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Brick No123: The mistake in BBC2's Dragons' Den
By Matt Weston, Friday 7 January 2005 Best New Year wishes to you and yours My guess is that, whilst I've been away, like mine, the average reader waistline has expanded a couple of inches. And I bet that most of us are a few mince pies heavier on those scales. But no matter, it's good to be back, and good to have you back. Let's raise a glass - or cuppa - to 2005. I won't keep you from your resolutions for too long today. New Elevator Pitch programme on BBC2 If, like me, you tuned into the first of BBC2's new series, "Dragons' Den" on Tuesday, you can skip the next couple of paragraphs. But for the uninitiated, "Dragons' Den" works like this: a procession of entrepreneurs take turns to deliver a 3-minute Elevator Pitch (see Brick No91) to 5 "dragons", namely Simon Woodroffe, Rachel Elnaugh, Duncan Bannatyne, Peter Jones, and Doug Richard . . . all self-made millionaires with VC cash to splash. "Dragons' Den" is car crash telly. The first guy in the den - pitching an invention that could rock a baby to sleep - turned to jelly, and then to jelly powder. And then the "dragons" reduced two Glaswegian dress-shop designers to tears. Unsurprisingly, they only invested in one of the businesses on display. Duncan Bannatyne and Peter Jones put up £75k each for a combined 40% stake in this business: Ex-City suit Charles had a contract to run his umbrella vending machines in London Underground stations. A couple of quid buys the ill-prepared commuter shelter from the rain. The coup de grace was that the business had a second, "Trojan horse" way of making money by selling ads on the front of the machines. The problem with the brolly But did anyone else on this list clock that something was wrong with the example umbrella Charles showed? You might argue that the brolly looked too classy for two pounds. As I've said before, it's far more dangerous to under- price, than to overprice. But in this case at least, low price/ high volume means more advertising dough for Charles. (See Brick No58.) Nope, the problem with the umbrella was that it didn't advertise itself. If it carried any sort of logo or brand name, it wasn't bold and big enough for me to read. And it missed a gimme opportunity to tell thousands of drenched commuters where they could buy the product . . . "you can buy this inside tube stations" or even the London Underground logo writ large. Charles was forecasting that tens of thousands of commuters would buy his umbrellas, and yet he was missing out on the best advertising you can get. Why take out a double-page spread in the Evening Standard when you can get your customers to carry around your advertising for you? (They don't care what the brolly says, as long as it keeps them dry). As drenched people see dry people walking out of tube stations with branded umbrellas, they will buy. And then the idea can spread. Get your private, fr*e email at Hotmail Microsoft signed up 12 million subscribers to Hotmail within 18 months of the service launching. Much more important than its advertising budget of less than $500,000 (peanuts for Microsoft), was the fact that every email sent carried the same signature, "Get your private, fr*e email at http://www.hotmail.com". Do you see the parallel? You can't "buy" this sort of advertising, which is what makes it so credible. In our age of advertising overload, the truly believable messages come from existing customers. If your product or service over-delivers, odds are that your customers won't mind endorsing you in this way. Nobody minded about the Hotmail signature. To give you another example, I'm currently in the throes of revamping the Business Bricks website. The wraps come off the week after next. (See, I didn't spend the whole Christmas period scoffing mince pies). Andy and Noam of Mint Digital have worked very long and very hard to come up with a redesign that we all think works. I'd need a young Aled Jones to sing their praises high enough. So when Andy asked if I'd mind "carrying" a link at the bottom of the new site, of course I obliged. Anything I can do to help. If you delight your customers with your service, they'll be delighted to help you promote it to others. Bric-A-Brac (1) A good friend of mine, Ben Cobley, emailed me on Monday: " An old mate of mine is running an improvised aid organisation (converted from a fledgling travel agency) out in Sri Lanka following the tsunami. Already they've got together a fleet of lorries to transport food, medicines etc to the affected areas and are flat out doing that. " Obviously these guys are relative amateurs in the aid business, but they've been a lot quicker than all the big agencies in getting going and are really making a difference right now by simply going to local markets, buying up a whole lot of stuff and delivering it to the affected areas. " They've raised £18,000 so far, but apparently this is going to run out in about a week, so any donations would be much appreciated. (See aidsrilanka.org or this write up in The Independent.) (2) I got the idea for today's Brick during a phone chat I had with Peter Thomson yesterday. We got talking about "Dragons' Den" because Peter knows Duncan Bannatyne. Anyway, it's only fair that I plug PT's terrific weekly newsletter "tgi Mondays" . . . sign up here. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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