BBC 606

I like getting involved in pointless on-line debates. I mean, I like getting involved in debates full-stop. I'm frequently on Digg these days having a pop at the strange people that inhabit that world - if I read another Ron Paul story I might actually go bonkers.

But one thing that mystifys me completely are these instructions on the bbc.co.uk's 606 comment board:

Sorry, but you can only contribute to 606 during opening hours. These are 09:00 until 23:00 GMT, seven days a week.

One of the golden rules of the internet in this day and age is that to flourish and be a success, you need to give the viewer what they want, and more importantly, WHEN they want it.

606 don't do this. They deliver comment boards around their business hours, ignoring the massive population outside of GMT time zones that may want to deliver some witty chat when they want they have the inspiration, and not when a BBC nerd finally makes it to his desk and can moderate the text.

I'm all for the moderating. The last thing the BBC needs is spamming idiots on their boards (although both Digg and YouTube for example have software that allows the user to identify those posts that are rubbish) making the site look like a playground, but to only deliver that moderation when they want to do it, and not when the consumer wants to post, is just plain ignorant.

It must actually even be annoying for those living in the same time zone. Say you go and watch a game with an 8pm kick-off, get out of the ground at 10pm, get home at 11pm and want to make a comment about the game? Nah. Sorry. Come back tomorrow when we're ready.

Believe it or not, I have actually pointed this out twice to the BBC, once in a survey they asked me to do, and once via the 606 site. I'll keep you updated if I get any response.

On a slightly related note, I was on 606 because of the 6-4 Spur's win over Reading last night. I went to bed when Reading went 2-1 up thinking I couldn't sit around and watch Spurs lose again. I didn't even bother to record the thing despite the HD/DVD recorder sitting there doing nothing. GAH.

iPod RIP

It finally happened. After three long and happy years together, me and my original generation iPod (with monochrome screen) have parted company. It was a sad day when I tried to plug him into the mains power and he went a bit mental, made some funny wiring sounds and then choked. Immediately I ran upstairs for the life-support of the main PC but attempts to revive him were doomed. Even the neat trick of pressing various sequences of buttons failed to remove the unhappy iPod icon from his screen.

We looked at his little lifeless body laying there...tears welling as he stared back at me. But we knew it was the end. Three years of servitude and it was time for the little fella to say goodbye, take up a space in my bottom desk draw and life out the remainder of his years next to the APS camera and a couple of mobile phones.

Convenient one might think, with him dying three days before Xmas and without my wife having any idea what to buy me for a present!

Welcome in the new iPod Classic...80 Gig of sexy sleek lines, colour screen and black plastic casing. Sends shivers down your spine.

But why didn't you repair the other little fella I hear you crY?

Well, this is the simple reason - repair costs outside warranty for his generation of iPod = $349+P&P. New iPod Classic? $345.

The Future Of Brisbane Radio?

I'm going to write down the name of eight bands/artists here:

Pink
Gwen Stefani
Plain White Ts
Snow Patrol
Jack Johnson
Silverchair
Evermore
Missy Higgins

And now I'm going to write down the name of 4 Brisbane radio stations

Nova 106.9
B105
Triple M
97.3

Can anyone guess the connection?

Irrespective of whether you live in Brisbane, Australia, or another city somewhere around the world, the link that all the bands feature on rotation at all of the stations will be a familiar story.

All of the stations claim to position themselves for a different market and a different demographic, but the stark reality is that within core listening times, they are all clones of each other.

Sure, the music offerings aren't exactly the same - Triple M concentrate on delivering more of a 'rock' angle (although they did play Fat Boy Slim the other day), Nova offer a more 'youth' direction (which means house, R&B and hip-hop) and 97.3 flog the 80s to death too (which is something Triple M also make a play with), but the problem is, there are a number of artists on rotation on all stations.

Take for example the Plain White T's and their song 'Hey Delilah'. As an acoustic ballad the song fits into any demographic and any station. Put it in the middle of a song by Pink and say, Silverchair, at 11am, have a random announcer doing competition phone ins for free tickets to see the local sports team and you could be listening to any station in Brisbane...or any station in the world.

So, what's the problem? If listeners are still tuning in, where's the issue?

The issue is a similar problem that the recording industry faced back in the late 1990s. Technology and listening patterns were starting to change, and they weren't preparing for those changes. And by the time everyone realised what had happened, iTunes had swallowed up massive market share, effectively controlling the market to such an extent that the record companies couldn't afford NOT to be iTunes, leaving Apple to dictate the pricing, distribution and promotion of a song.

The internet has an estimated 100,000 audio streams. Brisbane has half a dozen major radio stations. What happens when the average car driver suddenly gets access to those 100,000 audio streams? Sure, people driving cars will still want news, traffic reports and so on. But imagine one of those audio streams JUST delivering traffic reports for your city?

Here's the scenario:

You get into your car at 7am. As you're pulling out of the driveway, you have the audio stream for traffic reports on for 5 minutes. You then flick it to the news audio stream - maybe some days you listen to the national, some days the state, some days the international streams - for another 5 minutes. Then for the final 20 minutes into work, you select a pop music stream.

No adverts, no DJs, no inane banter, no thickie phone-ins. Glorious, eh?

But who pays for it? How is it funded? Audio streams don't come for free.

Of course not, but lets look at another scenario for a moment. I pay $90 a month for my Broadband. Telstra approach me and offer me for another $30 a month, not only wireless broadband for my car, but also offer to install the receiver and equipment needed to not only listen to those audio streams in my car, but also for the kids in the back-seat to watch YouTube, the wife to check out our destination on Whereis.com.au and for us to upload Google Street Maps to check we're heading in the right direction.

Radio is no longer a part of the equation.

I had a similar conversation with someone from Channel 10 the other day about how, with TV moving closer and closer to being under total control of the consumer, advertisers continue to survive?

THe solution is simple: subscription. Charge me $100 a month and remove my adverts. Charge me $60 a month and drop bite-sized ads in the shows - twenty second ad every, say, 10 minutes. Charge me $30 a month, drop more ads in. Give it to me for free and make me watch all the ads.

How about this model:

Desperate Housewives Season 8 With No Ads: Download for $200
Desperate Housewives Season 8 with Fast Forward Ads: Download for $180
Desperate Housewives Season 8 with Locked Ads: Download for $140
Desperate Housewives Season 8 with Locked Ads & Promo Slots: Download for $100

Which would you pick? The point is...there's a choice.

Back to the original problem of the radio stations. Is there a solution? Maybe, maybe not. Myabe I'm just too fickle in my music tastes to really embrace any commercial music station, but the point is, unless they act now and work out the next step for their industry, they'll end up like the record companies, scratching their heads and wondering how they lost control of what they had.

And Pink won't care...she'll still be being streamed into cars...

Lonsdale Clothing

I always liked Lonsdale clothing. Okay, so I never owned any - well, I might have owned a t-shirt somewhere along the line - but never anything that I've loved like a member of my family. Not like my old Duffer sweatshirt.


The problem I find with Lonsdale, and their new advertising campaign, is I'm sitting looking at images of models in t-shirts and vests and I'm thinking 'so what'?

For my part if I want to engage a clothing brand I want to know what they stand for. What is it that I'm saying to people by wearing their t-shirts? The Lonsdale brand says too much that I have no real concept of style; that I'm a 'me-too' brand copying someone else. I want individuality in my clothing brands, or at least, if I'm going to buy into a mass-produced brand (say, like Abercrombie) then I bloody well want them to be cool enough to warrant myself and 100 other people on the high-street wearing them.

Lonsdale used to be the urban, boxing wear, typically London, in a very similar way to Everlast was to the same sport in New York. It's ironic that Everlast suffer from a similar problem in trying to reposition themselves as a younger fashion brand, they've lose any essence of what made they what they were in the first place.

It's a hard ask as to wear to go with these brands. Glossy full-page spreads in FHM and clean living models, female ones with big boobs, are probably not the answers - unless Lonsdale are sitting on the brand to eek money out of it by flogging it through Myer and K-Mart to bogans who know no better.

The consequence of this will most likely be decline, or very slow growth. Whilst it can be hard to go back to the original roots of the brand, something that you may not want to do anyway, its worth remembering that these brands were born out of sub-cultures, and that without the support of a sub-culture, they will have no oxygen to survive.

Carbon Emissions: Update

This is just a quick note to update my previous comments about NRMA's insurance offer to off-set one tonne of your cars carbon emissions when you switch to their insurance plan.

Apparently the average American (and Australian's can't be that different) produce 24 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, which makes NRMA's offer...a little bit shoddy - especially as their campaign is so environmentally focused.

You'd be much better off NOT swapping insurance...and just selling the car. THAT would be the most effective thing to do...

Bananas

Bananas have their own advertising campaign. Bizarre as that may sound, 97.3FM today was running an advert for bananas.

Now I'm sure they deserve their own advertising campaign, after all they've put a lot of hard work in, in the world of fruit. They've frequently led from the front when other fruit failed to step up to the mark, but now it seems that bananas are in need of some moral support.


Bananas: Well Hung

The advert today was 30 seconds of a smack-in-your-face reminder that bananas were in shops, they were a great price, they were healthy and that you should go and buy some bananas today.

I'm convinced. I rushed out straight away and bought a car full of bananas.

Well, obviously I didn't really, but this radio campaign was a prime example of pouring money down the drain when it could have been used a hell of a lot more effectively. How about spending some money on effective point of purchase? When people walking into the supermarket, how about some sort of ingenious signage around the fruit counter reminding us of how great bananas are? Even a man in a giant banana costume walking up and down the aisles of your local Coles would have more impact than throwing cash away on pointless and very banal radio ads...

Sure its another rant about pointless radio campaigns, but its painful to see money spent on - and I don't use this word lightly - shit advertising. Funnel a 1/4 of that money into the creative process and the remaining 3/4 would have worked ten times harder for you...

Call me vain but....

....I like being delivered a magazine with my name on the front. It gives me that wonderful feeling of self-importance that helps be sleep better at night.

So hats off (or glasses off) to Sunglass Hut, for sending me a brochure this week in the form of a small fashion magazine. Only 10 pages to the slightly-bigger-than-A6 size brochure, but it contained some cool shots of their range, some vouchers and the chance to win a trip to NYC.


Swimming in sunnies can lead to increased risk of shark attack.

But best of all, on the back my name and address had been mail-merged onto the brochure to allow them ease of posting out to people. Nothing strange there, but the front of the brochure, which was designed like a fashion magazine cover, had the words 'Simon spotted in "my suburb"'. Neat. It's like...I'm famous, man.

Sure it's a bit cheesy by fun none-the-less and tickled me enough to read the brochure before shoving it in the must-look-at-later pile.

Giving Up Pizza

"Wait!" I hear you all cry. "There's no need for such a rash decision."

Okay, so it is, as most things are in my blog, an exaggeration, but what I am giving up are any pizzas purchased from Dominos and Eagle Boys.


Dominos: Unlike the boxes, not stacked

First, Dominos. I ordered one of their cheap pizzas a few months back - the sort that cost you less than the bottle of Coke you also bought with them cos you found some ridiculous deal on the back of a supermarket receipt. Now, I realise it was cheap, but 1 piece of pepperoni per slice is taking the piss. This isn't going to bring me back to order more, no matter how cheap they are. I realise the pizza still technically qualifies it under the description of 'pepperoni' pizza but there really should be some sort of law on the amount of toppings required to justify its name.


Eagle Boys: An eagle & a boy, no pizza in sight

Then comes Eagle Boys. Now Eagle Boys have got more sneaky - their pizzas are as cheap as Dominos, but they offer a $3 deal where you can double the toppings, tacitly acknowledging that they ain't putting enough on in the first place. We ordered two - on they forgot to double our pleasure, and the other was so swamped with toppings, it was impossible to eat as most of them had failed to cook or heat properly.

So I'm giving both venues up. Style and slick marketing have over-taken the basic requirement to provide quality food, or at least quality food for the level of investment. As Dominos cuts its price over and over, and Eagle Boys match every offer and even accept the competitor coupons, the inevitable out-come is that the food will become inedible.

Both outlets are crying out for a 'premium' option. One that can be delivered to your house, or collected and is made, and priced, like a PROPER pizza. Asking the consumer to throw another $3 at a problem isn't a long term solution. 'Premiumisation' has swamped every other industry; it can't be long before the pizza fast-food industry joins the band-wagon.

I once sat on a judging panel for a student business competition with one of the marketing team from Eagle Boys, and he markered a team well for creating a 'build 'em cheap and stack 'em' new pizza flavour, something he said was successful in his industry.

I'd now question him as to whether anything in his industry WASN'T conforming to that model. It's all stacked high. None of it is boutique.

I'll sit here and wait for the flyer for the pizza company selling me premium pizzas for $20 a pop. It has to come in the end. Otherwise this is where the industry will end up...

Male at Parklife Festival

Male at Parklife Festival
Originally uploaded by Carbon Images

This guy was originally crashed out on his own when I saw him, but after a while he got up and started talking a girl who is to the left of this picture. He was pretty cool when I asked him if he'd pose, and I took about half a dozen shots. This was my favourite. The socks and the tatts...look fantastic...

Desperate Housewives Into Space

Well, it can be the only explanation really. The following appeared on the BBC website today:

Hit US comedy series Desperate Housewives is named the best-selling TV drama, being seen in 203 countries - wrestling the record from Baywatch.

Which is in stark comparison to the Wikipedia entry for the number of countries in the world:

193 states with general international recognition:
192 member states of the United Nations (UN).
1 state with general international recognition but not UN membership, governed by the Holy See (a UN permanent observer): Vatican City.

Admittedly Wikipedia acknowledges 244 'entities' but some of them are of the likes of 'Christmas Island' and the 'Cook Islands'.

So who is right and who is wrong? If you care and know, please let me know!

Signs Of A Struggle?

Back in 2005 Mattafix, the alternative hip-hop group from London, released their 'Signs Of A Struggle' album to critical acclaim, with the first single from the album 'Big City Life' rocketing up the charts across the globe.

The first single was so promising, and coupled with a performance at Parklife in 2006, I decided about a year ago, to go and buy the album.

I found it in HMV for the bargain price of $17.99, and didn't hesitate to take it to the counter for purchase.

Except on the way to counter I read the back of the album - and found the heavy-handed DRM warning and protection taking up half the space on the reverse CD sleeve. From a band who warned us 'don't let the system get you down', seem to have subscribed to that exact system in order to protect their music.


Mattafix: Not Iron Maiden

I don't have any problem with people protecting their music, but as Apple have finally come to realise with their DRM-free downloads, it is almost impossible to stop people copying and sharing tracks.

When I was making my own mix tapes, I had no comprehension that what I was doing was wrong, and if anyone else had pointed it out to me, I doubt I would have cared one way or another. Frankly if I want to listen to Iron Maiden, Whitesnake and Guns n'Roses tracks all alongside each other, then I've bought the music and I'll do what I want with it. (They were all available on 'Mixtape: Metal #4' - available from all good bootleggers)


Mix Tapes: Jail Time

Anyway, the point of this is that after seeing Mattafix with a new single out, I finally decided to buy Mattafix's old album some two years late via iTunes for $17.99. And of course, because it's $17.99 instead of $16.99, that means one thing - it's released DRM rights-free. I can download and copy it a hundred times to my heart's content.

Perhaps Mattafix had original had the decision made for them by 'the system'? Maybe they realised the irony that whilst they may have been perceived to be protecting their music by one section of the music society, many others thought that with their first commercial release, they had succumbed to commercial greed? Maybe they haven't even given it much thought at all?

Still, I'm $17.99 shorter, half-way through the album and trying to decide if it was money well spent...

I will NOT be blogging about my parking ticket

I mean, I was after all a whole 8 minutes late to get back to my car and he just happened to be walking past seven minutes after the ticket ran out so in terms of legs to stand on, I had none. I could moan about how ridiculously high the parking price is in the CBD now, but I won't. Instead I will silently and with good grace, take the $50 fine on the nose...


Traffic Wardens: 10 Points If You Hit One

Still, I have a lengthy list of things to talk about today, but I've mis-placed the list. So I'm just going to fume about traffic wardens a bit more and then draw your attention to this strange video with a fat Jesus turning ugly girls into hot girls. Warning: those of a religious sensibility should probably NOT watch this...

I Am Cyclist

It's been a gap of some 16 years, but I have climbed back on a bike again. Yesterday I went to pick up my new mountain bike and ride it home for the first time - a journey of about 15K.

From one minute being a disdainful driver, owner of the road and producer of carbon, I'm now a pedal-powered greenie, hugging the trees at any opportunity.

Okay, so it's not that drastic but it certainly gives you a new perspective on road-sharing between 4-wheeled and 2-wheeled vehicles. It also gives you a massive appreciation on how hilly the area around you actually is. It also hurts your arse a lot. I feel like I've done a week in the showers in a prison.


Oops. Fuck.

But it did make me wonder as I stood in the mountain bike shop - here I was, a relatively inexperienced person about to spend $600 on a bike I knew nothing about, relying heavily on the sales force of the shop to tell me what is good and what is bad.

I knew nothing of any mountain bike brand names. I had no idea what was good, and what was bad. Would a shop of this quality be stocking bikes that were of 'less quality'? Would they tell me if they did? I had done no research and I was ripe for a plucking. I said...plucking.

So why don't we know anything about the brand names? In a city like Brisbane, where bikes are a valid alternative to petrol-driven travel, few manufacturers spend any time and effort presenting us their brands, or encouraging us to get involved and get out and pedal. We know car brands, we know petrol brands - we even recognise most of the brand names of the sunglasses the cycle shop was selling. But the bike names remain a mystery.

Perhaps there is no money in bikes? Maybe the margins are so small they can't afford to promote themselves? Maybe they spend money actively training and promoting their sales staff, maybe incentivising them for their sales?

I have no answer to this. All I know is I have a nice, bright red something-or-other with two wheels that is going to make my butt and legs scream in pain about twice a week.

Another Gripe About Poker

In the absence of anything sensible to write about, I'm going to moan about poker. I lost again. 434th in a tournament with only 470+ in it. I went all in on Ace-King and got beaten by a guy going all in on a pair of 9s. I mean, I ask you....

Would you really fold Ace-King in the face of an all-in?

I was hoping to get out and play some face-to-face poker tonight to see if my skills were improving after facing down the barrell of an internet connection for so long, but fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it), the wife caught an earlier flight and demanded picking up.

But I had to make do with the Trey Nations Freeroll on Party Poker with a MASSIVE $150 prize pool...which all goes pear-shaped about 6 hands in.

And glutton for punishment that I am, I'm back in to the $1000 GTD (whatever that means) tournament starting...well...now....8-6 offsuit opening hand...I mean...really...

I Like To Party With Beer

A fairly comprehensive statement that probably needs very little in the way of explanation. Which should make the following video all the more easy to understand.

Except by the end of it you can't help but wonder how the thing got made at all. I mean, if I drank the amount of beer in order to be inspired enough to make this advert, making the advert, would be the last thing on my mind. If you get my drift.

So in the end you have to take your hats off the Norwegians for their talent at getting so obviously blind drunk and still managing to programme the computers enough to generate such genius work. I have only looked through a couple of the videos but I'm sure the next one MUST be about kebabs...

I'm rather disturbed too by the frame that YouTube has decided to use to introduce this clip...

Definition Of Stupid

Customer On Phone: "So what makes Liquor Superstores so, well, super?"
Manager: "Well there's our lowest liquor price guarantee."
Customer On Phone: "Lowest Liquor Price Guarantee?"

Is he thick? He's managed to dial the number and construct a sentence so what the fook is so hard to understand about those four words?

But actually the manager goes on to say that they'll guarantee the lowest price on only certain products. Ah ha. Here's the catch. Good job thickie customer actually asked that question otherwise the manager wouldn't have been able to qualify the small print behind this seemingly unbelieveable offer.

It's mindless and repetative. It drives you nuts just listening to it. It's mock-up situation that makes you cringe and reach for the CD button. Why do people do this to us? Alcohol is fun and enjoyable - I don't want to be tormented into a shop just to save me some pennies.

We can see through the loss-leader scam - in fact, you've managed to spend an entire advert telling us that this is what you're doing. They mumble some other info about largest choice under one roof only for you to be stung when you get inside the store with mark-ups on everything else.

Okay, so it's nothing new...but crikey, Coles should be able to do better with their advertising. After all, it's CHEAP BOOZE FOR GODS SAKE. How hard can that be to come up with something inspirational?

I always said that when I die, if I go to Hell, I'll find myself crammed in a lift, stuck between floors, with too many people listening to the greatest hits of Tito Puento over the lift tannoy system. I now know that his songs will be interrupted by a stream of poorly thought through radio adverts....

Get Out Of My Pool!

Outside of what this advert is implying about the female climbing out of the pool, here is another genius advert from a company called OB. I doubt anyone is going to need any explanation about what OB specialise in making for women, but I'm sure if you do, you can Google it.

Click on the section above to see the full advert.

Extract from Columbia Records Survey

Kids from Unis in America were all interviewed about music and here are some of the results....

“The kids all said that a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music, but they don’t consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it’s just not cool anymore; Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.”

Radio, it would appear, is dead. Video finally got it.

The 13th Post: Welcome Mr. Billy Ocean

Better get this one out of the way as quickly as possible.

Been downloading music off iTunes today - rumours are iTunes is going to go wireless soon, which will mean you'll be able to download music anywhere there is a wireless network - and that iPods will be set-up to download the music themselves. Exciting stuff. Anyone hoping to catch-up and compete with Apple in this department has a LONG way to go...

I spent the morning downloading random tunes that I haven't heard for ages, or things that are sitting in the UK and US charts that Australia hasn't seen yet. I got the following:

'The Longest Time' - Billy Joel
'Tell Her About It' - Billy Joel
'When The GoinG Gets Tough' - Billy Ocean
'Get Out Of My Dreams' - Billy Ocean
'Carribean Queen' - Bill Ocean

And then one a more modern and less tragic note:

'With Every HEartbeat' - Robyn feat. Kleerup
'I Found You' - Axwell


Axwell: Not a twat

I made the mistake of buying the last one off a 'mix' CD on iTunes, which I should have realised means the song stops half-way through as it's mixed into the next song, which makes it sound ridiculous. I'm going to complain to iTunes and see if I can get a credit for it. Should be interesting to see what they say...


Ocean: Salty & Very Deep

And what is it with Billy Ocean? I realised after downloading them that all three songs I bought have sub-titles next to the main title of the song:

When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going)
Get Out Of My Dreams (Get Into My Car)
Carribean Queen (No More Love On The Run)

Maybe Mr. OCean was in two minds when he was thinking about a title for these songs? Maybe he was writing them with someone else, and they were arguing so much that this was the compromise? Maybe he suffered from an accute case of duel personality and each of the people in his head kept re-writing the titles?

He actually had an accute habit of it. Other songs included 'I Sleep So Much Better (In Someone Else's Bed)' and 'On The Run (Hold On Brother)' and 'Stop Me (If You've Heard It All Before)'.

The man was obsessed. Maybe his name wasn't Billy Ocean, but actually Billy (Ocean). Or maybe it was Billy Ocean (From Fyzabad In Trinidad)? Actually his real name was Leslie, so maybe some extreme 'your first name makes you sound like a GIRL' name-calling at school had left him with severe pyschological damage, causing him to name everything he created with specific and descriptive titles to avoid ANY confusion?

Still, I'm sure he was a nice man. According to Wikipedia he is now a teacher. I bet the students all write 'Leslie' in big letters on the blackboard before he comes in to class.

Chupa Chups no longer suck?

In perhaps one of THE most bizarre match-ups, Chupa Chups - those people of lolly fame - are offering a Tooheys Extra Dry 'UncharTED'-style prize experience for you to take your unsigned band from nothing to everything.



This confuses me a lot. Where are Chupa Chups taking this? The prize pack is a bad TED copy, but probably for any aspiring band, hardly a fame-breaking moment. All-in-all other than the average publicity, the band is winning 2000 pressings of an EP and a new guitar. Everyone forgets about the drummer.

And more importantly, where is the link between Chupa Chups and live music? The main area for purchase of Chupa Chups is the petrol station cash desk - the main area for unsigned live bands are dark and sweaty nightclubs. The distance is a stretch. Even if the primary aim of this promotion is to be some sort of Uncharted Lite, there's still a big gap to overcome. The winning band get to play at Odyssey NYE festival - what if they're not let in because they're underage??

This smacks of a comms company selling this to Chupa Chups as an innovative and great brand-building exercise - two things it will fail to be. Maybe it is purely a branding exercise, using the simple concept that bands will promote the site for you because they want to win. But how many will really try that hard for 2000 EPs and a one-off gig?

Whilst I haven't checked, it will be interesting to see if as part of this promotion Chupa Chups develop new and innovative ways of selling their lollies, or there is additional point of purchase in those venues where it sells well.

If they haven't done either of those, they've missed a massive trick. If they have, I could be eating my words. And their lollies.