My first mobile phone memory. Well, it was the company’s actually, one of us was asked to take it home with us at weekends to handle any urgent calls, which rarely came about. The phone was a Motorola. It was like a house brick and had a charge of around 30 minutes, provided it had been on charge for most of the day. These were the hazy day’s of ‘loadsamoney’ and ‘yuppie’ Britain and the ‘not so mobile’ handsets were a status symbol rather than useful.

Motorola competed with Erickson at the time, then came the introduction of Nokia. I don’t recall how their speedy rise to fame came about, I think it was a technology thing. They were so far ahead at this stage, particularly business contracts. A N others included Erickson, (soon to be Sony Erickson) Motorola were still there in part (remember “Hello Moto”) with a host of others coming up on the blind-side either through aggressive marketing, acquisition or technological advances.

And then to recent times. What has made Apple number one in the UK? Technology, cool, i-Tunes? maybe all of the above. Blackberry competes on a business level and Samsung seems to have captured some of the youth market, largely down to price. HTC for windows was a nice idea but I’ve heard nothing but complaints because let’s face it the i-Phone (with the exception of email where Blackberry clearly wins) is where everyone wants to be. Touch screen technology is the future and nobody does it better than Apple.

Who’d have thought, that the first incarnation ‘i-Brick’ would become what it is today; a pocket-sized touch-screen computer providing multimedia functionality keeping you in touch with the world.

But what about Nokia? Clearly they dropped the ball somewhere along the line. Maybe it was complacency and how could they ever foresee the rise of Apple in mobile. Whatever it was lost them the number one spot so quickly as sales dropped like the proverbial brick and market share crumbled. Now their plans have turned to the youth market, clearly they have accepted they can’t compete with Apple and Blackberry. They are adopting a strategy which revolves around social media and experiential. Maybe their new, shiny marketing arm can pull it off. After all, there’s a new shiny market born every day – those who won’t know about their fall from grace and most certainly won’t be aware of the house brick!

Amy Winehouse: more successful DEAD than Alive? Why is that?

I saw this headline and it got me thinking….

It’s not earth shattering news but is non-the less true. Amy Winehouse has four of the top ten albums in the itunes top 10, despite only actually having 2 albums released – one is a double album, one a deluxe. She had none in the top 10 last week.

Why are things more appealing and easier to buy into if they are dressed with an emotional pull? Undoubtedly a great marketing strategy, but why does it pull rank to the feel good factor and should it?

I can’t deny such fame in her death is a perfect tribute, but she would have surely appreciated the record sales more while she was alive.

Take a leaf out of the Nike book and Just Do It. Live for the now. Let the feel good factor sell more to you.

Have a good weekend!

Emma Farquharson, Banana Kick

Today marks one year to go (or 366 days, or 8,784 hours or 527,040 minutes or 31,622,400 seconds) to the much-anticipated London 2012 Olympic Games.

The awarding of the Games to London six years ago was greeted with much excitement and celebration across the country. However, I think it’s fair to say the road to London 2012 continues to be defined by a polorisation of views. Will they deliver a legacy? Is it a fair investment of public money? Is it ‘everyone’s Games’, or is it exclusive to punters and businesses who can afford to be part of it?

No doubt today Lord Coe and his team will be reeling off the usual array of statistics (X number of volunteers, X number businesses winning contracts, X number of spectators, X number of people to write his speeches) to parry any difficult questions like: How is London 2012 engaging with the young people of East London? (not by moving the marathon to a different part of the city anyway!)

Indeed in my previous role with London 2012’s Inspire programme (community driven programme that recognizes non-commercial projects connected the Games), it was a constant battle of trying to nurture and support new projects whilst attempting to record good statistics for the league tables i.e. not what difference have you made, but rather how many projects do you have?

Never the less I worked with some great Inspire projects that really make a difference for young people in our region, giving them a chance to take part and make positive changes in their lives.

So the moral of the story is despite the red tape and the spin, the Games can genuinely inspire people across the country to get involved.

Here at Banana Kick we think the same principle applies for businesses. You don’t need buckets of cash to make a connection to London 2012 or win a contract to benefit from the Games.

Whether it is motivating your staff, inspiring your sales team or engaging with your customers we believe that any business  can use the Olympics to make a difference.

In fact, we are so confident that London 2012 can be ‘every businesses Games’ that we have set ourselves the challenge to prove to any organisation that they can use the Olympics to better their business.

So don’t wait 366 days to get involved, take up the Banana Kick challenge!

James Tabberer

For my week of work experience I wanted to go to an advertising agency, because it’s an area I’m interested in. It’s also a future career I would consider. I was lucky enough to get a placement at Banana Kick.

I arrived at Banana Kick not really knowing what to expect. I haven’t been in an office environment before so I visualized an intimidating skyscraper and people in stiff black suits. I was pleasantly surprised upon arrival that the Banana Kick office is spacious, light and not intimidating. Gary, the director, welcomed me to Banana Kick and introduced me to the rest of the team. Throughout the week I learned that the team are very passionate about what they do and are dedicated to their work; they are also perfectionists.

After being shown around, I was shown to a desk that was to be mine for the week. After the excitement of knowing I would get to work on a Mac for the week, I was ready to start.  The first jobs I did involved admin such as binding and putting together a folder, I also sat in a brief between Jordan, Emma and Gavin about the content of the folder I put together. I also did some research for a major pitch involving Scottish Premier League clubs. This is when my lack of knowledge about football became apparent, all I can say is I am grateful for the Internet.

Throughout the week I preformed various researching tasks for the projects the staff were working on, and I got to observe the office environment. On Tuesday I shadowed Andy and watched how he perfected the designs on his Mac. It was really fascinating watching how precise he was with the design, making sure that he was happy with every single detail. I finally appreciated just how much work goes into creating these designs and how thorough everyone is in making sure whatever they produce is to the best of their ability.

One of my teachers came to visit on Tuesday and I think she was thoroughly impressed by the company and by Gary’s enthusiasm, as he talked non-stop to her.

In no doubt the most exciting part of the week was when I designed my own logo and this was great since it’s what I wanted to do because I could be creative.  In the process I learned the basics of in-design software. I finally decided on doing a logo for a toy company and I called it ‘The little rocking horse.’ I had fun going through the process the design team go through when designing a new logo; it gave me a taste of their job.

On my last day Nick talked to be about the process they go through from getting a brief on paper to having the finished product. I found it interesting and I understood how important advertising is to the consumer without them realizing it.

The most important lesson I learned at Banana Kick is to write down everything you are told and not to  just rely on your memory, because you will forget what you’ve just been asked to do and then you will have to go through the embarrassment of asking someone what you were supposed to do all over again.

After this experience I have a Banana Kick memory stick and an amazing knowledge of Scottish Premier League clubs and their captains; I’m sure that the information will come in useful in a future pub quiz! I really enjoyed my time at Banana Kick because I feel I got a lot out of it. It was an amazing opportunity so thank you to everyone, because you were all friendly, talented and made my time more fun.

So I’m not 14 years old, I’ve never dressed up as a wizard, nor queued all night outside WH Smith to get an early copy of one of the books and I don’t refer to non magic folk as Muggles.

But I am a big fan of the Harry Potter franchise and can’t but help admire the way this super slick machine has continually evolved over the last 13 years.

You’d think selling over 400 million books and being worth over $1 billion would be an achievement that you could sit back and enjoy?

Not for JK Rowling and the clever people in charge of the Harry Potter brand. October will see the launch of ‘Pottermore’, a website that promises to offer a unique experience for fans and future fans of the hugely successful empire. The final film might be about to hit the silver screen, but ‘Pottermore’ offers a lasting legacy and a continuation of the worldwide phenomenon. Sharing content in a child safe environment might not be big news in terms of social media, but the attention to detail and teasing effects of the launch are admirable.

Whilst Rowling has once again stated that there won’t be an 8th book in the series, through ‘Pottermore’, she has given a much greater gift to her spellbound following.

So there I was on the 6th July 2005, glued to the TV, awaiting the outcome of the venue for the 2012 Olympic Games. “London”. Cue pandemonium and the whole country talking about how amazing it would be to go to the Games, the excitement we will all feel, and what a fantastic legacy it will leave.

Fast forward 6 years, and most of us are coming to terms with the fact that the closest we’ll get to the ‘Games’ is the coverage on the BBC. I applied for tickets and didn’t get any, and yes I’m bitter.

Ok, so I only originally applied for £500 worth of tickets, but on the basis that the money would be taken before I knew what I’d get if I was successful (fat chance), I went in to the process with a slight feeling of caution, otherwise I’ll end up with tickets for everything (stop laughing at the back). Like many that applied for 5 times this amount, I got nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nadder. All I was left with was a ‘second chance ballot’ offer.

So there I was this morning, up at 6am to have a go at getting the last few tickets for next years’ spectacular! There were some top-notch events still on offer… Freestyle Wrestling, Water Polo and Egg & Spoon. But then, then inevitable happened. The website crashed. ‘We are experiencing difficulties at the moment due to a high volume of traffic’ – reminded me of something you’d see on the M1.

I honestly think putting tickets in bars of chocolate would have been a simpler and fairer way of doing this.

My issue lies with the lack of information around the whole process, but ultimately I think it comes down to the lack of tickets. A very large percentage of tickets have no doubt been sidelined for sponsors and corporates – Charlie Bucket need not apply.