Peanut Buttergate

Brad Garlinghouse is a natural and compelling presenter. I had seen him speak in internal presentations about Yahoo!'s communications and messenger products.

Garlinghouse has written a four-page memorandum looking for internal change at Yahoo! which maps out a possible future direction for the firm.

Brad Garlinghouse makes some very pertinent points in his now famous peanut butter memo about Yahoo!, but ultimately shows a more selfish agenda than 'saving' the company he loves.

You can read the full memo here, but I have just pulled some of the key items out to provide a European perspective on some of the points that he made:

Garlinghouse was frustrated with what he saw as competing products and approaches:

• Flickr vs. Photos: To say that Photos competes with Flickr is ridiculous Yahoo! Photos was tired, boring and a pretty shoddy product

• YMG video vs. Search video

• Deli.cio.us vs. My Web

• Messenger and plug-ins vs. sidebar and widgets

• Social media vs. 360 and Groups

• Front page vs. YMG

• Global strategy from BU'vs. Global strategy from Int'l

Part of the reason for this was a complex silo'ed matrix structure and an the result of an organisation struggling to fight a talent and ideas war against very strong adveraries like Google and Microsoft.

Some of the Yahoo! products should have been killed off, whilst other duplications occurred because internal products like 360, Messenger and MyWeb sucked at crucial iterations in their product life.

In addition, Yahoo!, particularly Music and the Comms & Community BU which Garlinghouse runs has a poor record of building products fit for early adopters like Music properties that are Mac-compatiable, the new Yahoo! Mail which doesn't work on Safari and a Messenger client which was much poorer than open source equivalents like Adium X making it hard to build a buzz that will trickle down to mainstream users.

Develop a focus on the vision
Absolutely, and drive this down into reinvigorating the brand for the 21st century. In the US, Yahoo! has a brand that resonates with consumers, but in Europe it doesn't stand for anything. Whilst my former boss Georga could recite the values of the brand and we all had purple folders highlighting what they were this hadn't changed in consumer perceptions. Focus on the vision is the first part of making that work.

Restore accountability and clarity of ownership
Two things are needed here - measurements that ensure long-term thinking rather than stort-term performance peaks and selling the future. The right people in the right roles to fulfil this. In Europe, this means going from from the top down.

Long-term thinking means building a brand to make Yahoo! a must-go online destination, rather than just using arbitrage calculations to buy clicks on Google. It means giving European users a higher quality user experience and prioritising the products users want rather than executive whims

Redesign performance and incentive schemes: This is only any good if it is tied into the right measurements and I don't think that Garlinghouse has got these measures right.

This paragraph I found particularly interesting, yet has got the least publicity is 'Align a set of new BU's so that they are not competing against each other. Search focuses on search. Social media aligns with community and communications. No competing owners for Video, Photos, etc. And Front Page becomes Switzerland. This will be a delicate exercise -- decentralization can create inefficiencies, but I believe we can find the right balance.'

Garlinghouse is basically going for a power play here.

Social media has been alligned to search because that's where a lot of the smart people who get it are: community and communications from a product and technology perspective don't get it.

Search has embraced social media because the algorithimic war is one of attrition whereas social media offers a breakout situation. A more radical and business savvy play would be to adopt Google search again and augment it with social media.

Garlinghouse blew it at that paragraph, its not about doing the best for the company, its about building his empire in the face of worthy opponents like Jeff Weiner who heads-up Search.

It would make more sense to put Communications mail product and all the communities products into Search alongside desktop search.

Finally being a marketing person I was horrified to see such a high profile marketing gaff 'I love Yahoo! I'm proud to admit that I bleed purple and yellow.' Yellow has not been an official corporate colour for over a year, somebody please give him a brand guide folder.

Web Gaffs volume one

Some US companies have a unique way of making executives look foolish. This video is an unfortunate example, U2 fans go away the butchery of One will be too much to bare.Kudos to Holy Moly.



Thanks to Jeremiah for showing how Wal-Mart's critics poured even more salt on the wound of the recent Edelman astroturfing blog scandal. I am sure Wal-Mart will go to court and win the domain back, thus giving Walmart Watch even more publicity. Click here while you can.

Moral of the story: go hogwild and register any related domain names that you can and don't let the registration slide.

Disintegrated marketing

Last Friday I sung the praises of Starbucks joined-up thinking for their big Christmas push, however looking more closely the wheels look as if they have come off the Starbucks marketing wagon:

Sort out a visual theme for Christmas marketing push. Nice

Order in merchandise from the Far East. Looking good.

Register domain name for integrated online element of the campaign. Like your thinking

Integrate domain name into artwork for maximum customer engagement. Sweet, most of this web 2.0 thing was started in coffee shops like ours with wi-fi connections, we might even sell some overpriced hotspot time. ;-)

Launch Christmas campaign into shops with supporting web presence....

Why?

• Poor project management?
• A web site that didn't meet the client brief?
• Scared of a possible clash with Product Red?

I don't know. Priceless...

On the bright side I guess the marketers at least know that people pay attention to their packaging. Anybody else got any good marketing campaign disconnects? Put the details in the comments section.

If there was a site there, it hasn't been up for the past two days, up to early this evening the page said Plesk instead.

Nice idea, shame about the execution

We have a Benjy's around the corner from the office and they serve a humungous cup of joe for a measily 99p. I have two cups a day to keep me running. I noticed an advertising campaign for chip giant Intel by tabletalkmedia.



The idea of advertising on coffee holders in central London was really clever, unfortunately the execution didn't match the idea. This was an advert aimed at consumers so where does it go wrong?

• The image on the left that Intel went to the both of printing in full colour is a blown up silicon die and no Joe Public probably doesn't know what it is or the significance of it
• The strapline is ambiguous 'It's all about energy'. What does it mean?
• Why should you the consumer care?
• What about the usual association of energy and beverages (Lucazade, Red Bull etc)?

This may work at a trade show, but it shows no awareness of how to market to consumers and business users. Some people just have more budget than sense.

Learn from the old ways

I started off in PR working in community relations for an oil and gas exploration company during my college vacation. The general thinking then was that you could not do community relations unless you became part of the community.

Unfortunately this lesson has been lost on many of the companies who are dashing off to exploit the metaverse of Second Life.

The Second Life Herald (SLH) written by long-time Second-Lifers delivers a smack down to Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. Bhargava is the lightning rod for a string of complaints from the community regarding the conduct of PR agencies false claiming firsts and polluting the community.

The SLH also lays into the way corporates are developing virtual properties out of keeping with the Second Life experience. As Bill Hicks would have said "marketers know the price of everything and the value of nothing".

Thanks to Iain Tait at Crackunit.

Play corrupts and game play corrupts totally

Earlier this week, the legal actions of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) apparently forced Lik-Sang.com to shut down. There has been soul searching in some quarters about Sony's conduct, particularly with regards the number of senior executives how had bought grey-market devices for 'investigative purposes' allegedly.

Rather than have people rattling around online, I thought that I would suggest some practical ways to respond in a responsible manner and explain to SCEE that they didn't appreciate the company's conduct.

I started by revisting a post I had written over two years ago for the AlwaysOn Network following articles I had read about Wal-Mart. It has some good rules of engagement in italics:

- Stop bellyaching saying how terrible they are. If you have money you have a choice; use it. If you have a fair bit of money you also have a voice; use it.

- Don't be abusive to company staff. These are people who are trying to get by; the last thing they need is some stuck-up righteous person going off at them. Be polite and courteous at all times - even to senior management.

- Consumers - don't buy the company's products and services. If you don't buy, they will go away or change to behave in a 'more acceptable' manner. Its the laws of supply and demand, you cut off their supply of money, they'll be more ameniable to respond to your suggestions for improvement.

- Do talk to your friends and peers about the benefits of rival ways of shopping. For a listed retail company, there is nothing more terrifying than a decreasing amount of money going through the tills.

There is nothing more powerful according to some of the world's leading marketers like Richard Edelman than word-of-mouth marketing. That's the reason why even mobile phones have blogs nowadays.

If you have bought a Wii and or your XBox360 tell everyone how good it is. If you are in Currys or Comet and someone is looking at the PS3 or a PSP, tell them how rocking your Wii, DS or video iPod is. If a Wii or XBox360 demo kiosk has fallen over , get a member of staff to reset it. Mac users have been doing this for years, its known in the industry as evangelisation.

- Focus on one message, there seems to be a myriad of issues that people have with Wal-Mart, however like advertising if you repeat just one message enough times it is more likely to get through to the public psyche and the board of the company. When they have listened to that focus on the next one.

In this case, I'd recommend expressing displeasure at the company's 'regional apartheid' against European gamers. It's a phrase that is loaded with imagery and emotion and makes a great media soundbite.

- Think about your message, phrase it in terms of the benefit to the audience. For instance, a politician who voices an opposition to the company may benefit from more votes and individual campaign contributions. Basic Dale Carnegie stuff but very true.

- Hound special interest groups like 'Greenpeace' and 'Friends of the Earth' telling them to readjust their priorities, you'll need to be polite and very persistent because they usually have pretty thick skins since they give it out so much.

Greenpeace is very interested in electronic waste at the moment., here is a link to their report on Sony. I found it particularly interesting that I couldn't find any information from SCEE on their website about their environmental record or what they are doing to limit e-waste. Why not send an email to Greenpeace and ask them to take action?

- Learn from the way political campaigns have co-opted the web and get active using meet-up.com, web blogs etc

- Write, email, call the company's share register, their auditors, their PR agency and their bank of record. Be polite, courteous, persistent and humourous (if you can be) to deliver your message and do it often.

• SCEE Email addresses are usually of the form: firstname_lastname@scee.net
• There is a feedback page here.
• The company press office email address

- Don't deviate from non-violent action. It's not cool and its not clever, it is counter-productive to your argument. Over here in the UK, the anti-vivisectionist movement have lost a lot of public goodwill by using violence and intimidation

- Vitriol is not clever, stick to the facts. To an outside audience your vitriol will lack credibility. That is why some of the empassioned anti-Bush protests have little effect (ya' feelin me Howard Dean?).

- Do not violate the company's intellectual property including trade marks. That funny piece of satire that you put up as a website, wont be seen by too many people because your web host provider or ISP will take it down if they get a letter from the company's lawyers.

There is nothing more frustrating to a company than not being able to do anything about its reputation, SCEE is especially vulnerable at the present time as it is in the midst of changing UK PR agencies. The company will struggle to respond to sustained criticism where it cannot bring legal pressure to bear.

- Suppliers - if the company knocks on your door wanting you to supply them. Send them on instead to the competitor you most want to see ran out of business.

- If you want to put your money where you're mouth is, make sure the company's stock isn't in your 401K

- Write to your mutual fund manager, write to your politicians

- Write to your local newspaper.

Post on the forums that you read, put a link to this posting for any people that are interested.

- Don't give up, its only by repetition and determination that campaigns suceed

No-style wars

Imagine if you are an up and coming rap artist who has crossed over to act in a film about an up and coming rap artist. What better way to promote your film and your 'mad' skills than to offer an open mike challenge to anybody in a club?

Not quite, especially if like wack emcee Asher D, your mike skills can't cash the cheques that your ego spent. A camera was there to see MC Stig level the diminutive actor.

This ain't 8 Mile, but it is a good salutary warning for any music PRs out there who have some urban talent on their books. Lord knows what would have happened to Asher D if he'd have gone up against Roxanne Shanté or Supernatural. Kudos to HolyMoly for this nine-minute video clip of pain.

Blogging, customer service and cool marketing campaign

OK, so everyone is talking (alright having a conversation with some naked guy) about the Edelman blog for a Wal-Mart sponsored puppet organisation.

Whilst I would like to be exploitative and steal some of their business, I feel for the people at Edelman. When you put yourself in a pioneer position, some of your mistakes can end up being very public.

Anyway some thoughts on it all:

• There but for the grace of God go I: it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Yes it was pretty dumb and demonstrated the kind of strategic thinking that PRs often get slated for. But I would put good money on it that a number of managers of other large PR agencies had a similar reaction to the post. I am sure that they would love to nail Edelman to the cross in an effort to shake some of their clients loose, but it could just as easily been another large agency instead

• Crisis management 101: Where Edelman did go wrong was in not keeping the channel of communications as open as they could. Both Rubel and Richard Edelman kept their counsel until they had done an internal inquiry. Really they should have told the blogosphere what they were doing and then went ahead and did it. What is needed now is for the agency to demonstrate that they have learned from the mistake by telling the inside story rather than just committing to it never happening again

• Sloooow response leads to message amplification: This story seemed to get legs really fast, yet Edelman seemed to take a long time getting a handle on it, allowing the story to gain momentum. Blogs are like an echo chamber, allowing themes to reverberate around -and-around, rather than quickly die like the news agenda for print or broadcast media
  

• The only crime is getting caught: Many years ago for a brief time I used to stack clothes in a garment factory. I was very young and there was a van driver called Joey. Joey had been an unsuccessful villain who used to rob payroll deliveries and post offices in the 1970s and used to tell us about the old days. Usually the tale would end with him getting put away and would end with a few factors that had they gone the other way would have saved his bacon. If the client hadn't been Wal-Mart and the blog done a bit more subtly would they have got away with a good corporate reputation exercise? How many people have got away with the same trick before Edelman and Wal-Mart got caught?

• Living in a glass house: What made the situation worse is the Wal-Mart puppet sponsored site Paid Critics which is a platform to attack paid critics of the retail behemoth
  

• Chose your clients carefully: Wal-Mart is considered by its detractors to be exploitative, abusive and the best example of corporate evil in the western world today (though I am sure that environmentalists would argue that ExxonMobil could give Wal-Mart a good run for their money in the corporate evil sweepstake). To borrow from George Lucas: it's corporate body is viewed by critics like the Galactic Empire, and each store a corporate death star with Sam Walton as its Emperor Palpatine. There comes a time when a client is perceived to be so morally repugnant (like tobacco firms have become) that you have to draw the line and turn away their business. Wal-Mart is pushing that boundary. (Hell, I don't mind its scandalous record on the way it treats staff, its exportation of manufacturing jobs on a previously unheard of scale or its treatment of suppliers, but Wal-Mart is so wrong that it wants to hijack the smiley and own it for itself). Oi, Wal-Mart NO! You cannot hijack a cultural icon and get away with it. Bottom line: Edelman's campaign would not have drawn as much scrutiny or criticism but for the emotive association with Wal-Mart

If anybody wants to comment on the Edelman side of the story, or if you are a masochist defend Wal-Mart's smiley hijack, the blog comments section at the bottom of this post is there for you.

No sooner had I blogged about how customer experience was an intrinsic part of brand experience than my MacBook Pro got damaged. My home and contents insurance won't cover it and taking it in to get it serviced at Apple's retail locations means running the gauntlet of its online lottery for the genius bar.

I took my machine to Square Group instead where it will take two weeks for my computer to be looked at an at least another week for parts. The representatives at Square Group admitted that they were overrun in their service department, probably because so many Apple users have had to make the same trip from Apple Store Regent Street to their offices on New Oxford Street.

This service experience lacks quality and I don't mean that in a small way I mean that in a big way.

Apple often compares itself to BMW as a brand, yet BMW has a well defined very efficient customer service machine that is based on traditional values, attention to detail and an understanding of customer needs. Apple obviously doesn't have this heritage and understanding which is the reason why its service model lacks a soul. Slick retail design is merely emperor's new clothes for being a premium brand.

Finally on a more positive note, Absolut Vodka have an interesting marketing campaign called the 100 Absoluts. Participants passions are tapped, they are asked to contribute their opinions and images (user generated content) on the following items. It's a clever campaign that extends itself beyond online to PR and advertising. I only wish that I had thought of it!

THE ABSOLUTE BAG
THE ABSOLUTE BAND
THE ABSOLUTE BLOG
THE ABSOLUTE CHEF
THE ABSOLUTE COCKTAIL OCCASION
THE ABSOLUTE COFFEE JOINT
THE ABSOLUTE COLOR
THE ABSOLUTE COMEDY MOVIE
THE ABSOLUTE DESIGNER
THE ABSOLUTE DIRECTOR
THE ABSOLUTE DRINK MIXER
THE ABSOLUTE FLAGSHIP STORE
THE ABSOLUTE FURNITURE
THE ABSOLUTE GAY ICON
THE ABSOLUTE HAIRCUT
THE ABSOLUTE HORROR MOVIE
THE ABSOLUTE IMAGE
THE ABSOLUTE JOB
THE ABSOLUTE JOURNALIST
THE ABSOLUTE KILLER HEELS
THE ABSOLUTE LITTLE BLACK DRESS
THE ABSOLUTE LOVE SONG
THE ABSOLUTE MOVIE KISS
THE ABSOLUTE MUSEUM
THE ABSOLUTE NOSE
THE ABSOLUTE ONLINE FILM CLIP
THE ABSOLUTE OPERATING SYSTEM
THE ABSOLUTE PAINTING
THE ABSOLUTE PLAY
THE ABSOLUTE PRE-DINNER DRINK
THE ABSOLUTE QUOTE
THE ABSOLUTE RESTAURANT
THE ABSOLUTE RETRO VIDEO GAME
THE ABSOLUTE ROMANTIC COMEDY
THE ABSOLUTE SIGNATURE SCENT
THE ABSOLUTE SITCOM
THE ABSOLUTE SOFTWARE
THE ABSOLUTE STREET
THE ABSOLUTE TECH DEAD END
THE ABSOLUTE TOILET POETRY
THE ABSOLUTE TYPEFACE
THE ABSOLUTE VICE
THE ABSOLUTE WEB BROWSER


THE ABSOLUTE BAND NAME
THE ABSOLUTE BAR
THE ABSOLUTE BURGER
THE ABSOLUTE CITY
THE ABSOLUTE COCKTAIL
THE ABSOLUTE COLLECTOR
THE ABSOLUTE COMEDIAN
THE ABSOLUTE CUISINE
THE ABSOLUTE DINER
THE ABSOLUTE DISPLAY WINDOW
THE ABSOLUTE EGO BOOSTER
THE ABSOLUTE FLOWER
THE ABSOLUTE GANGSTER FLICK
THE ABSOLUTE GIF BANNER
THE ABSOLUTE HOBBY
THE ABSOLUTE HOTEL
THE ABSOLUTE INVENTION
THE ABSOLUTE JOKE
THE ABSOLUTE JUICE
THE ABSOLUTE LIP PLUMPER
THE ABSOLUTE LONG DRINK
THE ABSOLUTE METAL BAND
THE ABSOLUTE MOVIE VILLAIN
THE ABSOLUTE MUSIC VIDEO
THE ABSOLUTE NOVEL
THE ABSOLUTE ONLINE GAME
THE ABSOLUTE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
THE ABSOLUTE PICKUP LINE
THE ABSOLUTE PODCAST
THE ABSOLUTE PUBLIC ART
THE ABSOLUTE RECORD SLEEVE
THE ABSOLUTE RESTROOM
THE ABSOLUTE ROCK STAR
THE ABSOLUTE SCI-FI MOVIE
THE ABSOLUTE SINGER/SONGWRITER
THE ABSOLUTE SNEAKER
THE ABSOLUTE SPAM
THE ABSOLUTE TATTOO
THE ABSOLUTE TECH GADGET
THE ABSOLUTE T-SHIRT PRINT
THE ABSOLUTE URBAN LEGEND
THE ABSOLUTE WALLPAPER
THE ABSOLUTE WRISTWATCH
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UPDATE (October 22, 2006)

Edelman have outed two more fake blogs for Wal-Mart. Also Wal-Mart have retired the smiley from their campaigns, now I am hoping that they will park their ridculous claim jumping efforts on the smiley as well.
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How HewlettPackardgate offers an opportunity for PR consultancies

OK, hands up, those of you that thought HP was the only company who went around snooping on customers, influencers or competitors?

The real assets of many large modern companies is intellectual property, locked up patents and in the heads of its employees - companies have physical security measures like CCTV, pass cards and sophisticated IT security systems.

Add to this mix the rise in industrial espionage (with an estimated 3,000 Chinese-owned US front companies engaged in industrial espionage) and white collar crime so it is a small jump to conducting pre-texting against employees.

I have worked for companies were security titans like Kroll have gone to do a background check on me before I came on the payroll.

So it was no surprise when I read this piece on Reuters about lots of other companies looking over their shoulder following HewlettPackardgate. An interesting angle on this was the assertion that much of it was driven by Sarbanes-Oxley internal investigations for securities or accounting fraud, employment and discrimination matters or worker theft.

This offers great opportunities for PR consultancies looking to provide crisis communications and post-event corporate reputation rebuild programmes.

Most of these companies will exasperate the damage to their reputation by closing down and letting the lawyers run things at first, they will then send out a couple of sacrificial lambs with a limited information - which will keep rotating on a media kebab spit. By this time they will then need to spend a lot of money to consolidate and retrieve the remains of their reputation.

"You can have your Watergate, but gimme some bucks and I'll be straight" - Fred Wesley and the JBs.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Anatomy of a train wreck

BenQ is pulling the plug on the Siemens mobile business that it bought about 12 months ago.

The blogosphere is strarting to analyse the business. It is a tragedy for the people employed by the company and a sad way to see the Siemens brand disappear.

It is bad for consumers in that it concentrates power in fewer and fewer hands and robs the market of a player who came up with some of the most interesting product designs; from the rotating keyboard of the SK65 to the SL series of slider phones that Nokia aped with the 6111.

Siemens was known for its good quality low-end phones and to be honest I can't ever recall seeing any of their business-orientated phones in action. Maybe their distribution was patchy in the UK.

BenQ however didn't bring the necessary skills set to the table: products were delayed, the product design of many of the new BenQ phones isn't very impressive and to external audiences they didn't seem to have a clue about consumer marketing.

BenQ's great skill is in the process of manufacturing mobile phones not selling them. Someone like Ningbo Bird who have some consumer marketing smarts would have been a better partner. BenQ will continue on in the mobile business as a vassal of the big manufacturers who need products manufactured on their behalf to their own designs.

Where BenQ will have a problem is with German consumers. Germany is the largest IT market in Europe and its consumers love their gadgets. They are one of the key target markets for BenQ's other offerings for value-conscious consumers, although now the BenQ brand is tainted.

That PR catfight that has been doing the rounds (read from bottom)

----- Forwarded by Xxxx Xxxxxxx/Biss Lancaster/LON/EMEA/EURORSCG on 29/09/2006 16:21 -----

"Liz Hunt"
29/09/2006 15:57
To"Maria Murtagh" , , "Ashley Douglas" , "Marc Landsberg"
cc
Subject
FW: PR Disaster![Scanned]
Ah

From: Stella Bayles Sent: 29 September 2006 15:45
To: SplendidComms
Subject: FW: PR Disaster![Scanned]

From: Rachael Powlesland [mailto:rachael@kazoo.co.uk]
Sent: 29 September 2006 15:45To: Jo Johnston; Stella Bayles; Elliott White; Strickland, Steve (LDN-WSW)
Subject: FW: PR Disaster![Scanned]
Hmmm x

***Rachael Powlesland
Kazoo Third Floor 12 Goslett Yard London WC2H 0EQDirect Dial: +44 (0)20 7479 4317Switchboard: +44 (0)20 7479 4310Fax: +44 (0)20 7734 4672Mobile: +44 (0)7789 713607-

----- Forwarded Message
From: David Phillips
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:31:09 +0100
To: all@kazoo.co.uk
Subject: FW: PR Disaster![Scanned]Read from the bottom up….

Smithy thinks it’s a stunt… I’m not so sure!!
***David PhillipsKazoo Third Floor 12 Goslett Yard London WC2H 0EQSwitchboard: +44 (0)20 7479 4310Fax: +44 (0)20 7734 4672

From: Adrienne Merrill [mailto:Adrienne@borkowski.co.uk]
Sent: 29 September 2006 10:47
To: miki@goldengoosepr.comCc: Tamsin; lauralou@goldengoosepr.com; louise.hannah@mailonsunday.co.uk; esther.walker@standard.co.uk; karen.stretch@mailonsunday.co.uk; helen.nugent@thetimes.co.uk; Georgina Pattinson; katie.hind@thelondonlite.co.uk; andy.morris@condenast.co.uk; zoe.griffin@thelondonpaper.com; Mark Borkowski; Ian Hall; laura@goldengoosepr.com

Subject: RE: Great Fun!

I must stress – Borkowski have nothing to do with Supper Club, never have done, never will do. It was my private client who I worked on BEFORE even joining here! Surely you were aware of that Miki? They are not even aware of the SC organization. I see you fantastically out bitched me! A true pro. I have much to learn. Sigh.

Thanks for the advice

Adrienne

From: Griffin, Zoe [mailto:zoe.griffin@thelondonpaper.com]
Sent: 29 September 2006 10:46
To: Adrienne MerrillCc: andy.morris@condenast.co.uk; esther.walker@standard.co.uk; Georgina Pattinson; Nugent, Helen; Ian Hall; karen.stretch@mailonsunday.co.uk; laura@goldengoosepr.com; lauralou@goldengoosepr.com; louise.hannah@mailonsunday.co.uk; Mark Borkowski; miki@goldengoosepr.com; Tamsin

Subject: RE: Great Fun!

I also thought that the event was well-organised and that the girls threw a fabulous party. Rather than inviting C -list celebrities that don't fit with the image of the brand, they made the wise desicison to have people who were influential in London and who would want to join Tamsin's club.I have written about it in today's londonpaper, after the girls helped me find a photo of Tamsin looking glamorous.

That alone makes the party at cafe de paris look far better than the one at Sound in leicester square last night, when they were so many reality television star nobodies and C-list 'celebrities'.

Zoe

From: katie.hind@thelondonlite.co.uk [mailto:katie.hind@thelondonlite.co.uk]
Sent: 29 September 2006 11:37
To: Adrienne Merrill
Cc: andy.morris@condenast.co.uk; esther.walker@standard.co.uk; Georgina Pattinson; Nugent, Helen; Ian Hall; karen.stretch@mailonsunday.co.uk; laura@goldengoosepr.com; lauralou@goldengoosepr.com; louise.hannah@mailonsunday.co.uk; Mark Borkowski; miki@goldengoosepr.com; Tamsin; Griffin, Zoe

Subject: RE: Great Fun!

I thought that Golden Goose were fantastic last night. They never fail to help me out when I need a favour and this, quite often leads to fabulous coverage for their clients. The Supper Club will be no exception. Tamsin and the Golden Goose girls will have a great plug in my dating column on Tuesday. Thanks for a lovely night, ladies. xx

"Adrienne Merrill" 29/09/06 11:20
To: cc: "Tamsin" , , , , , , "Georgina Pattinson" , , , , "Mark Borkowski" , "Ian Hall" ,

Subject: RE: Great Fun!

Sorry – do I know you?

-----Original Message-----

From: Miki Watson [mailto:miki@goldengoosepr.com]
Sent: 29 September 2006 11:18
To: Adrienne MerrillCc: 'Tamsin'; lauralou@goldengoosepr.com; louise.hannah@mailonsunday.co.uk; esther.walker@standard.co.uk; karen.stretch@mailonsunday.co.uk; helen.nugent@thetimes.co.uk; 'Georgina Pattinson'; katie.hind@thelondonlite.co.uk; andy.morris@condenast.co.uk; zoe.griffin@thelondonpaper.com; Mark Borkowski; 'Ian Hall'; laura@goldengoosepr.com

Subject: RE: Great Fun!

Dear Adrienne,

We're delighted that you enjoyed last night's Supper Club party; it was fabulous wasn't it! I'm terribly sorry that you obviously don't know your media well enough to recognise some of the UK's most influential press by face.

We were looking after Esther Walker from the Evening Standard, arranging a photograph feature for Karen Stretch at the Mail on Sunday Live Magazine, introducing some of our guests to Louise Hannah from the Mail on Sunday, arranging a 'date' with one of the country's most well known jockeys that is being written about by Katie Hind in the London Lite and entertaining the GQ editorial team who are writing about Tamsin in November.

Oh and Helen Nugent from The Times was having a great time in VIP, along with Georgina Pattinson from BBC.co.uk whom, when she last wrote about an online networking client of us (BeautifulPeople.net), generated 9,000 hits for our client in one day.

Pretty good contacts, don't you think? But as you don't know them, we thought we'd introduce you to them on this email; as we always like to help people out in PR here at Golden Goose...it's a pretty sad, bitchy industry when you don't, wouldn't you say?

As for Dave Benett...it's a shame he didn't get a lead picture for today's Diary, but Tam - he had a fabulous time and your picture has also made a story in today's London Paper with a great plug for the Supper Club..

Zoe Griffin is very kindly posting us a copy for you now. Regarding celebrities..well, I don't recall that the Supper Club was meant to be about celebrities? It's about a calibre of person whom you get to meet at the most brilliant soiree. I think last night ticked every box. I don't know if Borkowski solely regards celebrity attendance or celebrity association as the epitome of a campaign's success; but at Golden Goose PR we look at what we've generated in terms of column inches, brand identity and revenue for our client's business.

Daily Candy, OK! Mag and London Lite pieces which ran even before the party started yesterday were only the beginning. Anyway, I'm way too busy to write about all the other pieces of editorial we're working on as my phone is going and people are asking for pictures....

I suggest, Adrienne, that you get back to doing your job too. Have a lovely weekend everyone,

Miki xxx

Miki Watson Joint Managing Director, Golden Goose PR Currently shortlisted as 'Best new consultancy 2006', PR Week Awards www.goldengoosepr.com "
email/MSN: miki@goldengoosepr.com "
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From: Adrienne Merrill [mailto:Adrienne@borkowski.co.uk]
Sent: 29 September 2006 10:37
To: Tamsin
Cc: lauralou@goldengoosepr.com
Subject: Great Fun!

Dear Tamsin,

We all had such a great time last night, fantastic entertainment & drinks and music by the DJ was brilliant – we all danced until out feet hurt!!! As for the PR from Golden Goose – well - the celebrity attendance was what……zero?

Oh no, let me think now, oh yes Syed (the one that didn’t even come second in what was that show, The Apprentice?) he was there. And journalists, well now, I did have a pretty full house crack team of publicists with me try as we might to spot one, well I think it was what…zero?

Oh, no, wrong again, Chris Sullivan was there.

He did let slip to me though that he only popped in to see Mick (the lovely promoter) and he’s not exactly a target writer for the Supper Club.

We all make mistakes.

Addi xxx