Tesco value - supermarkets sweep the law industry

It all starts when you approach the sliding doors. You have to make a decision, which you’ll more than likely get wrong. Do you choose a basket for bread and milk? – Or a medium sized trolley that you’ll overfill?

The supermarkets are better than most at enticing us with deals too good to miss, and discounts which many high street stores couldn’t offer. And on more occasions than we’d like to admit, we leave the shops with additional bags of treats, bargains and reduced produce.

The large chains now provide us with an arena where we can completely fulfill our needs. It’s a convenience, which is crippling the high street and local stores.

The worse thing about it is, we don’t refuse, deny or boycott the chains for what we know is right.

Businesses up and down the UK struggle every day for your custom, and many fail to get it. We’ve become subservient to the large superstores, which you can’t deny, know how to market and promote themselves.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve been wandering around Tesco at midnight, looking for a last minute present. Clothing, electronics, alcohol and entertainment is all on offer. My poorly managed diary has been saved by a supermarket – and not for the first time.

The large chains are convenient.

This week it was announced that supermarkets and banks are now able to sell consumer legal services.

This change in the Legal Services Act, has added to the concern that large supermarkets are monopolising the high street.

Already, small firms are struggling to compete against the stores that are placed all over the country.
In addition to the large supermarkets, the small super-chains are just as threatening.

In quiet villages across the UK, we’re seeing condensed supermarkets dominate the community. Rebranded shops with names like ‘Express,’ ‘Local,’ ‘Metro,’ and ‘Quickstop,’ are replacing convenience stores and budging independent businesses out of trade.

Law service firms have every reason to be concerned, with the UK being full of independent law companies who have held reputable positions in the community for decades. It’s an industry, along with many, which may end up on the shelf with the fruit and veg.

Small firms are continuously finding new ways to compete against the Goliath that threatens them, with marketing and PR becoming more important than ever.

Companies are now competing against huge organisations and need to discover ways to shine.
If a business looks deep enough, it’ll find something very unique within itself that will make an excellent press release and enter the news agenda. If they can’t locate what that is, then news can always be created.

Sometimes PR Can Unexpectedly Strike Gold

A lot of people believe that ‘no news, is good news,’ and to an extent, that’s a fair comment when discussing global disasters or financial nightmares. To a journalist, no news is a stressful day in the office.

PR on the other hand, works in mysterious ways. When the ‘obvious’ news dries up, a story you wouldn’t expect to hit the headlines will step forward and illuminate under the national spotlight.

One thing that has always interested me is the length of news, regardless of the content.

ITV’s News at Ten is a 30-minute news programme which editors and producers work tirelessly to fill. Some days the news flows into the newsroom like a torrent, and other days journalists bash frantically away at keyboards in search of news. If there’s no news, why isn’t the programme shortened?

When the stories aren’t there, the news has to be found.

Today is a day when the news seems rather parched, with bin collections leading on 24-hour news channels and a Marmite-flavoured chocolate bar having many news programmes discussing whether you’ll ‘love it, or hate it.’

It was that which got me thinking. Is some news only news when there’s an opening to shine?

It’s a moment in print and broadcast, which I like to call ‘PR serendipity.’ It’s when a story is distributed to the media with no expectations of great success, yet you find that an editor has decided to publish it, or hoist it up the news agenda.

This morning was a great example of PR serendipity.

To me, a Marmite-flavoured chocolate bar sounds intriguing, yet to others, the concept may sound grotesque. On the local radio station this morning, the presenters were discussing the chocolate bar and the studio phones were rammed with callers willing to air their opinions. The relaxed topic of conversation reflected the glorious morning’s weather and that Friday feeling.

Today was an excellent opening for Marmite to have their new chocolate bar on the news agenda, and to an extent, it was down to luck.

I thought of the reaction at Marmite HQ, being aware that the country was going to wake to their brand on the radio, only to find a tsunami had struck in Asia, or Colonel Gaddafi had been captured. Without doubt the topic of conversation around the UK would have been very different.

Marmite was very lucky this morning and the lack of breaking news allowed their brand to be discussed on air. Excluding advertisement, newspapers work with the same theory. It makes you wonder what news was left off the agenda when 9/11 happened. What else were we supposed to know that day?How would News at Ten have filled a 30-minute programme?

As you can see, news works in very odd ways. Some press releases are sure to receive excellent coverage, regardless of the day’s news, where some have to strike lucky.

Sometimes, when you think there isn’t a story, or the press release you want distributing isn’t strong enough to gain prolific publication, it may well come back and surprise you.

'Big society' - Britain is too fat

A thousand years ago, Great Britain’s major threats were simple: invasion and infection. Welcome to the year 2011, where small bottles of antibacterial gel found in hospitals and handbags, assist in the limitation of infections spreading; and Great Britain shares an aircraft carrier with the French. Yes, times have changed. The biggest threat to this country now, is our infamous ability to eat.

Last week, Great Britain was handed a treat from our coalition government; a little present to ease our lives; a gift for being good, taxpaying citizens – a fleet of robust ambulances for fatties. The new vehicles are equipped with wider doors, stronger stretchers and a winch to get those over-indulging, in and out of the ambulance with little strain on the staff. The new trucks are capable of transporting any patient to hospital who weighs up to fifty stone; a sympathetic gesture from David Cameron and his band of merry men who want to cut, cut, cut.

The ambulances are by no means cheap. A fully equipped ambulance – with the full range of obesity modified equipment, will cost up to £90,000. Buying a new heavy-duty, adjustable stretcher will alone cost £10,000. And a lifting cushion to help large patients off the floor will cost £2,500.

Last week it was announced that the Midlands has become the fattest location on the European map. This is why they’ve snapped up 10 new bariatric ambulances. Nigel Wells, an operations manager at the trust said: “it is all about safety for our patients and the safety for our crews. We now have a greater number of patients who are larger in size.”

Obesity is costing the UK over four billion pounds annually; that’s more than we spend, as a nation, on fast food. At a time where our financially strained NHS is facing cuts, more money is needed to deal with the country’s growing waistline – starting with the infrastructure of patient transport. Maybe we’re too lenient with our free healthcare. How about a fat tax? Would paying for treatment ensure that Britons would do their best to keep the weight off – just like America? Having said that, the US is not the best role model when equating obesity and the finance of health treatment, with one in three children born in the year 2000 set to suffer from diabetes.

The ominous epidemic that haunts the health service is getting worse. When will something change and see the country return to normality? When will bariatric ambulances be decommissioned and see a ‘normal’ ambulance fleet on the streets of Great Britain.

Maybe this is what David Cameron meant when he said the ‘Big Society.’