Lidl calls Tesco product's 'Trash' in Ryanair style advertising blitz!

Over the weekend, Lidl 'Ireland' ramped up the ongoing 'battle of the supermarkets' with an explosive 'Ryanairesque' style advertising campaign entitled; "Don't spend your cash on trash", in direct response to Tesco's recent 'cash savers' campaign and promotions; which attempted to position Tesco products on a similar price footing to that of Lidl and Aldi. The campaign accuses Tesco of selling 'trash' food products, by likening the percentage of key ingredients of some Tesco products with that of Lidl. Lidl argument is that key ingredients such as pork content in sausage meat and fruit in Jams and conserves are noticably higher in Lidl products. Tesco had been attempted to compare 'like for like' its own product line in terms of price, with that of Lidl.
The question which needs to be asked is whether Lidl has severely overstepped the mark in terms of 'attention grabbing advertising' (pioneered in Ireland and elsewhere by 'Ryanair'), have standards in advertising been eroded? Furthermore, what are the implications and repercussions of calling food, 'Trash' being sold by Tesco and other supermarkets?

Certainly, Tesco can counter that regardless of the meat content in such products, they remain 'food' and not 'trash'. Furthermore, in many areas where Lidl and Aldi are not available, shoppers who can only afford to purchase Tesco 'cash saver' items, shouldn't be made to feel that they are buying 'trash' because they cannot afford sausage rolls that are 15% percent higher in meat content than that of similar products. (It is worth noting that even the 27% pork content in Lidl sausage rolls seems extremely low in anycase!) In addition, there is a noticable difference between meat which has (for example) been labeled 80% meat content with that being labeled 80% 'lean' meat content. In otherwords, from my experience; 'meat' can be anything from cartilage, grissle and tissue to animal fat. Thus, there is a separate yet related issue of the 'purity' of the ingredients used. Finally, by focusing on just one ingredient of a product and listing it as superior because of a higher percentage; Lidl is ignoring all other ingredients of a product such as the percentage and kinds of preservatives and flavour enhancers used etc.

Thus, the argument I am making is that Lidl's advertising campaign is crude, possibly disingenous and downright offensive to Tesco, its producers and the people who have no choice but to purchase them! What I would like to see is a supermarket war which focuses on the quality and 'goodness' of the products in their totality rather than on one key ingredient. Even then, I object to food being labeled 'trash' on the grounds of semantics, even though I recognise that some 'value' products are limited in terms of 'purity' and 'nutritional content'. Ultimately, do supermarkets really need to stoop to this level? Will this open the floodgates to supermarkets and companies accusing rivals of selling trash? Who knows, but the next 6 months may be an interesting time in the grocery retail sector if Lidl's campaign is anything to go by!

Copyright © 2006-2009 Shane McLoughlin. This article may not be resold or redistributed without prior written permission.

Breakthrough in creating cheap hyrogen using solar cell technology

See full article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-to-turn-water-into-rocket-fuel-ndash-scientists-unlock-power-of-the-sun-882613.html

The technology crucially relies on the discovery of a catalyst which speeds up and makes more efficent the conversion of water to hydrogen from electricity. All thats needed now is the maturation of hygrogen fuel cell technology.

Whats promising about this new breakthrough technology is that it bypasses the need for storage of hydrogen, which has been a problematic and inefficent affair thus far.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7536421.stm

UK deluded over carbon emissions

The UK has for many years prided itself on its progressive policies and economic climate which has been conducive to carbon emissions cuts. However 2 recent reports have highlighted how such claims are based on restrictive calculations and exclude some of the largest culprits of carbon emissions, namely Aviation and shipping.

In addition, the manufacturing sector in many western countries has declined in favour of importing from low-cost countries and thus carbon emissions arrising from such sectors has been 'exported'. At the same time there has been rising levels of consumption with shorter life cycle of products which have increasingly been imported. Because this increasing proportion of imported goods is not subject to carbon emissions calculations by the importer, WWF and others maintain that the present means for calculating a countries carbon emissions is disingenuous.

Overall it means countries such as the UK , who claim to have made significant progress since Kyoto have made nowhere near the total emissions reductions they claim. The UK only in March had reported a 2% reduction on the previous year, on track to meet its 12.5% reduction by 2012 on 1990 levels. It has been suggested that emissions should be calculated for goods based on the country of consumption rather than production and this would in many ways turn carbon emissions calculations on its head. Such thinking certainly have implications for any post-kyoto deal and could improve the situation for developing countries in terms of their responsibility for carbon emissions.

For further details;

Thursday, July 31, 2008

China using advanced technology to fend off rain at Olympics!

An excellent article is found on this at newsweek:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/149000

From an environmental standpoint, this idea is appalling!
From a common-sense perspective this idea is bonkers. From a practical standpoint, the idea is unproven and from an overall perspective, this idea is ridiculous! FACT (and not in the chuck Norris sense)

Online community 'concocts' neighbourhood eatery

See the Washington Times article for details:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR2008072601978.html?hpid=topnews

I'm particularily interested in this venture because of the grassroots nature of organisation and the role of ICT's (through the online community etc.) in bringing this venture to fruition. The Washington Times operationalises the concept of 'crowdsourcing' in describing the phenomenon of ideas and plans being brought to fruition via outsourcing to interested members with specialised expertise (in many cases assisted through information communication technologies), drawing comparison with the principles of the open-source movement. It will in many ways be a novel approach to planning an establishment . Whether the establishment becomes a success (thus living up to the hopes and aspirations of its community of organisers) will be crucial to similar future projects.

Finally, a few observations on the venture:

- Large community input into the project inevidably means that it will become a rather complex venture; in the sense that a raft of ideas and expection of their implementation will be forthcoming. Whether the project can facilitate and appease the input of its members and go on to efficently manage this complexity has yet to be shown.
-As it's become a community venture, the design of the cafe/eatery will most likely have to accomodate its community by adhering to principles of an effective 'Third Place'. Whether this conflicts with this establishment as a business venture and its desired profitability will certainly be of utmost importance.
-Once the establishment launches, It will be interesting to see how ICT's (such as the existing online community aspect) facilitate's its perpetuation as a crowd-sourced project. For example could a service like LastFM be utilised in providing music which represents the members of the venture etc. How will ICT's faciliate communication and co-ordination with local producers such as the 'Artisans' and 'Organic Farmers'. Can online web 2.0 technologies be effectively utilised in the organising and time-tabling of events etc.

Copyright © 2006-2009 Shane McLoughlin. This article may not be resold or redistributed without prior written permission.

The robot that wants to be loved..

Im sorry, but what a ridiculous idea both in terms of its creators and its intended audience. A robot that mimics human emotions yet does not possess them.

Full details at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7532195.stm

Is this reification gone mad and is there more of this to come?

A machine is a machine and life is life, why do we wish to blur the lines and atoken machines with qualities they do not possess? I certainly would like to see carefully anchored research which finds some real value in pursuing this expensive use of time, money, people and resources!

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Cuil, the verdict

Having tryed out the well hyped new search engine 'Cuil', I have a few observations I'd like to share:
-The site has got a raft of publicity in the past few days and expectations have been placed on the success of its searches. Such publicity has inevidably meant that 'innovaters' may be inclined to try out the site.
- My concern is that after using the site, I've found it to be slow and its searches to be less accurate than google.
-I must admit to liking the interface and thumbnail style views of results, but its results lack a number of features which I've come to heavily rely on with google: The prominent example being the suggestion of spelling corrections on search terms. I've also come to use cached pages on occasion which are noticably absent.
- All in all, I've no doubt that Cuil will in time iron out many of its flaws but the publicity machine maybe long gone by then and I wonder why now was chosen as its 'official' launch. It seems an extremely ill advised move in hindsight. Naming the site an explicit 'beta' may have alerted users to the early stages of the project.