Olympic Legacy

Some statistics on the economic effect of the games (Business Management Students did a project on this recently)

Games (from 27th July to 12th August)......expected to raise £5.1 bn for UK
Consumer spending during that period.......£750 m
53 companies acting as corporate sponsors (of differing degrees)

Too early to judge the economic effect in full yet of course. Plenty of evidence available on Business Source Premier database to demonstrate previous effects on host cities / nations.






MacInnes, D.(2012)Olympics by numbers, Independent [i version] 29th January, p.49

Costa Loyalty Card Case Study

My untidy desk just reminded me of an excellent case study on Costa in this week's copy of Marketing Week (6th October 2011). Costa is an unusual example of a brand which is flourishing. Here are a few snippets :

1.Costa won the Brand of the Year Trophy this year (awarded by Marketing Week)
2.Costa set up a loyalty card last year and managed to get 6 million in ciculation very rapidly(bucking the trend of loyalty card fatigue)
3.The company claim a high uptake of loyalty card use ( 41% of all transactions)
4.The company is extending the loyalty card scheme internationally ( for example in the UAE)
5.Costa has 700 outlets outside the UK (including China, Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe)
6.The average age of the UK customer is 44 (28 overseas)
7.The younger customer abroad may be more influenced by advertising on Social Media (Facebook etc)
8.Other coffee chains such as Caffe Nero, Starbucks also operate in the UAE ( a good example of globalistion)
9.Variations for local markets include spicier snacks and haloumi panini
10.Costa's biggest rival, unsurprisingly, is Starbucks. Pub chain Wetherspoons has also successfully broken into the Coffee market.

e-books celebrate their 40th Birthday

I'm hoping that one day I'll be sitting in a Quiz when they ask 'What year was the first e-book published ?'

Unbelievably e-books have now been around since 1971 when Michael Hart (who died recently) typed the American Declaration of Independence into the mainframe computer at the University of Illinois.

Thus was born the first digital library : Project Gutenberg, named after the inventor of the first printing press. Hart's aim was to make books as widely available as possible, and to "break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy"

Project Gutenberg is still going strong, making freely available out of print materials.

Wot no bookshop ?

I was disappointed when Luton's only bookshop (Waterstones) closed recently. The site is still unoccupied.

However Luton is, of course, not alone.

Nearly half of the UK's High Street bookshops have closed since 2005. A total of 580 towns do not have a single bookshop.

Campaigners warned yesterday that the loss of bookshops, coupled with threats to close thousands of libraries as part of council cuts, will lead to "book deserts" across large areas of the country.


Hall, J (2011) Internet and supermarkets kill off 2,000 bookshops, Daily Telegraph
2nd September

British Brands not the only ones to get taken over....

If you are doing the piece of work on British brands which are disappearing spare a thought for Foster's lager...

The company is currently facing a hostile bid from SAB Miller ( formerly South African Brewers ). They make Peroni and Grolsh....

Charter Airlines - Have they a future ?

Students studying the Airline Industry ( in particular Monarch )should be aware that the journal Tourism and Hospitality Research contains some useful information. It is available both in print and electronic formats.

Overall the picture seems glum (as the above title indicates)

Other sources of information (all electronic) include
FAME ( Financial data available to compare Monarch and it's competitors )
Keynote and Marketline Use Airline and Airport reports, but also consider related areas such as trends in Travel & Tourism
Newsbank Particularly useful statements from Monarch's CEO about the company's strategic direction

More on bikes....

At the risk of becoming fixated on the bicycle market here's a story about a British Brand which is doing well which might also be relevant. Bromptons make a folding bike, and are apparently doing well at the moment. I have seen quite a few of these on trains between Luton and London recently, although I'm not sure if there are any restrictions on taking them during the rush hour period.

The company which manufactures distinctive folding bikes ( pictured )at a plant in west Twickenham, saw its profits rise more than a quarter last year. The number of Bromptons sold in the year just ended - the majority of which go for export - was 80%up on the total four years earlier.

Without using FAME for detailed profit and loss accounts, it is now possible to check digestible company financials using the Keynote Database