Section 66(1) Companies Act 2006 states;

“a company must not be registered under this Act by any name that is the same as another name appearing in the registrar’s index of company names”

In addition to this, it is possible for existing companies to challenge the use of similar names via the common law action; ‘Passing off’. This action prevents new companies from taking advantage of the success and reputation of existing companies, as demonstrated in the case; Reckitt and Colman Products Ltd v. Borden Inc. and others[1990], after Borden launched an identically named brand.  Many of you, like me, may have accidentally typed in hoogle.com or facenook.com for instance, and noticed that the domain name was in use by an imitation website.

The ongoing dispute between Sky and Skype demonstrates how important the name of a company can be an what implications it may have. British Sky Broadcasting is trying to prevent the internet communication service Skype from registering its logo in several territories because it is concerned the two brands will be confused. Such disputes are proof that similar names have a big effect on business.

It is common for brands to try to take advantage of the success of another company and this strategy isn’t unique to company names. The launch of Marks and Spencer’s new vitamin water has been received with heavy criticism due to the products similarity to Glaceau’s Vitamin water. The product is identical in design and shape with only a slight variation in name. Such a “copy cat” approach is usually only adopted by those with limited resources or a lack of creative thought. We will be following these disputes with close attention and will update you when they are resolved.

In 2,650 BCE, it took approximately 100,000 workers approximately 20 years to construct the Great Pyramid of Giza. This was achieved with technology far inferior to that used by the engineers of the new Wembley stadium (which took about as long to complete!)

In 1966 a team of eleven came together to bring football home to England and just yesterday, 388 brave bidders exercised true teamwork to get a delicious 3 course meal discounted on the deal-of-the-day website Groupon.

Groupon is one of many sites where consumers can band together to get price reductions on items which might otherwise have been out of their price range.  Such sites are beneficiaries of the recession and a new discount site is being launched every week.

Another internet platform which illustrates the strength in consumer numbers is www.pledgemusic.com. Here an artist can make promises in exchange for the funds needed to create a new album or to pay for a headline tour.

Here –  http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/charliesimpson for example, fans can pay £10 to have their name mentioned in Charlie Simpson’s album booklet. £2000 will buy a private gig!

With more and more artists latching on to this method of fundraising, and with deal websites continually attracting new business partners, it appears that many of these sites will be here long after the recovery.

One final example of a team who achieve great things:

Team Big Cat

Despite this, the Conservative’s outdoor campaign was the one of the most memorable aspects of this year’s general election. ‘Bigot-gate’ scandal aside, of course!  The conservatives spent a giant £5.2m on outdoor posters, while the other major parties decided not to focus on outdoor campaigns.  Alistair Campbell initially labelled the Tories campaign as ‘old fashioned’ and highlighted the role of social media as one the primary forums to drive Labours ‘modern’ campaign.

Alistair Darling also commented that … “public resistance to heavy messaging has grown, and for politics in particular there is no guarantee that the rewards of a well-funded, well-crafted and well-executed ad concept will outweigh the risks.” This is a well founded statement as the conservative posters featuring David Cameron received wide-scale criticism, with many expressing that too much focus was on him as a person rather than his policies. In response, the Tories changed tactics and decided to use an image of Gordon Brown alongside a negative statement. This also received heavy criticism –much of which suggested that the Tories were focussing heavily on the pitfalls of the opposition in order to disguise their own shortcomings.

However, the poster campaign could only have received this criticism if people were interacting with the adverts and this is the proof that, with the right message, outdoor is media format-force to be reckoned with. The decline in print options has raised the influence of outdoor advertising.

The Big Cat Group understands that this is the case – and therefore , outdoor features so prominently in our mutli-channel media campaigns. Here are a few examples:

Bodies Revealed

CSI Experience

There are obviously many benefits in using a celebrity to endorse your product. The brand will instantly be associated with the celebrity and will, in turn, be accepted in the same manner that the celebrity is. The brand will become more easily recognisable and will, in most cases, achieve longevity in the mind of the consumer.

This is certainly the case in sport.  For example, fans will religiously imitate David Beckham and this makes him the perfect vehicle to drive the sales of the latest Adidas boots. However, brand-celebrity associations are a double edged sword, as demonstrated by the relationship between Nike and Tiger Woods. After the exposure of his private life, Nike decided not to drop Tiger- a decision which runs the risk of making it seem that Nike condone his behaviour.

Anyway, I’m off to follow some people on Twitter…  in order to make celebrities out of them!

The threat of offending people has made it increasingly difficult for advertisers to leave viewers in shock and awe. Despite this however, many banned adverts, especially those from well known brands, continue to rack up views on video site such as Youtube. Once banned, the adverts spreads like viral wild fire and since they get sent to people by friends via Facebook or e-mails, viewers are more likely to respond to them. In fact, many brands can thank the ASA for a larger ROI than any paid slot could ever have provided.

VW – Don’t Forget It’s a Diesel.

This VW advertisement was banned as a result of its frequent use of expletives.  It is difficult to believe that VW’S advertising agency ever believed the advert was fit for TV screens. It is more likely that the adverts banning was a result of fine planning – an approach which provoked over 2 million views on Youtube.

Click to play:

This isn’t the only time VW have had an advert banned for being controversial. Any guesses as to why this one got banned?

Polo – Small but Tough

Click to play

I-Robot 2004

The new rules, which are due to be incorporated into UK law at the end of 2010,will allow product placement in TV series, films, entertainment and sports programmes, but not in children’s and news programmes. So to reassure those of you who are concerned – Bob the Builder will not be fixing things with a Black & Decker multi-purpose saw. What we might expect to see however, is a Carlsberg tap at the Rovers Return or even Clear Blue pregnancy tests on Jeremy Kyle.  This will provide a new channel for advertising so maybe now it’s time to think inside of the box (for a change).

Hello all.

My name is Joe, and I am the brand new Marketing Intern in the Big Cat office. I sit next to Dan, opposite to Jenny, and diagonally from Ben. My view out of the office window is of a canal and a few buildings. I regularly bring a sandwich and a bottle of water into work, along with an energy drink, depending how alert I am in the morning. I have lived in a small village for the entirety of my life, and despite enjoying being away from home and travelling, have never ventured far away for a lengthy spell.

I would describe myself as a thinker, not in the conventional philosophical sense, but one who lets his mind run in a million different directions, which would explain the completely random observations and questions that will come your way when around me for more than an hour.

The obvious question that any interviewer, or anyone in general to whom I am chatting about my job, would ask is ‘Why Marketing?’ I would respond with another question; ‘Why wouldn’t I want to be involved in marketing?’ Having only been at Big Cat for just over a week, I have made contacts from various companies, I am involved in a potentially very successful campaign, and have not had one moment of boredom in the office.

I’ll finish with a few words on life so far at the Big Cat Group. Despite being here just one week, I have felt it very easy to fit in to the office structure. For now it is more of a learning curve than anything, but I can only expect to gain the best of experience during my time here.

Pepsi will be the first company to be advertised on the small mobile phone screen sized display advertisement, along with CBS network previews. The technology used is similar to that which is used in the (utterly hilarious) singing greeting cards. The chips can hold roughly 40 minutes of footage and have rechargable batteries.

Watch it here

So when we watch films like Blade Runner, Back to the Future, Total Recall, Minority Report, even Harry Potter (see the Daily Prophet) and we laugh at the idea of a hoverboard or interactive and holographic ads, is the advertising industry laughing with us, or is it busy taking notes?

So, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s both impressive and exciting (and maybe a touch novel). At the moment, it is only brands with MASSIVE advertising budgets like Pepsi that can even consider splashing out/experimenting with this kind of marketing.

But what does this mean for the wider advertising industry?

Well if this takes off, a market which is even more competitive than it currently is. This technology isn’t going to be cheap (until they can be mass produced for a few pence), and along with the increase in printing costs, the publications are going to hold all the cards surely. To use a football analogy (if in doubt…): With their new wealth and ambition, Manchester City have single-handedly increased the market value of any player by 50% . Everton can now name a price for Joleon Lescott, now a £24m player, according to the word of Manchester City. How much would he cost to another club without if City’s financial influence wasn’t practically monopolising the market (the Real Madrid-less market that is)?

Anyway what I’m trying to say is that these ad spaces will be priced out of smaller brands budgets. Although the Video.Chip.Print ads will not be abundant for some time, therefore competition for places is going to be fierce, especially if this is successful. And the more money thats being pumped in, the bigger it will get.

It will certainly go a long way in helping create a good impression, maintaining that when the competition hits will be the next test.

On a final note, I’m waiting for the day this happens as I walk past Cineworld:

The advertiser’s utopia of Los Angeles, as depicted in Blade Runner, is very much here and now (see Times Square below). If there’s an unoccupied piece of land, advertising companies will snap it up and whack an ad there.

Home-owners are even willing to offer out the road-facing side of their houses as a billboard, because it faces heavy traffic on a long commuter route. These selfless vigilantes are on a mission to help local businesses promote their products and services. An intention twinned no doubt, with an almost rabid thirst for cash.

Understandably, blanket advertising can get people’s goat. The characteristics affiliated with advertising are greed, lack of ethics, ruthlessness – typical fat cat traits that give the industry a rotten reputation.

Sure, brands like Coca-Cola and Tesco have practically monopolised their industries by pumping billions of dollars into their advertising campaigns. How do you compete against these monsters with this much financial clout? You can’t, leave them to it.

But what about the thousands and thousands of other companies, genuinely competing for custom? How do you persuade one person to buy Evian Water instead of Vittel? Bore them into submission with a few stats about minerals? Why not offer a new perspective. Does the advert have to be based around the springs at Lake Geneva? I’d love to have been at the meeting when the creative team had this idea:

Evian Babies

Brilliant! Babies dancing to Rapper’s Delight. I’m thirsty, might go grab an Evian…

Seriously though, this demonstrates perfectly the creativity and “outside the box” thinking which is becoming so prominent and practically unconditional in the advertising industry. This advert has achieved viral status, forwarded to colleagues, friends and family and has currently attained nearly 10 million views on YouTube.

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, Olympus created this stopmotion video. The PEN Story is a staggering piece of work by any standard. A 3 minute advert using over 60,000 pictures, 9,600 prints and 1,800 pictures had to be re-shot.

The artist is Mr Taijin Takeuchi

The PEN story

That companies are commissioning incredibly talented artists to create pieces like this, stretching their imagination and raising their profile simultaneously, is surely proof that advertising provides opportunity and pleasure.

Subliminal Advertising mentions must go out to Cadbury’s (yes, the drumming gorilla – seen it?), and perhaps the pioneer of the genre – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2VCfOC69jc.

Is this Subliminal Advertising by definition? Or is the term evolving?

Welcome to Big Cat Strategy’s blog. My name is Daniel, I’m pretty much a year into my role in the Big Cat Strategy department, so I guess I’m relatively new to marketing. I’ve learnt a lot in that time and have been involved in some great projects. I’m looking forward to learning more and am excited, intrigued and a little bit scared by the unknown.

My plans for this blog are simple.

I don’t profess to be an expert, but I will be able to offer a different viewpoint to other marketing blogs. I’ll also be coaxing the Strategy Director to share his abundant knowledge of the marketing, advertising and social media industries on this blog.

I’ll be interested in hearing your thoughts. I actively encourage both rage and praise.

Follow me on Twitter @danielbigcat