Pi-Consulting

Seventy percent of Italians would apparently be happy to sunbathe nude at their beach resorts “so long as everyone else was doing it”. So what’s stopping them? (Source: The Italian Naturist Federation, quoted in The Independent newspaper).

A blameless corporate reputation is an increasingly valuable asset among big companies, as consumers turn on corporations who cook their books, exploit their third-world work force, or endanger our planet’s well-being. Need a better rep? Why not buy one? French-based cosmetic giant L’Oreal decided to do just that, bidding 34% over the odds to buy up “environmentalist” retailer Body Shop International, whose founder Anita Roddick is a pin-up girl for ‘greens’ and the responsible employment movement. The problem may be that a reputation transplant may be a little like a skin-graft: the cosmetic attraction can be powerful, but the grafted-on tissue may reject. Chris Bones, principal of Henley Management College put it thus: “Mergers between the large and the virtuous only work when the cultures of the two companies… are similar”. Mr. Bones knows of what he speaks, having advised on the recent takeover of “ethical and organic” chocolate-maker Green & Black by UK-based chocolate giant Cadbury. The deal worked out well because of Cadbury’s continued observance of the principles of its Quaker founders. Mr. Bones is less hopeful for the L’Oreal/Body Shop nuptials, partly because of intrinsically different commercial world views, and partly because “French and British management teams mix like oil and water”. Source: The Economist).

So PlayStation and Xbox are all about vicariously living an unreal fantasy life? Not necessarily. Videogames are ‘getting real’, at least in a commercial sense, and folding genuine products into their story lines. Initially this took the simple form of fixed advertisements in scene backdrops, i.e. ads on billboards as props in the game. This quickly progressed to integral story lines built around branded products, such as secret text messages hidden in a Sony cellphone. Hoping to avoid wasting communication opportunities in a demographic scatter-gun approach, game-makers are even getting adept at tailoring product-placement to different consumer groups on different occasions. Thus far, gamers seem to accept these commercial intrusions, and to remember the products concerned. The demographics of videogame use are mutating, with the average gamer now no longer a screen-obsessed teenager so much as a young professional with above-average income. US males aged 18 to 34 have been watching less and less TV, but spent 20% more time with their videogame consoles last year. (Source: Newsweek).