Much has been made of the dilemma facing Blackberry and RIM (Riot In Motion? Sorry – Ed.) which saw the mobile phone brand effectively hijacked by a group of consumers who probably didn’t feature very highly on Blackberry’s target demographic. BlackBerry for its part has maintained a dignified silence, no doubt made all the more frustrating by the countless number of media pundits who will insist on analysing the role and responsibility of the brand in the recent London incidents.

Could Blackberry experience the same problems of undersirable customer associations like Burberry? About six years ago, Burberry was suffering something of an identity crisis. The historic British brand, famed for its beige check fabric and trench coats had once been a desired designer on the backs of A-listers everywhere. But by 2005, the name Burberry had become synonymous, in the UK at least, with the much maligned ‘chav’ class.

For the uninitiated, the term ‘chav’ has come to be applied to a disruptive youth sub-culture, epitomised by loutish behaviour, a penchant for ostentatious jewellery and most famously, Burberry print clothing. The theory that the term originally derives from the acronym “Council House And Violent” might be apocryphal, but is an engaging story nonetheless. 

There's no denying that both of the world's Great Kates are powerful forces in media. One has been the queen of cool since early 1990s as the party-loving anti-supermodel, the other is the future Queen of England with the ability set a new high street trend with every public appearance.

The past 18 months has been a busy time for both the GKs, and thanks to those clever folks at LBi you can now compare and contrast the coverage of the very public lives of these two very different women. 

 Click to enlarge

Not that it's about picking favourites, but given the choice I'd rather go for night out on the town with Kate Moss. But Middleton is the woman who seems to be single handedly saving the British high street. So both Kates, we salute you. 

The UK press has taken much delight in reporting the story of Roland Bunce. To bring you up to speed, Bunce is one of the contestants who took part in an online modelling competition with UK clothing retailer Next.

Next is a mid-price high street fashion name, present in most town centres across the UK. As part of its latest ‘Make me the Next Model’ competition, potential models can post photographs to a website for public vote. The highest scoring entries are shortlisted for final adjudication by jury and the winner gets to appear in a Next photo shoot and receives £2,000 for being good looking and popular enough to win the competition.

As marketing ideas go, this is a nice idea but fairly unremarkable. That is until 24-year-old Roland Bunce decided to take part. In modelling terms, Bunce is not what one might term ‘classically good looking’, but then since this is a competition open to the public, Bunce gave it a go and submitted his picture.

Next presumably wanted to encourage submissions from people of all shapes and sizes, but what they might not have counted on is the astonishing popularity of Bunce in the competition. His unlikely appearance in a competition of tall, dark and handsome men has struck a chord with the online audience, who have voted him into the top 10. To date his profile page on Next has been "liked" an astounding 32,000 times.

The UK press has reacted very strangely, with the Daily Mail claiming the competition has been sabotaged. The insinuation being that the competition is a mockery if Bunce wins. If the rumours surrounding the controversy surrounding Britain’s Got Talent are true, it’s nice to know that we can still have an honest competition in the UK.

Next were no doubt surprised – but since the final decision rests with a judging panel they can obviously pick a winner to suit their purposes, but I can’t help but feel that if Next had the guts to go with what seems to be the public favourite, there is massive PR potential in turning the Roland Bunce into a stylish man about town, kitted out in Next clobber.

I wonder if the people in charge are up to the challenge.

WHY IS THIS ON CREAM? Getting the public involved in a campaign is always going to be risky, but even the most unexpected result has potential – provided the brand involved has the vision to deal with and the backbone to see it through.

By Mark St. Andrew

When it comes to luxury brands, exclusivity is crucial to their survival as they thrive on their elite image. So how can these brands cope in today’s social media age where the power is shifting from the brand almighty to the consumer?

After all, marketers and so-called social media buffs all champion this new era as the time when consumers need to be listened to and appreciated. Many brands have even taken this a step further by giving up partial control, taking up the curious activity dubbed ‘co-creation,’ where consumers actually take part in the creation of the product.  

How can luxury and more specifically designer brands who rely so heavily on their unattainability survive in this brave new world? Few have succeeded. In fact, Gucci and Burberry are the only ones who come to mind. Burberry’s Art of the Trench website, where fans shared pictures and anecdotes via Facebook about the emblematic Burberry trench coats, was a triumph.

Thus, while every other brand is desperately trying to figure out how to jump on the social media bandwagon, luxury brands are increasingly pressured to follow suit. Gucci has succeeded in getting four million fans to “like” their page on Facebook. Does every single one of those fans own a Gucci product? Most definitely not, but social media is allowing the designer brands to communicate with their audience in whole new ways. These new digital platforms allow high-luxury brands to share pictures, videos, and all sorts of information about upcoming collections and events. While not everyone will be able to afford that five thousand pound dress, people can dream about it, talk about it, and who knows, maybe someday own it.

Oscar de la Renta is taking things to a bold new step, as it launches its first fragrance in ten years on Facebook. Indeed, in order to generate buzz over the new scent, these next few weeks will be dedicated to giving out samples of the perfume, Esprit d’Oscar, on a special section of the social media platform. Michele de Bourbon, Oscar de la Renta’s head of marketing for fragrance claims that through social media and its more affordable fragrance line, consumers have been able to “experience the world of Oscar.”

Although this is not the first fragrance to be launched via Facebook—Marc Jacobs launched a perfume through a Facebook game last year, it will be interesting to see how Oscar de la Renta fares with this digital launch. I certainly think it’s a brave move, but if the brand wants to make waves, it can’t do this halfway. Just giving out samples on Facebook seems a bit shy to me. But I’ll be watching this closely as this could mark a new era for the luxury industry and social media marketing.

See also "Watch Building Tutorial," where Jaeger Le Coultre creates an app that teaches people about the craft of luxury watch making and JCDecaux installs scented airport posters to deliver perfume sampling.

More puppies on the Cream blog today in this thoroughly entertaining piece from The Viral Factory, promoting the hardy characteristics of the Samsung SD card. 

Using an astonishing roller-coaster assault course reminiscent of the legendary "Mousetrap" board game, a Samsung SD card is mounted to the front of a camera equipped vehicle and subjected to every kind of peril - killer dolls armed with flame throwers, giant boxing gloves, hungry puppies and high impact landings. Oh, and shark infested waters. 

This clip continues the recent run of good video work from Samsung, indicating that the brand is one of the few to have a proper handle on the medium. In terms of "going viral", I'd give this one decent odds. 

London's short-hire bikes that recently appeared on corners around the city are sponsored by Barclay's Bank, which, like most giant banks, is thought to be riddled with evil in the form of arms, oil, and other unethical investments.

Vigilantes, or more likely students with nothing better to do than locate Barclay's pantone and font, and a cheap print company, have sabotaged these bike-verts with slanderous commentary. Other sticker slogans include, "Invests in cluster bombs", and "Offers loans for new limbs". Poor Boris. Or perhaps it was Boris?  

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and resident prankster.

Now that the Pope has left the UK, Cream evaluates the Papal visit from a media perspective, and examines the implications and benefits for Brand Catholic.

With the departure of Pope Benedict XVI and his entourage yesterday, the UK returns to normal after four days of prayer, protest and PR. From the 16-19 September, and for a few days before, the entire country came to standstill as nearly every government agency seemed preoccupied with the Papal visit. Blanket news coverage across all platforms made it impossible to avoid the first state visit from the Holy See.

As a marketing brief, this was not an assignment for the faint-hearted, and I expect there are a few very tired and extremely relieved PR, press and marketing officers breathing huge sighs of relief this morning.

Bringing the Pope to the UK is always going to be a tricky proposition. The spirit of the Reformation looms large in the British consciousness. It is a permanent fixture in the school syllabus, and the exploits of the Tudor monarchs provide rich pickings in popular culture for Phillipa Gregory and HBO. Census figures suggest that Roman Catholics account for around one in 10 of the population, approximately 4.2 million people – which is a sizeable devoted audience. More importantly this leaves a crucial 9 out of ten non-Catholics, who are all potential converts to the faith. Regardless faith, a survey conducted by Theos at the start of September indicated that 79% of the 2000+ people interviewed had “no personal interest” in the visit”. It seemed the UK was at best apathetic to the visit.

Vocal opposition from a number of human rights groups (an estimated 20,000 individuals in London on Saturday) personal criticism of Pope Benedict‘s handling of child abuse scandals, not to mention the media stories discussing the cost of the visit to the taxpayer only served to highlight further how diplomatic this diplomatic visit needed to be. Compared by one Foreign Office official to a game of three dimensional chess, there were suggestions early on that the visit was in organisational and financial disarray.

One thing the Roman Church excels in is theatrics, and Pope Benedict knows how to put on a show. An estimated 500,000 combined people saw him in Scotland, Birmingham or London. The official site for the Papal visit received 1.7m hits during the period (I wonder how many plastic candles they sold in the online shop?).

As teams of government officials and members of the clergy breathe a sigh of relief that the visit went, A: without hitch (the arrest of six street sweepers suspected of an assassination attempt notwithstanding) and B: at all.

Britain’s most senior Catholic coining the moniker “Benedict Bounce”, describing the positive influence of the visit upon the Church and potential churchgoers. In truth, it will be some time before the real benefits, if any, can be accurately assessed.

A branding success? Although it pains me to admit it, yes.