The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

No, not to kill or for naughtiness – but for a job.

Yes, a bloody job!!!

The person would ideally be web 2.0 savvy [but given clients still don’t know much about digital, someone who uses MSN would probably suffice, ha!] mid-weight [in planning, not weight] and Asian experienced.

Now you probably are wondering what the hell they could have done to have impressed me so much … so to explain, I have to tell you a backstory.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Are you?

OK … then I’ll begin.

Once upon a time … in a land far away …

Oh what the hell am I going on about. OK, let’s stop with the shenanigans and get on with it.

A few weeks ago I was walking home when I passed a Christian Life shop.

Normally those kind of places scare the living crap out of me however out of curiosity, I decided to pop in.

As I was walking around – trying desperately not to catch anyone’s eye for fear of being ‘religiously mugged’ – I saw at the bottom of an aisle, the guitar from the Playstation/Xbox game, ‘Rock Star’.

Wondering why the hell that would be there [plus I thought I could sneak in a quick game] I headed over but found this …

Yep, that’s right … basically ‘Guitar Hero’ for Christians.

Sheer bloody genius.

Why?

Because rather than taking the ‘easy route’ and simply launching another version of the product that targets the same kids/adults who bought a previous incarnation … the developers realised there were literally millions of Christian kids [or said another way, one of the biggest ‘niche’ groups in the World] who would love to play the original game but couldn’t because the music featured on it [ie: Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil”] wasn’t ‘Christian friendly’.

So what do they do?

Well instead of just relying on advertising, they fine tune the product so it not only gets Christian Parental approval – thanks to the songs and lyrics – but ensures the actual user experience is as close to the original as possible because they know for many kids/adults, they want to feel like they ‘belong’ to the wider social group, rather than being freaks of it.

OK so the game has bands on it that could make The Smiths look good – but that’s the exact reason why God loving parents are happy to pay a premium to let their kids play it – because not only is it religiously acceptable, but they can feel the song lyrics are educating their kids about ‘God’s way’.

Whilst I don’t know the exact sales figures it has achieved, the product is on backorder in many countries so I think it’s safe to say it has/is very successful.

Given so much segmentation seems to be almost about minimising customer potential [rather than attracting specific and/or new customers], I think it’s brilliant to see a company realise the best way to truly tap into a niche market is to customise their offering so it fundamentally appeals to a groups needs rather than relying purely on the [flawed] logic of advertising channel targeting.

Seriously, the last time I saw something that made me smile this much was the LG Mecca phone and I just wish I’d been part of the team behind its concept, because I think it’s absolutely brilliant.

This chart is from JP Morgan – who are trying to say they’re good simply because they’ve lost less billions than everyone else.

Not the greatest ‘proof of professionalism’ I’ve ever seen but the data makes for interesting – and scary – reading.

And who is bailing out the ego maniacs?

Us. The people.

So in essence, we’re going broke helping the organisations who helped us go broke in the first place. How does that work and why hasn’t there been a revolution about it?

Seriously, are we the most apathetic generation in history – or is it that we are the only ones who know in the big scheme of things, we are an inconsequential irritant to the people in real power?

I know the banks bad behaviour goes deeper than just the responsibility of the banks … cultural materialism, shareholder pressure, Government greed all played a major part … but despite all that has gone on, I still don’t know where the responsibility starts and where the responsibility ends – because it seems to me, all the powers-that-be are doing is putting a plaster on the problem rather than treating the wound.

Letting banks have money to lend means nothing if the people have no security to borrow. Or maybe that’s the future of finance – corporate loan sharking – where they’ll lend to anyone but charge huge interest rates that you have no chance of ever paying back. Oh hang on, they did that already didn’t they!

Without wishing to downplay the importance of the current economic situation, we need to remember there are many, many more terrible things going on in the World – so while we worry about our loans/homes/jobs and lives, let’s not forget there are many people out there who have been worrying about their lack of health, homes, food, future for a hell of a lot longer than the relatively short time this financial crisis has been going on.