Virgin customer letter: how to complain

This is possibly the best ever complaint letter received by a brand. At least, it’s the best one we’ve seen in a while. Take a moment out from panicking about the recession to feast your eyes on this complaint to Virgin Atlantic that apparently amused Richard Branson so much that he rang the author to thank him.

Very, very funny. We particularly like the way that the author keeps calling Branson ‘Richard’ throughout the letter, as if they are personally acquainted. Great work.

Goodbye Bush, says Veet in cheeky ad

We love this ad we got sent, which comes from Veet, capitalising on Obama becoming president yesterday. Obviously there has been much cashing in from a variety of brands on the new presidency, but we think this jokey take is one of the best……nice to see a brand with a sense of humour in these tricky times.

HMV dances to the tune of live music

Now THIS is an interesting development. After years of speculation about exactly what HMV was going to do in future, it has announced a joint venture with Mama Group to take a stake in some of the best-known music venues in the UK.

Physical music has been in trouble for a number of years but most traditional music retailers have been slow to react. While HMV has tried various methods to compete with online music retailers like iTunes, it hasn’t been nearly enough in our opinion. Now it seems to be moving towards live music.

This seems like a movement in the right direction, embracing a new idea and change in business strategy. What do you think?

Read more here.

Work That Recession

In an exclusive blog article, Dorothy Mackenzie, chairman of branding agency Dragon takes a pragmatic look at the challenges of the recession and how companies can effectively use marketing to take their brand forward through the recession:

“A recent YouGov survey for Marketing Week found that 91% of marketers believed that continual investment in brands is extremely important during a recession. However the same survey showed that over two thirds of marketers faced a static or reduced budget for 2009.

This may be a sad reflection on the inability of marketers to justify their spending to their boards. It may be that conditions are so bad that there is no option but to sacrifice long term gain for short term survival and simply hide under the desk until times get better. Or (and let’s assume this is the case) marketers may now be extremely savvy and have ways of marketing more effectively with less money.