Dear Asda,

I popped into your Hulme store this morning for some mini pancakes and a banana and was amazed to hear Radiohead playing throughout the store. Quite cool in a way, but very wrong in another way.

I’ve always been a fan of the band, admiring the way they’ve never stood still creatively, always trying to push musical boundaries but I just feel something a bit more light hearted may be better in a retail environment.

You see, when it’s raining outside you don’t want the store music to make it feel like it’s raining inside – especially when your brand promise is all about the feel good factor of saving people money. Music should be used to help make our shopping experience more pleasurable, therefore making us stay longer, spend more and come back again.

The dreary track in question, Pyramid Song, is actually about drowning (not teabags), and like a lot of their later work was inspired by bouts of manic depression.

I’m sure you spend thousands on your audio branding strategy, so maybe it was just one of the shelf stackers who popped in his ‘best of indie’ cd by mistake. However if you don’t, it’s something we’re really interested in at Studio North so would love to talk to you about it – you can tweet me @sbuckers or call us at Studio North on 0161 237 5151, www.studionorth.co.uk.

I trust this feedback will be taken constructively – on a positive note the music did remind me that I needed razor blades and paracetemol.

Warm regards,

Steve Buckley

The Chip Shop Awards is an industry awards body all about fostering and recognising creativity with no boundaries and no rules. It’s an international creative awards, open to anyone with great ideas.

I was about to enter a couple of ideas on behalf of Studio North earlier today when I noticed another piece of work already entered by The School of Communication Arts in London. I wouldn’t want to post the visual here, but to describe it, it was a fictitious ad for eBay featuring a box of cherished childrens toys with the inscription ‘Madeleine’ written on it accompanied by the headline ‘When it’s time to throw it away, it’s time to eBay’.

We’d be nowhere without freedom of speech and creative expression but this was beyond the bad taste category it was entered into – it was absolutely disgraceful. Mocking the abduction of a young girl for critical acclaim, in the name of creativity.

When I explained my feelings of disgust to the Dean at The School of Communication Arts I was even more alarmed to hear him defend the work of his students.

“We encourage our students to take risks, to create communications that normal mortals wouldn’t dare to show and to push every boundary.” Said Marc Lewis

So that’s ok then. Someone gives you a platform to be creative and you use it to be as vile as possible.

Speaking as a normal mortal I believe pushing the boundaries of ‘creativity’ is one thing, thinking of the most tragic circumstance possible possible then making fun of it is another. That’s not creative or pushing any boundaries, that’s breaking through the boundaries and is vile and irresponsible.

Maybe in today’s happy slapping society where anything goes it’s become cool to be cruel. Other ads from different contributors on the Chipshop Awards website that mock the Holocust and recent tragedies in New Zealand and Japan would support this.

Maybe Marc and others like him that are charged with developing the next creative generation would be better getting them to use their talents to make a difference, to think of innovative ways to help victims of tragedy instead of poking fun at them.

I believe in freedom of creative expression, but not at the expense of basic human morals and compassion. We are human beings first and a designers second. But we are designers, and that makes us different because as creative thinkers we have the ability to use our talents for good, to make things better. It’s an obligation.

The clue is in the word ‘creative’.

A friend of Studio North, writer and creative thinker Mick Greer recently blogged this story…

Design that matters is an American company run by Timothy Prestero. They were recently looking into neo-natal incubators for villages in Africa.

The problem is that if you give a modern incubator to an average sized village in Africa it will work fine for a year or two then one day something will go wrong and it will stop working.

No one will have the skills to repair it or, probably, the parts that are needed. So they started to look at what skills the local population had. No matter where you are in Africa you will always see cars on the road.

Cars that by rights should be dead and on a scrapheap.

There are clearly good mechanics everywhere in Africa. With this fact in mind Design That Matters then set about, and succeeded in, designing an incubator made from car parts. It has headlights for warming, a fan for cooling, door chimes for an alarm and runs off a car battery.

This incubator is now up and running and helping babies in developing countries everywhere. The parts to repair it are easy to come by and there’s always someone who has the skills to do so.

By looking at what resources were available instead of what technology was available Design That Matters has created something truly amazing and made a real difference.

Now that is what I call pushing the boundaries.

You can read more about Design that matters here designthatmatters.org

I always bring in a packed lunch in to work, a sarnie, some homemade soup maybe, packet of Roast Beef Monster Munch, bit of fruit, the usual thing. It saves me an absolute fortune and with a wedding to save up for I need all the spare cash I have.

The other day one of the guys commented on the fact that I was carrying an Asda carrier bag. “I had you down as more of a Sainsbury’s girl”. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this statement.

“Why do you think that”, I said.

“ Well, you’re not really an Asda shopper are you?”, he replied

“ Why, what does an Asda customer look like?”, I enquired, this was getting very interesting..

The ‘said’ person was now looking like he wished he’d never said anything “Eh, well a bit on the Chavvy side, you know what I mean”, he then made a hasty retreat.

But this really got me thinking. I suppose if I take into account my demographic group, I’m not really in the Asda target market but no matter where we live or what we earn everyone is cutting back.

But do Value brands need to consider this in the context of their brand and marketing communications? Surely I’m not the only one swapping a Sainsburys splurge for an Asda bargain?

Some brands clearly are taking this shift in demographic on board. Asda in particular have recently launched a ‘M&S’ food style ad campaign called ‘Chosen By You’. Ok so the quality doesn’t look quite on a par with M&S but it ain’t bad and I’m sure is helping to raise the demographic of their customer. It’s all about getting the right balance of messaging between price and product.

But the most obvious one is McDonalds. If I ever fancied a Big Mac hangover cure it would be a quick dash to the Drive Through. Never in a million years would I be seen dead in a McDonalds sitting on a plastic red chair surrounded by empty burger boxes and unwanted pickled gherkins. But with their new ‘restaurant’ refit, better customer service and brilliant Ad campaign I will now quite happily ‘eat in’. And they’re now even talking about putting calorie content on all their food. OK, so this might make me guilty for about 5 seconds but when the Big Mac calls you just can’t resist!

http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1059846/McDonalds-put-calorie-count-menus/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

However, some brands clearly don’t feel they need too address their growing diversity of customer profile. Did anyone see the Mary Portas programme about Customer Service within Value retailers. She used Primark as an example of the lack of Customer Service that exists in this sector. Yet we appear to be happy to ‘put up’ with this in the quest to get a bargain. But for how much longer? With other Value retailers raising their game, these brands really need to take note.

I can honestly say that once upon a time I would have driven past two Asda’s to get to a Sainsbury’s. I did use to be a bit of a brand snob. However, now everyone, no matter what their salary or background, are being drawn to ‘Value’ brands by necessity as well as choice. But these brands really need to take note of this.

Brand snobbery has gone, we are now ‘proud to be prudent!’.