High School Musical 3 Is Coming: Lock Up Your Children!
I am proud to profess a certain ignorance when it comes to the characters and antics of the characters in the two (and soon to be three) High School Musical movies. I think there’s one called Troy, and another called Gabriella. There might be a sassy one called Maybelline who really wants to get in touch with nature, and almost certainly a sports jock called Chuck who is a big teddy bear at heart. While I take a few moments to dry-retch into a bucket, here’s Disney’s write up on the new High School cinematic extravanganza:
Disney’s “High School Musical” phenomenon leaps onto the big screen in HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR, which finds high school seniors Troy (ZAC EFRON) and Gabriella (VANESSA HUDGENS) facing the prospect of being separated from one another as they head off in different directions to college. Joined by the rest of the Wildcats, they stage an elaborate spring musical reflecting their experiences, hopes and fears about the future…
Great! The thing is, no one in the Western world is going to be immune from the clutches of this movie and it’s throngs of fans all sporting High School Musical t-shirts, bags, coats, even underwear (yes, this is really disturbing!) While their rooms will be decked out with CDs, DVDs, posters, books and all sorts of money-spinning paraphernalia.
The key message of High School Musical is: Be Yourself.
Think about it. This is Disney, remember, founded by a man who insisted that his company would eventually become ubiquitous and the global reach of which is truly staggering: merchandising alone, in 2007, was worth $27 billion. According to Motley Fool:
Disney wants to focus on “branded quality product” to drive its growth. Customers have plenty of entertainment choices today, so it only makes sense to win them over by making the best content you possibly can. Suck the consumers into your system with a strong product like High School Musical or Pirates of the Caribbean, and that one movie ticket can turn into hundreds of dollars in branded retail goods, online advertising revenue, theme park curiosity, and all the rest.
Do this often enough with hit properties on parade, and you’re building a mighty strong company brand that translates into customer loyalty and near-automatic blockbuster hits.
Still think that High School Musical is about “being yourself”? Now, go to the website, click on “Partners”, and take a look at the other companies getting in on the act — if you are forced to watch the movie then watch out for the product placement; it’s bound to be there. Carefully selected to ensure minimum crossover while ensuring maximum lifestyle reach, we have: Sara Lee (I wonder what the characters eat), Honda (I wonder what they drive), BP (I wonder what they fill up their Honda’s with), Champion (I wonder what they wear), JCPenney (I wonder where they shop), and so on.
Get in on the act and your brand can benefit from the great High School Musical synergies too.
If you really want your kids to be themselves, then why not take them for a walk in the countryside, a swim in the river, a play on the beach, or just have a day talking with them. Whatever you choose to do, make it real.
The Economic Crisis Is Not A Crisis
It’s all bad, you hear me?! Just listen to these people…
“It’s all basically going down the drain”
“I don’t know what to do any more”
“My job’s gone, my car has gone, my life’s finished”
Which makes it ever so subversive of me to suggest that the economic “crisis” is not a crisis at all: never has been, never will be. My reason for saying so is based on the relative scale of one “crisis” over another: let’s say, for instance, that you are about to go out and the heel has come off your favourite pair of shoes - a fashion crisis perhaps, or if you are already late, then a temporal crisis could be the outcome, especially if are going on a really hot date.
While you are out, someone in your street has suffered from a heart attack; you have no idea this has happened until you get back home — having turned up a bit late and endured a rash comment about your choice of shoes — and see the slowly flashing lights of the ambulance.
In economic terms, the collapse of Lehman’s, the takeover of HBOS and Merrill Lynch, and the gravity-obeying drop of AIG could be considered a crisis. Certainly no such series of events has been recorded in the financial world for a great deal of time, if ever — although perhaps those working on the trading floors of the great financial centres in October 1987 might have something to say about that. Nevertheless, if you are an amphibian (or a bird, or an aquatic mammal, or a human, for that matter), then why the hell would a fall in the value of a few corporations be comparable to the fact that half of Europe’s frog species could have been wiped out by 2050?!
On the other hand, maybe the collapse of a chunk of the economic system could be the difference between life and death for the aforementioned amphibians; or could slow down the accelerating loss of the Amazon rainforest; or could reduce the shrinking of the Arctic ice sheets…for it is economic growth and the concurrent, uncontrollable growth in energy and resource consumption, that is driving the global environmental breakdown.
And that is a crisis: perhaps the only one that matters.
Virgin Atlantic Threaten To Sue Arse Off The Sietch!
Hot on the heels of my recent article, Virgin Airlines “On The Brink Of Collapse”, comes a very exciting email from Virgin Atlantic’s Director Of Communications. Paul Charles - pictured above, whose shirt I have no intention of commenting on for fear of legal action - sent the following to The Sietch:
This is highly libellous. I suggest you remove this posting before we are forced to take legal action. Virgin Atlantic is a successful and profitable airline, with £600m cash in the bank, on top of profits last year. We make smaller profits than BA because we are a smaller airline. We have 38 planes in our fleet, they have 230.We operate long-haul only and not short-haul. The author sadly seems to know little about the airline industry. Sir Richard Branson was talking about XL and the BA/AA monopoly in recent days, not our own operating position.
Paul Charles, Director of Communications, Virgin Atlantic.
This has to, of course, be taken in context, so it’s only fair that I reprint the article that Paul objected so strongly to:
It was more than three months ago, with the collapse of the luxury business airline Silverjet, that the rumble started. As fuel prices peaked in the early summer of 2008, it was clear that the first businesses to suffer would be those with minimal backing and low profit margins - unless passengers were prepared to pay proportionally more for their flights then the flights simply would not run. In August, the inevitable happened, and the first component of what will be known as the “budget house of cards” fell: Zoom, the Anglo-Canadian budget flyer went into administration, stranding thousands of passengers in various locations either side of the Atlantic.
Then things started to go very wrong. On Friday 12 September, XL Group, the third largest holiday firm in the UK went bankrupt, leaving 90,000 passengers with no return flights, and hundreds of thousands of bookings in jeopardy. Proving that this was no British disease, the New York Times, along with dozens of other news sources were reporting on 14 September that Alitalia, the de facto national airline of Italy were experiencing difficulties guaranteeing their fuel supply. The financial disaster was all but confirmed by the Observer on the same day, which reported:
“Italy’s flag-carrier airline broke the news after an apparently fruitless meeting between its bankruptcy commissioner and trade union leaders, which was aimed at saving the debt-laden airline from collapse.”
And this is where it starts to get interesting.
In the same article, Virgin Group Chairman, Sir Richard Branson was quoted as saying:
“a new set of procedures should be brought in allowing a collapsed company’s fleet to continue to fly under the watch of the aviation regulator.”
Although ostensibly related to the “rescue” of passengers from collapsed airlines, the sense in the industry is that no airline is safe from collapse, not even the relatively buoyant Virgin Atlantic. In fact, it turns out that the last posted annual profit of £60m ($107m) was less than 10% that of arch-rival British Airways, and only 15% of that posted by budget carrier Ryanair for the same period. Ryanair have recently been forced to withdraw their least efficient aircraft in order to weather the ongoing market conditions. Virgin Atlantic cannot afford any slip-ups, nor can they afford another rise in fuel costs. Branson knows this, and and has known this for some time, as evidenced by his aggresive stance towards the proposed link-up between BA and American Airlines.
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, just over a week ago, he stated:
“It is ironic that the UK’s Competition Commission last month called for the break-up of one monopoly, in the form of airport owner BAA, yet British Airways is trying to create another one, with American [Airlines]. It wants to gain permission to collude with American, something that would normally be illegal, and fix ticket prices and schedules on US and European routes…this proposed alliance would impact Virgin Atlantic’s ability to compete fairly on these routes.”
There is more than a touch of unease in these words, but even I didn’t realise the significance of his recent behaviour until I spoke to an industry source. The individual who, not surprisingly didn’t want to be named, said: “This behaviour suggests something more than market positioning. This looks like a company on the brink of collapse.”
Whether Virgin Atlantic, and their sister companies Virgin America and Virgin Blue can ride out the storm depends on many factors, but at the moment things are not looking good for the former wunderkind of British industry. The “budget house of cards” won’t stop toppling for some time yet.
Paul, himself, found time to comment on the article, as follows:
It must be BA putting rumours around that Virgin Atlantic is on the brink of collapse! What a load of rubbish from our rival that loses more passenger bags than any other airline in Europe. Virgin Atlantic is in strong shape. In anticipation of the global downturn, we took action two years ago. We deferred aircraft deliveries, examined our cost base, ensured our fuel hedging was in the right place, and started building up cash. We have over £600m (over $1 billion) cash in the bank. We have a very strong management team that has been through downturns in the industry before. Virgin Atlantic is 25 years old next year - it’s in a strong position to ensure it remains one of the fittest airlines around.
Paul Charles
Director of Communications
Virgin Atlantic
My response must have been the one which caused the threatening email at the top of this article:
So why is RB sounding so edgy, Paul? He’s a clever man, and may even have seen “Black Monday” coming - with Lehman Brothers out, and Merrill Lynch fatally wounded, hedging fuel is becoming a very dodgy business. I don’t believe any business is safe, not least a business that relies on people having disposable income they are willing to spend on things that they don’t actually need.
Keith
P.S. I have nothing to do with BA, but I did spend 10 years working in the finance industry predicting events accurately.
I never did get a response to my question, but I did find an interesting article to back up my apparent ignorance, as I “know little about the airline industry”, on the BBC web site, which includes the following:
Analysts said other airlines that rely heavily on the UK market for business would face similar challenges.
“We view the deteriorating outlook as UK-led and consequently see ramifications for our Easyjet and British Airways forecasts,” NCB analyst Neil Glynn wrote in a note.
I was brought up to believe that if someone jumps down your throat when you make a statement, then perhaps that statement has touched a nerve and, by implication, is pretty close to the truth. You can make up your mind whether you think Virgin have jumped down mine…
Virgin Airlines “On The Brink Of Collapse”
It was more than three months ago, with the collapse of the luxury business airline Silverjet, that the rumble started. As fuel prices peaked in the early summer of 2008, it was clear that the first businesses to suffer would be those with minimal backing and low profit margins - unless passengers were prepared to pay proportionally more for their flights then the flights simply would not run. In August, the inevitable happened, and the first component of what will be known as the “budget house of cards” fell: Zoom, the Anglo-Canadian budget flyer went into administration, stranding thousands of passengers in various locations either side of the Atlantic.
Then things started to go very wrong. On Friday 12 September, XL Group, the third largest holiday firm in the UK went bankrupt, leaving 90,000 passengers with no return flights, and hundreds of thousands of bookings in jeopardy. Proving that this was no British disease, the New York Times, along with dozens of other news sources were reporting on 14 September that Alitalia, the de facto national airline of Italy were experiencing difficulties guaranteeing their fuel supply. The financial disaster was all but confirmed by the Observer on the same day, which reported:
Italy’s flag-carrier airline broke the news after an apparently fruitless meeting between its bankruptcy commissioner and trade union leaders, which was aimed at saving the debt-laden airline from collapse.
And this is where it starts to get interesting.
In the same article, Virgin Group Chairman, Sir Richard Branson was quoted as saying:
a new set of procedures should be brought in allowing a collapsed company’s fleet to continue to fly under the watch of the aviation regulator.
Although ostensibly related to the “rescue” of passengers from collapsed airlines, the sense in the industry is that no airline is safe from collapse, not even the relatively buoyant Virgin Atlantic. In fact, it turns out that the last posted annual profit of £60m ($107m) was less than 10% that of arch-rival British Airways, and only 15% of that posted by budget carrier Ryanair for the same period. Ryanair have recently been forced to withdraw their least efficient aircraft in order to weather the ongoing market conditions. Virgin Atlantic cannot afford any slip-ups, nor can they afford another rise in fuel costs. Branson knows this, and and has known this for some time, as evidenced by his aggresive stance towards the proposed link-up between BA and American Airlines.
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, just over a week ago, he stated:
It is ironic that the UK’s Competition Commission last month called for the break-up of one monopoly, in the form of airport owner BAA, yet British Airways is trying to create another one, with American [Airlines]. It wants to gain permission to collude with American, something that would normally be illegal, and fix ticket prices and schedules on US and European routes…this proposed alliance would impact Virgin Atlantic’s ability to compete fairly on these routes.
There is more than a touch of unease in these words, but even I didn’t realise the significance of his recent behaviour until I spoke to an industry source. The individual who, not surprisingly didn’t want to be named, said: “This behaviour suggests something more than market positioning. This looks like a company on the brink of collapse.”
Whether Virgin Atlantic, and their sister companies Virgin America and Virgin Blue can ride out the storm depends on many factors, but at the moment things are not looking good for the former wunderkind of British industry. The “budget house of cards” won’t stop toppling for some time yet.
For The First Time In Human History Arctic Is An Island
Take a good hard look humanity, this is the future, and it is not pretty
The historic development was revealed by satellite images taken last week showing that both the north-west and north-east passages have been opened by melting ice.
Prof Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in the US said the images suggested the Arctic may have entered a “death spiral” caused by global warming.
Shipping companies are already planning to exploit the first simultaneous opening of the routes since the beginning of the last Ice Age 125,000 years ago.
…
The satellite images gathered by Nasa show that the north-west passage opened last weekend and the final blockage on the east side of the ice cap, an area of sea ice stretching to Siberia, dissolved a few days later.
Last year the extent of sea ice in the Arctic reached a record low that could be surpassed in the next few weeks, with some scientists warning that the ice cap could soon vanish altogether during summer.
Four weeks ago tourists had to be evacuated from a park on Baffin Island because of flooding caused by melting glaciers, and polar bears have been spotted off Alaska trying to swim hundreds of miles to the retreating ice cap.
Measurements on August 26 showed an ice cap of just over two million square miles, confirming the second biggest ice cap melt since records began.
…
“The rate of change is clearly faster than nearly all the models predict, which has huge implications for climate change and how to tackle it.”(via)
Well there you go, we are screwed if we don’t get our act together, and soon.
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