit neatly into a pigeon-hole. We are diverse, imperfect, brilliant, fallible, playful and essentially human. Make of us what you will.

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My random musing of today's commute centered on what can you tell about a persons character traits from their favourite colour?

Do we really conform to popular stereotypes? Do fiery, passionate, hot-headed people like red? Do calm, nature lovers like green? If you have a bright and sunny disposition, is yellow the only way to go? What about the more flamboyant people – pink perhaps? What does black say these days, I’ve lost touch. Is it cool or has it reverted to dark and brooding?

Research in the office was required...

It started well. Our Creative Director, Gus, likes pink. Of course he does. So does Marketing Manager Clare but then she’s a girl. Plus there IS a more flamboyant side to Clare, but it only usually comes out after a few drinks.

What about tech head Darren, who famously and spectacularly crashed his go-kart at a work do, causing both him an overnight stay in hospital. What colour would a speed demon like him choose? "Orange" he grins. Yes! He shoots, he scores!

But then designer Jamie, who is a solid, dependable and very likeable chap, spoilt everything by stating he liked red! The theory was wrong - there's nothing very fiery or passionate Jamie. He's calm and considered in everything he does. But then, just I lost interest and turned to trawl through my email, a confession! He said red just because Liverpool are his favourite team, he really he likes brown. Back on track!

I tried to prove my point further. I spotted Linda walking in: smiley, bright, and delightful. I confidently whispered to colleagues nearby that she has to be a yellow. Just has to be. "Linda, what’s your favourite colour", I yelled. "Blue!" came the reply. Dammit!

And then the wheels came off. Steve, Jah, Ben, Andy – all wrong. My statistically irrelevant research had revealed that there is in fact no correlation between ones personality traits and favourite colour.

As all marketers should know, its very risky business drawing too many conclusions about peoples preferences based on too few clues. We are all wonderfully unpredictable in our choices, and that's just as it should be. How boring life would be without surprise.

By the way, I like aquamarine. Does that mean I'm mixed up?

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I'm proud to work one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world. I love the diversity, which brings all kinds of different experiences to my doorstep and I take pleasure in hearing other languages spoken. In our office alone we have a dozen or so languages spoken.

As I write, I am in France enjoying a snowboarding holiday with my family. The French language is, in my opinion, top of the charts. It's a beautiful language and so expressive I could listen to it all day.

My daughter, Lara, is studying French at school and intends to take it on to A level. So I thought it only right to cause her as much embarrassment as possible by asking her to book a table at a restaurant, not in the ski resort itself, but down in a more authentic village in the valley.

In her best French accent, "Bon apres-midi, je voudrais une reservation pour cinq personnes a huit heure ce soir, s'il vous plait." Nice effort. The reply? "OK, let me just check for you".

Hmm... This is supposed to be the last bastion of national pride. Where you get a look of haughty disdain, if you speak English and expect an answer. What’s going on? If the French can't be bothered to listen to us struggle then who will?

I think it's a real shame, but you can see why its happening. English has become the de-facto language of business. Playgroup clients like Unilever and Epson are huge multi-nationals with offices all over the world. Yet all their staff speak English. As the world continues to shrink, people are increasing mobile in their career moves and the younger generations of many nations now speak English better than I do. And they're are keen to brush up on their skills even when they are at home, working in a restaurant, in Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise!

So ironically, I think it may be up to us British to protect foreign languages. Let's be courteous enough to at least attempt the basics in the local language. 'Hello', 'goodbye', 'thank you', 'how much' and of course 'five large beers please' will probably be all you need.

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A headline of the front cover of The New Scientist caught my eye this week. It read "Why 2008 could be year zero for time travel". I had to buy a copy.

The story describes how two highly respected Russian mathematicians have built the 'Large Hadron Collider' which basically smacks atoms into each other at an unprecedented scale and force. This process injects so much energy to the subatomic particles that it has the theoretical potential to change the fabric of the universe and cause wormholes to be created in space-time.

Brilliant! If they’d hurry up and finish the job we might have a way to meet some of our clients increasingly impossible deadlines!

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