What do you do when the key attributes of your product are, shall we say, less than palatable but you still need to launch a marketing campaign? The answer, try out a bit of reverse-existentialist marketing!

When Magners cider in the UK launched its 'over ice' marketing campaign a couple of years ago, a skeptical public scoffed at the idea of drinking cider out of a pint glass filled with ice. But the marketing won out, and before long it was considered strange if you didn't drink cider on ice. 

It's worth remembering this story before pasing judgement on this latest product innovation from Japan. Super-cold beer is a product category in itself. Rival brand Asahi opened a bar specialising in ice cold beer, chilled to within a few degrees of freezing. 

Kirin has taken this a stage further with the launch of a new beer designed to be served over ice. This affront to decent lager drinkers everywhere is called 'Ice + Beer'. (Not perhaps the strongest brand name in the world, but I suppose it gets the point across.)

[Extract from "Cross-culture thinking", in which Brian Elliott, CEO of Amsterdam Worldwide discusses cultural intelligence, and how brands should go global, and fast!]

"Cultural Intelligence: About 10 years ago we gave advice to a small outsider in the mobile handset market about how to launch their product in Europe.  Its devices were supremely useful and did one thing exceptionally well: Secure e-mail access anywhere.  The device looked like a pager and was designed to clip on to your belt. Recognise it yet? The Blackberry by Research-in-Motion. And at that time no self-respecting European executive would be seen with it.  It turns out that in the home of the Savile Row bespoke suit or Italian fashion - the look of a mobile phone matters as much as a power suit or a watch. Even to investment bankers. So we took the team on a cultural journey through the design capitals of Europe, and played a modest role in influencing the future design journey of the Blackberry. Cultural intelligence matters. Awareness of global design trends matters."

Today brands can be as global as they choose to be. Fast.  Yet even a brand like Facebook has been slow to maximise its global footprint. Competing brands in markets as diverse as Russia, The Netherlands, and China, have stolen a march on the master of the social media universe, and they now hold the leadership positions. No mean feat considering the stakes. Fast followers have been present in fashion for ages, yet technology and social media fast followers can do great damage to the international hopes of innovators.

Read the rest of Brian Elliott's article here. 

In the light of news that Murdoch's iPad only newspaper - the Daily - is coming to Europe, guest Cream blogger Rebecca Ironside ponders the question: Will it work?

There’s a fundamental dichotomy at the heart of Murdoch’s new US iPad ‘newspaper’ launch, The Daily.

It’s being branded as a ‘unique’ media venture. Unique is right – it’s a once-daily (hence the name) updated iPad app that tries to feel like a newspaper, and it’s only available in the US at the moment. All content is paywalled, sharing isn’t easy, and only in ‘certain circumstances’ will any story be updated.

Not sharable, not readable by anyone without an iPad, and not updated. It’s like the iPad had been invented in 1995. ‘Unique’ is right – I can’t see why any other newspaper publisher, where fast, new online content is the main point of competition, would ever bring out something like this.

A newspaper is now a compendium of analyses, with some breaking news. It’s disposable and cheap – you can pick it up on a whim, and leave it behind for someone else, or give the sports section to your colleague. But an iPad? It’s expensive and cumbersome, however desirable. But the main point of an iPad is that it is always connected, always up to date. When you read a story on your iPad, you don’t expect it to be anything up to 23 hours and 59 minutes old, however you access it.

It’s not that the Daily doesn’t have strengths. By all accounts, the navigation is lovely – it is laid out in a way that will be familiar to newspaper readers. The images and graphs are also lovely. But the slickness and whizz-bangery shouldn’t obscure the news.

The Guardian iPhone app combines both the analyses from the paper with the up-to-the minute stories that news junkies love. It’s a format that works hugely well.

The type of person who might regularly read a news app on their iPad is just that – a news junkie. Once a day updates, however pretty the infographics (something the Daily claims is a particular strength) just won’t cut it.

So could the Daily ever work in the UK? The model relies on huge numbers of users, so it’s something that sounds like it will be at least trying to do so. But I just don’t see how it can compete on its fundamental purpose of delivering news. And as any journalist will tell you: if it isn’t new, it isn’t news.

Rebecca Ironside is director, qualitative, at market research agency SPA Future Thinking.

Robin Jaffray, strategic planning director at Inferno, shares his thoughts and predictions for 2011.

So long, Google

The importance of recommendations from close friends and others with similar interests will increase as social networks grow and integrate with websites (think Facebook Connect), all fuelling the slow decline of Search that has already started in 2010. Despite the launch of GoogleMe (bringing together everything... Mobile, Internet, Search, Social Networking, Email, Pictures, Video, Calendars, Documents, Files, your OS) they won't stop Facebook. These slightly desperate throws of the dice are reminiscent of Wilkinson Sword adding more blades to razors. It's not about more stuff. It's simply social everything.

Mirco-herdism

We might still follow our friends, peers and celebs making herd-like decisions but we need to feel different too. The Herd isn't dead. It's just getting smaller. And those micro-niches are going mainstream. When everyone's on Facebook and you're friends with everyone on there, where's the real connection? Where's the real you in it? Huge networks are reaching saturation and a tipping point, so they will start to fragment into smaller, more manageable units (still interconnected between themselves) eg. The Rules of Relationships - (normal) people can only have 7 'true' friends, 150 acquaintances, etc.  Don't buy an iPhone 4 just because everyone else has one (and because they don't work) - buy a John's Phone. Join Path (the anti-social network) not Facebook.

Must. Resist. The. Gameification. Of. Everything.

Points mean prizes. Promotional marketing campaigns turn into games. The curse and legacy of Foursquare is badges for bloody everything. Consumer behaviour becomes trivialised to the point where we feel happy for 'winning' Clubcard points rather than earning them. God help us. Just say no. Brands will need to choose between really getting to grips with game theory (some agencies are even creating positions for Chief Gaming Officers) and using this expertise to create genuinely amazing experiences or not at all. If not, they risk being ignored or worse, a backlash against this seeming trivialisation of consumer engagement and data.

Agencies make second income streams with in-house clients

From making apps to making new products, agencies get involved in the creation of new businesses and new IP. At last they put their money where their mouth is. They bring emergent concepts inside the agency and develop them as an internal client. Lower cost of distribution and easier access to the market makes it more appealing than going through existing client structures. Planners have to start engaging with objects and production rather than briefs and concepts.

For the full article and more or Robin's predictions click here. 

A common complaint of BMW Series 1 coupé drivers is the inability to operate their iPhone while bombing about town looking flash.

Fortunately this irksome problem has been solved (like most problems appear to be solved these days) by the creation of an app. This handy little device allows you to plug in your handset, stash it away in a discreet compartment in the arm rest, and operate it using controls and a computer screen on the car’s dashboard.

Quite what safety issues are raised by sports car drivers fiddling with their iPhones whilst driving are another matter of course...

Facebook mail was unveiled yesterday to much media chatter, as commentators looked to stir a fight between Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the world. 

Headlines like "'Email is dead' claims Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg" found their way into the technology columns as pundits examined the potential implications of a Facebook based email service. Briefly, for anybody who has been spending the last two days on MySpace, Facebook have announced the development of Facebook mail - predicted to take the form of "[email protected]"

Journalists who thrive on making controversial statements are gleefully predicting the end of Gmail, the toppling of AOL and the demise of Yahoo. 

The main thrust of their argument is that as Facebook users gain access to Facebook mail, they will abandon their other web mail accounts. The new Facebook service will essentially channel all of a user's messages - text, email, wall posts and direct messages - into a "social inbox". Tidying up the various inbound communications is a nice idea, and one that will help to streamline the social site. But citing Facebook mail as the death knell to other web mail accounts confuses the role the Facebook plays in people's lives. Personally, I'm not entirely convinced that Facebook mail solves a need that ever existed. 

Gmail, and a number of other products from Google (Documents, Reader and others), area excellent tools that allow users to set up a virtual office, something that Facebook accounts will not be able to offer. Crudely, people will use Facebook for fun, and an alternative email client for work. 

Despite Zuckerberg himself stating that Facebook mail "is not an email killer", the sensationalist skills of the press have been able to turn this statement into a declaration of war against other mail providers. 

Admittedly, Facebook and Google are not in a happy place right now. The two companies recently squabbled over functionality that allowed users to migrate contact data from one platform to another.

Initially, Facebook mail will be made available on an invitation only basis. For a look at Facebook mail in action, check out the clip below. 

At the end of a long day in the office, you can always rely on those brilliant people at Japan Trends to brighten your evening with some lunatic offering from Tokyo. I've a soft spot for Japan, one of the only other countries in the world that ever really appreciated the Kit-Kat (even if they did choose to remix it into 19 different flavours). 

Now I'm not a dog person. I dislike the hair, the dribble, and the chewing. But if I did have a dog, I'd want to make sure it always looked its best. It turns out Japanese dog owners think the same, sort of.

Imagine the scenario - you're out in downtown Ginza with your pooch, when you suddenly realise you've forgotten to attend to your puppy's coiffure. Once upon a time you would have had to cover your little friend with a blanket and hurry home to avoid public shame and ridicule, but not any more. Next time you find yourself in this situation, rest assured that help is at hand...

Yes - if you and your four-legged friend are ever again caught short without the right porn-star hairdo, there are vending machines that can help. My only criticism is that there doesn't appear to be a way to select your chosen style, so I imagine you might end up with a few pink mohicans or layered blonde bobs before you end up with the Cleopatra Jones afro of your dreams.