Round pounds
BBC reports on the rise of rounded pricing. Quoting research from Dr David Lewis, director of research at Mindlab International, who has calculated that someone would have to make less than £1.20 an hour to make it worth waiting even 30 seconds for a penny.
Story ideas:
- Opportunity cost
- Price trends
- Innovation in supermarkets
- Retail psychology
Carbon neutral transport
Yet another electric bike, this time German – although this one is half-motorbike half-bike (how that is determined is not made clear). In principle it looks similar to old-fashioned mopeds:
Apart from the now-customary ‘carbon-free emissions’ (as if all electricity is ‘clean’ power) claim, this appears to have little new as a story.
- The problems of reporting on ‘carbon-free’, ‘carbon-neutral’ etc
- High cost of prototyping, leads to theoretical market cost
- Lone inventor vs crowd-sourcing
- Do we want a faster bike?
On the day that the CBI published its report that wind power is over-promoted at the expense of nuclear and ‘clean coal’. As a marketer I can’t help but applaud the chutzpah of the ‘clean coal’ industry. Disingenuity at its finest.
Wookey witch
Having seen the PR gold rush inspired by the ‘best job in the world‘ for an island off Queensland, an enterprising tourist attraction manager in the UK has tried to capture some of that same ‘magic’ (excuse the pun):
- Calling all male, female and trans-gender witches: £50k job opportunity now on offer
- Coverage on the BBC
Potential story angles:
- The challenges of marketing for domestic tourism
- The perils of designing tourist attraction websites for children
- What links a dinosaur, King Kong, pirates and a witch? Begging your pardon, it’s ‘pirate golf’.
- Changing tastes for children’s entertainment
- Branded caves around the world
- Dumbing down of history.