The dram in a can: Scottish whisky the way South Americans like it...

By Mark Howarth
Last updated at 9:12 AM on 17th January 2011

A Panama-based company believes outdoor drinkers would prefer to crack open a tin rather than lug round a bottle of whisky

It is a sight that will have whisky connoisseurs spluttering into their drink – a dram in a can.

A Panama-based company believes outdoor drinkers would prefer to crack open a tin rather than lug round a bottle of their favorite tipple.

Now bosses at Scottish Spirits – which retains an office in Glasgow – is testing out the novelty on its Caribbean and South American markets.

But last night the Scotch Whisky Association said it would try to ban the cans for breaching international labeling rules.

A spokesman for the body said: ‘We are concerned that consumers may be confused whether or not the product is real Scotch and we will be investigating the matter further.’

Scottish Spirits launched the tins last week, the first time straight whisky has been sold in a can.

Chief executive Manish Panshal said: ‘We are really thrilled with the idea – it’s going to be a part of every lifestyle and occasion.

‘The can is the perfect size to be shared between three people who can mix it with other things like cola.

‘It’s lightweight and portable and entirely recyclable, which is good news. It will be one of the hot picks for any outdoor activities.’

World-renowned expert Jim Murray – author of The Whisky Bible – admitted he was intrigued.

He said: ‘Obviously, this is not the traditional way to sell a dram but I’ve seen it on draft in Chicago and out of plastic sachets in Uganda, so it might catch on somewhere. It will certainly be cheaper than buying a big bottle and Scotch spends some of its life in metal containers during the distillation process anyway.

‘But you probably wouldn’t want it in aluminum cans for too long, because it would affect the taste.

‘And my biggest problem with the idea is that there’s no way of knowing what it is you’re buying – and this isn’t proper Scotch.

‘I taste around 3,000 types a year and I can honestly say I have never come across these brands.’

He added: ‘I can’t see it taking off here because a can would cheapen a product that Scots are rightly proud of. A tin of whisky could never make your heart skip a beat like a fine Scotch.’

Whisky in its more usual container. Scottish Spirits launched their tins last week, the first time straight whisky has been sold in a can

Scottish Spirits – which is canning its own-brand tipple and a blend called Sir Edwin’s – was censured by the Advertising Standards Agency last September.

The watchdog ruled that its advertisements wrongly suggested it was a home-grown company selling Scotch.

A rival company made a complaint after spotting Scottish Spirits’ ads in a trade magazine.

Scotch whisky exports are big business, with global sales three times those of its US rivals.

But when it comes to the home front, the picture is less rosy for the spirit, whatever container it comes in. UK whisky sales slipped by 11 per cent between 2005 and 2009.

There is little respite in sight. Sales are predicted to stay static at 6.5million cases until 2014, data from industry analyst International Wine and Spirits Research reveals.

The UK is the third biggest market for Scotch, after the US and France.

But industry insiders claim there is no cause for alarm.

Paul McLaughlin of food export quango Scotland Food and Drink said: ‘I don’t think this is a cause for concern because the key focus is on exports. The home market is not the be-all and end-all.’

Digital expertise: Is your agency faking it?

In the rush to reinvent themselves and better lead their clients through the new marketing landscape, some agencies are changing profoundly; and some are just faking it.

According to Forrester, 78 percent of clients don't believe their lead agency does digital well. And this for good reason: Given the state of the economy, it's been increasingly hard for agencies to turn away any opportunity to earn some revenue. And as client interest and budgets have increasingly turned towards digital, the response within traditional agencies has been to tell their clients, "Yeah, we do that," and then try to figure it out. It's no surprise that the results are often dissatisfying. Agencies discover that digital isn't just another medium like television. And clients discover that "Yeah, we do that," means their key digital tasks are being outsourced, mismanaged, or improperly staffed.

Is your agency faking it? Next time you ask about digital capabilities and your agency's response is "Yeah, we do that," here are few questions that should separate the true digirati from the poseurs.

Which panels did you vote for?
The digital world thrives on conferences, where really smart, interesting people show each other really cool things. If no one in the room has been to SXSW, OMMA, f8 (or knows what those acronyms stand for), they're certainly voting with their feet about their commitment to embracing the new world.

Who leads the charge?
Does the agency have a CTO? No, not an IT guy. A CTO. As it becomes harder to separate creativity and technology, does the agency's ECD have a peer on the technology side?

Where's the beef?
Are the agency's developers in-house, or do they outsource? Maintaining an in-house development capability is expensive and requires learning how to manage people who are completely different from typical ad folks. It's also essential to delivering high quality digital work on time and on budget.

When agencies outsource coding and development, they lose control of the process. They also lose the ability to keep refining work and making it better. It's a daunting proposition to build a new department where the average salary is in the six figures, but it needs to be done, and it needs to be done with a department. An agency that can't develop across multiple commercial and open-source environments (PHP, Java, .net, etc.) can't truly provide complete solutions for its clients.

Digital-only clients/projects
Does your agency have any digital-only clients or projects, or is all of its digital work coming from long-standing clients that simply don't know better? The RFP process for a significant web development engagement does a pretty good job of identifying agencies that have genuine digital chops. Make sure you know what kind of enterprise level digital development your agency has done, and whether other clients trust them with their online business.

Who advocates for the consumer?
We no longer think of account planning as revolutionary; it makes perfect sense that the consumer should be the primary consideration in the development of compelling, effective advertising. Account planning ensures that advertising constantly achieves maximum relevance. Well, user experience design achieves the same thing online, keeping the usability and functionality of online experiences front and center. If your agency doesn't have a user experience practice, you're unlikely to be creating optimal consumer experiences, online or off.

Analytics
Every agency will tell you they're "into analytics," in the same way that they assure you they're digital. But what does your agency measure to optimize campaigns and to determine success? Hopefully the answer is more than click-through rates and web hits. Because every client's business situation is unique, each should have its own dashboard that the agency uses to measure success. Analytics software is getting increasingly sophisticated, allowing the integration of data from multiple sources -- like online display advertising, social media, mobile and website behavior -- to paint a comprehensive picture of how your customer is behaving online, and your marketing impacts that. Once again, this requires an investment in tools and people. But it's a better investment than really expensive desk chairs.

Unfortunately, most clients have had at least one bad experience with digital marketing or web development, often at the hands of their current agency. Trust is the most valuable commodity in any client-agency relationship. And faking digital expertise is a surefire way to erode that trust. As clients become increasingly smart about digital, agencies are going to have to stop creating digital window dressing and realize that becoming truly digital requires changes and investments that are time consuming and expensive. But they are not nearly as expensive as being caught faking it.

Be Careful Where you TwitPic....

Apparently privacy and being able to track your movements in easier than anyone ever thought:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7621105

What, a Jewish Groupon?

Discount site aimed specifically at Jewish consumers.

Jan 14, 2011

- Mike Shields

A pair of New York-based entrepreneurs have launched the Jewish equivalent of Groupon.

Allen Ganz and Jodi Samuels, co-founders of the Jewish-mom-aimed site MetroImma, have rolled out jdeal, a new discount aggregation site/community aimed specifically at Jewish consumers.

Jdeal, which launched quietly just before Hanukkah, features discounts from New York merchants selling everything from Kosher food to restaurants and hotel deals to entertainment packages designed to appeal to Jewish users, such as a comedy club (Stand Up|NY) that offers Kosher wine and dessert.

According to Samuels, the thinking was the company would need 3,000 to 5,000 members to get merchants interested. Thus, to get jdeal off the ground her team tapped the MetroImma audience as well as a nonprofit networking group in which Samuels was involved.

It’s early, but jdeal has seen its memberships swell from about 1,000 users to 5,000 in just six weeks. The company has attracted merchants ranging from butchers and dry cleaners to upscale realtors and yoga studios. “We have a full month of deals already set up going forward,” said Samuels.

Like Groupon, jdeal relies on its members to spread its potential deals across the Web—usually through social media—until they reach a preset number of committed buyers. Once a deal reaches its tipping point, Jdeal shares any associated revenue with its merchant partners.

The plan going forward is to introduce versions of jdeal in seven other cities in the U.S. and Canada over the next year to 18 months. The company has also just launched an affiliate program, through which various Web publishers will get incentives to promote jdeal offers.

But why does the Jewish community need its own version of Groupon? “Groupon does not necessarily offer deals that are relevant to Kosher consumers, for example,” said Samuels. “And other Jewish businesses don’t necessarily want to offer 50 percent off discounts to people that are not likely to become repeat customers.”

Mobile is HOT for 2011...Mmmm, maybe not...

Car Warranty Robocaller Shut Down by FTC

Serial robocaller Fereidoun "Fred" Khalilian has been banned from telemarketing for life and fined more than $4 million to settle Federal Telecommunications Commission charges he used robocalls to sell consumers bogus auto service contracts.

Khalilian and his company, The Dolce Group Worldwide, LLC, are the latest robocall scam to have its plug pulled under the FTC's ongoing crackdown on deceptive prerecorded telemarketing calls.

The robocall scheme, which did business under the name My Car Solutions, bilked consumers into paying thousands of dollars and led them to believe the company was affiliated with auto dealers and manufacturers and authorized to sell extended auto warranties.

Khalilian is a former Paris Hilton business partner, and his Miami-based business received a failing grade from the Better Business Bureau.

Khalilian is also no stranger to the FTC, thanks to a 2001 settlement that banned him from all travel-related telemarketing and forced him to compensate consumers $185,000 for promoting deceptive holiday plans. In June 2010 the FTC filed a new complaint against Khalilian, alleging that since 2009, he and his company marketed "extended" auto warranties by carpet-bombing consumers with pre-recorded robocalls.

These robocalls warned people their car warranties were about to expire and advised them to speak with a representative. Consumers were then transferred to telemarketers who said they were from the "service contract department," and they would "verify" information about the consumers' cars and "confirm" other information, including their zip code.

The telemarketers then transferred consumers to a "senior specialist" who also made false statements to elicit information from the unsuspecting victims. Only after consumers bought the supposed warranties did they discover that:

• My Car Solutions wasn't affiliated with their car manufacturer.
• The contract didn't cover "the entire engine."
• The contract didn't provide "bumper-to-bumper" coverage.
• The contract excluded certain "pre-existing conditions."

Consumers who tried to get their money back -- typically between $1,300 and $2,485 per warranty -- found it nearly impossible to obtain a refund.

The court order settling the FTC's charges bans Khalilian and The Dolce Group from telemarketing or helping others to telemarket, and prohibits them from making any misrepresentations or omissions when selling any goods or services.

The order includes a penalty of more than $4.2 million, the amount Khalilian and The Dolce Group fleeced from consumers.

Under the order, Khalilian will satisfy part of the judgment by turning over corporate and personal property totaling approximately $50,000. The FTC is authorized to take action to collect the remainder of the outstanding judgment from the defendants. The settlement order also contains provisions to ensure the defendants comply with its terms.

Khalilian, a neon-green Lamborghini-driving nightclub owner, has had more unsavory brushes with the law as well, including three arrests for sexual misconduct or rape, the Orlando Sentinel reported in 2007. According to the Sentinel, the Iranian-born Khalilian also claimed diplomatic immunity.

"I'm a diplomat. You can't arrest me. I own Club Paris," a police report quoted Khalilian as telling Sgt. Rhonda Huckelbery, who was investigating a report by a passer-by that Khalilian tried to rape a woman outside the nightclub on Nov. 18, 2005. "You work for me."

The "Club Paris" in question was a Khalilian-owned nightclub that promised regular appearances by jet-setting party girl Paris Hilton, who he reportedly paid seven-figures to show up twice a month. But the club closed after three years and only sporadic appearances by Hilton.

MySpace now means MyUnemployment....

MySpace CEO confirms heavy layoffs

by Caroline McCarthy

MySpace CEO Mike Jones today announced a "significant organizational restructuring that will result in a 47 percent staff reduction across all divisions globally and impact about 500 employees," confirming many rumors that the News Corp.-owned social network would be going through heavy layoffs before possibly seeking a new buyer.

Formerly a social-networking sensation, MySpace lost more and more ground to Facebook over the past few years until it finally underwent a massive redesign that focuses on pop culture media-sharing for young users rather than attempting to be a universally appealing social network.

"Today's tough but necessary changes were taken in order to provide the company with a clear path for sustained growth and profitability," Jones said of the recently redesigned MySpace. "These changes were purely driven by issues related to our legacy business, and in no way reflect the performance of the new product."

The statement had some bits of slightly sunnier news: "Since the worldwide rollout of the new MySpace, there have been more than 3.3 million new profiles created," Jones' statement announced. (OK, but does it offset users who continue to desert the site?) "We have already seen a rise of four percent in mobile users just between November to December, now totaling over 22 million."

Jones also announced that there will be some partnerships for MySpace in the U.K., Australia, and Germany to handle advertising sales and content, which hints that layoffs overseas may be particularly heavy. He said that the company "will retain a core, dedicated international team to work with partners in order to ensure users, content partners and advertisers continue to be served."

There was no mention of News Corp.'s rumored plans to shop MySpace to other buyers.